This hole was missing on my Warmoth body when I first got it. I had to call them up and send a few pictures, and then ship it back to Washington so they could drill it. They reimbursed my shipping and were very good about fixing the issue right away. Check for this kind of stuff, though! You don't want to have the finish all done and not have a way to wire your pickups to the control cavity!!
First up was the bridge installation - this was easy because Warmoth predrills the string-through holes and the bridge mounting screw holes.
All I did here was "chase" the screws with wax. The wax acts as a lubricant against the wood, and makes chasing brand new threads into brand new wood a lot easier. Later, before spraying finish, I'll be cleaning the wood VERY WELL with Naptha and Lacquer Thinner which should remove any wax that makes its way to the surface in this stage.
The neck plate screw holes in the body and the neck from Warmoth were the same - all I had to do was put the screws in there and turn!
Here's the wax I use. As you can see, it's just plain old paraffin wax from wal-mart. I run the threads across the wax (against the grain), then I screw it into the wood. Try one without wax and then try one with it. There is a difference!
The nut came preshaped, but it was left intentionally too big. You will have to do a bit of shaping and sanding to get it to fit in the slot. You'll want it to be as snug as possible, but not too tight where you can't get it out again. Someday, you may need to replace it, and you won't want to break out a chunk of neck wood in the process.
I used my digital calipers to check the size, but you can keep trying it in the nut slot if you don't have one.
These are the fancy sandpapers I mentioned earlier. So far so good!
The nut was a bit wide, too, so I sanded both sides equally to narrow it up a bit.
Try to keep the surface of the nut flush to the surface of your sandpaper. Here I'm on the flat piece of my anvil, but any flat hard surface will do.
Ta-Da! I watered down some Titebond glue 3:1 and spread it all over the mating surface of the nut and stuck it in there. This will allow you to knock your glue loose and remove the nut later on down the road if need be. (side note: we are installing the nut now so we can spray finish over it, just like the factory does, but you don't have to)
This nut will need a lot more filing and shaping when the setup is done on it, but for now it's close.
Ok, this took some guts for me, you probably won't have issues, but I was nervous about screwing something up on my precious guitar body. It really isn't that big a deal though. Just measure twice, drill once, you'll be fine.
Holes needed to be drilled for the pickguard, control cavity, strap buttons, and the BIGSBY!! OH NO!!
more to come next post...
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