Partscaster Gets Some Help

Here's a good-looking sunburst Partscaster assembled and refinished by a Adel, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Pekan; Pahang. Pretty impressive work, I must say. Reverse headstock, 25.5" scale, 14" radius dark hardwood fretboard, maple neck, locking tuners, two humbuckers, master volume and tone, vintage six-screw tremolo; what's not to like? 

Quite a lot, it would seem. For one, the guitar was unplayable. The action was way too high, especially at the nut; and the strings could not be intonated based on the 12th fret harmonic. Also, the break angle at the headstock was non-existent due to the straight headstock and lack of string trees. The strings kept popping out of the nut slots as if they had a mind of their own.

Then there was the problem of fitting the pickguard. Trying to position the pickguard as I wanted it could not be done. The pickups could only be adjusted so far sideways or be lowered so much before running into wood. Right away I realized that the pickup cavity not only needed to be widened; but deepened too. Besides this, the three-way switch had been wired "backwards." Selecting the neck humbucker gave you the bridge instead; and vice-versa. The volume and tone controls were working as they should; thankfully. 

To compound the problems already mentioned, I noticed that the high E string was almost falling off the fretboard edge and string/pickup polepiece alignment for both pickups was way off. To remedy the situation, I knew that (i) the bridge would have to be repositioned laterally; and (ii) the neck shifted slightly in its pocket.

And so began the task of getting this Partscaster into playable condition. After taking some measurements, the scale length was determined to be 25.5 inches. Only problem was that the saddles, with about 1/16" of play left; were 25.75" from the nut. So I knew that the bridge would have to be shifted forward until the saddles were at the 25.5" mark.

As for solving the string/fretboard edge and string/polepiece alignment issues, it involved deepening and widening the pickup cavity, lots of measuring and testing with a length of string; as well as a slight neck adjustment. All this meant that the old holes would have to be plugged and leveled; and new ones marked and drilled. Tedious, no doubt; but absolutely necessary.

To provide sufficient downward pressure at the headstock end of the nut, a Floyd Rose-licensed string retainer was added. Besides this, the nut slots were deepened sufficiently; and the whole nut reprofiled afterwards. Before re-assembling the guitar, the "backwards" switch wiring was taken care of.

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of this job was the request by Adel that the tremolo bridge be immobilized and effectively turned into a "hardtail" or fixed bridge. A man wise beyond his years, Adel be! To this end, two more springs were added for a total of five, the trem claw screwed in nice and tight; and a painstakingly-shaped block of hardwood installed in between the trem block and cavity wall.

Once this Partscaster was reassembled and set up with Ernie Ball Super Slinkys; the time finally came to plug it into my Fender Champion 40 and give it a good workout. I must say the tones that emanated from this guitar were way better than I had anticipated. If you'd like to know what this guitar sounds like, do check out the YouTube video I've uploaded. That's it for this post, and thanks for dropping by :)