Re: Gretsch Streamliner modification project
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2016 10:54 pm
So, it's been a year! I think I've mentioned before how slow I've been with this project. After the last update I've moved from San Diego to Simi Valley, finally found all of my parts, and with a three day weekend, I've made some progress. Yay!
First up was to finish cutting the bone nut. Since this is a zero fret guitar it's actually a string guider versus a nut. I used my jewelers saw that was used to cut all of the turquoise letters and the fret markers. After making initial cuts with that, I went to my little home made saws and opened up the bigger ones.
I don't own fret files and a while ago I purchased these "fret saws" on eBay. They aren't really easy to work with by hand as they hurt your fingers and wriggle all over the place. Actually, I would call them round files as opposed to round saws.
I took the saw blade out of the jewelers saw and was able to clamp the round files in. This proved to be way, way better!
To make sure the string guide was working properly to the zero fret I needed to test it out with strings. So, I installed the tuners. These are Grover locking tuners.
Next up was to attached the tailpiece. I used fishing line to "eyeball" from the tuners to the tailpiece.
As you can see the end of the guitar is a bit of a mess from someone else attaching various things to it.
Here we go! All tightened up.
I like this tailpiece and it was the driving theme to create a "lazy S" look. Since it is a Streamliner and my name is Sarah, the S seemed like a natural. It follows with the headstock and the fret markers.
Much to my surprise, all of the strings sound great on the first go at it.
So, no fret buzz, I like the action, and it's staying in tune. Sweet!
Headstock.
Neck and fretboard.
The whole thing.
First up was to finish cutting the bone nut. Since this is a zero fret guitar it's actually a string guider versus a nut. I used my jewelers saw that was used to cut all of the turquoise letters and the fret markers. After making initial cuts with that, I went to my little home made saws and opened up the bigger ones.
I don't own fret files and a while ago I purchased these "fret saws" on eBay. They aren't really easy to work with by hand as they hurt your fingers and wriggle all over the place. Actually, I would call them round files as opposed to round saws.
I took the saw blade out of the jewelers saw and was able to clamp the round files in. This proved to be way, way better!
To make sure the string guide was working properly to the zero fret I needed to test it out with strings. So, I installed the tuners. These are Grover locking tuners.
Next up was to attached the tailpiece. I used fishing line to "eyeball" from the tuners to the tailpiece.
As you can see the end of the guitar is a bit of a mess from someone else attaching various things to it.
Here we go! All tightened up.
I like this tailpiece and it was the driving theme to create a "lazy S" look. Since it is a Streamliner and my name is Sarah, the S seemed like a natural. It follows with the headstock and the fret markers.
Much to my surprise, all of the strings sound great on the first go at it.
So, no fret buzz, I like the action, and it's staying in tune. Sweet!
Headstock.
Neck and fretboard.
The whole thing.