Pretty much wrapped up.

Interesting evening. Late yesterday at work I finalized the control layout. I hope it feels comfortable on stage, but if not I can always get another guard cheap and re-do it. I printed off a template to guide where to drill the holes for the pots and switch and took it home. I stopped at Radio Shack on the way to see if they had some 150kOhm resistors and ,001µF capacitors because I wanted to put treble bleed circuits on both volume pots. Yes to the caps. no to the resistors. I thought about it for a bit and figued I'd go wth a 100kOhm and 47kOhm in series, which they did have. Luckily, there's no shortage of room in the control route for the Astro Jet, so space wasn't a issue. I did buy a chicklet .022µF tone cap, but ended up using a Spraque Orange Drop I had at home. It's a whopper because it's rated for 600 volts, but it'll work fine.

From Astro Jet Work 2

I kinda forgot to get some glue of some type for the shielding foil....so I cast about and found this Clear Parts Adhesive from Testors model paint company. It was left over from my model making days and I figured it'd work OK.

From Astro Jet Work 2

It did...smear this stuff around on the guard, apply aluminum foil, smooth out with something that has a hard straight edge, trim with a hobby knife (I prefer Olfa) and your done. This, of course, was accomplished after drilling (and reaming, in the case of the switch) the holes for the controls. Our net was down last night and all I had at hand was a Les Paul style wiring diagram. I knew that would work for my volume controls, but I only wanted one tone. I pondered it for a while, and came up something I thought would work. Checking the wiring diagrams at Seymour Duncan's website this morning, I see I came up with the exact same solution they did.:)


It works fine, but I lose all output if I roll the tone control to zero. Not sure if there's a way around that...or if it's even a problem. I LOVE the treble bleed. Not sure it's the ticket for my single pickup Corvettes, but it may be. Certainly easy and cheap enough to try it out, see if I like it. Just the ticket for the Asrto Jet though. Here's everything all wired and soldered together getting ready to screw the guard down.

From Astro Jet Work 2

At this point I just installed the strap buttons, tuned her up and proceeded to play for a couple hours. It sounds great, but I may try shimming the bridge pickup with some bits of wood underneath. I had to screw out the pole pieces about 7 full turns to get them near the strings and I wonder if it might be better to get the pup itself up there as far as I can. I'll probably mess with that in the coming weeks. Sadly, it just didn't play that well. A through high E strings where fine, but the low E was buzzing a lot and not giving very good tone. I decided to sleep on it and contemplate what the problem was, as I was fairly sure the zero fret, nut and relief where pretty good. Here's a pic on the bench:

From Astro Jet Work 2

For some reason I woke up at about 5am. Grrr. I wanted to get some rest, but it was not to be. I figured I might as well get up and get to work on the Astro Jet before I headed to work for friday (TGIF!). I had figured out that my problem was I needed to do the fret level I had avoided. They're around 45 years old and where kinda showing their age. I thought I might get by with not working on them...and I was wrong. So, I de-strung, I taped everything off, hit them with a Sharpie, and preceded to do a light level. They're small to begin with, so I really didn't want to take off more than I absolutely had to. I don't care for super low action, so not a whole lot was required, really. I knocked all the Sharpie off the tops, then recrowned and polished. Took maybe an hour and a half. I threw some new strings on, since the ones that had been on it where saved from the original mock-up. Little tweaking, tuning and stretching and it plays much, much better now. The low E is ringing clean and true, the intonation is spot on, the action is where I like it. So far so good...but I brought it with me to show my wonderful girl friend (who'se been following along, Hi Gorgeous!) and her dad. That'll give me the weekend to play it a lot, get to know it and...if the weather cooperates...get some decent pictures outside. I'll post a link to the gallery when that gets accomplished.

Oh...almost forgot. This is a substantial guitar. Way bigger and heavier than my Corvettes. Way bigger than my Gison SG Classic. I believe I remember the lower bout is about 13". It's a big, solid, one piece slab of vintage Honduran mahogany. Pretty big neck and headstock too. Plus, all the hardware, including vibrato, metal Gretsch knobs and what not. This morning at work I decided to throw it on our smaller digital shipping scale. I kinda expected it to be heavier than it is...8.6 pounds. I had a 2004 Gretsch Pro-Jet with Bigsby for a while (sold it)...much smaller guitar. It weighed over 9.5 pounds! I consider 8.6 to be remarkable and at the upper end of what I feel most comfortable with. Made me happy.

Next up....I dunno....back to the Explorer....start on the Harmoney....start on the mid 60's Corvette....hmmm.....we shall see.