Updates - the body and neck arrived! Shout out to MJT, I couldn't be happier with the oly white as it's very warm, not at all bright and sterile!
The Musikraft neck looks and feels great, nice and beefy.
(Please don't judge)
Now to the ugly stuff. I'd like to think I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron but when it comes to craftsmanship...well let's say I'm no Hephaestus.
Thought a good place to start would be the pickguard, since any mistakes there are more likely to be merely cosmetic. Advice to others, do not buy the horrible taiwanese Fender screws. Not only did I use the wrong screws, but I messed one so bad the head got completely flat and I needed 1 hour of working with a rubber band and pliers to get it out.
Also sanded down the nut trying to follow the radius, looks fine but can't really tell until the strings are there.
The toughest part so far though have been the thimble holes. Not being studious enough, I only saw
this post and figured I'd be fine, which couldn't be farther from the truth.
The MJT routed bodies are
not cut out to american specs, neither the pickguard nor the thimble holes, which are too small to fit the Mastery (M1) parts. Based on what I read here and there, it is very important that the thimbles are as tight as they can be. These are the instructions I got from MJT:
Do you have a sharp little hobby or craft knife?
You need to gently go around the inside edge of the hole and break the paint seal between the paint on top of the guitar and the paint inside the hole. Then you want to slightly angle your knife and bevel that hole a tiny bit.
Now you can drill it to fit the size of your thimble.
You can use heat to insert the thimble so it slides in easier.
We set the thimble in the hole and put our soldering iron in the thimble for a few seconds to heat it up.
Then it will slide into the hole with some gentle tapping.
After many hours of tedious efforts, what worked for me was starting out with a drill until the thimble almost can get in the top of the hole. I then tried to press it as deep as I could with my full body weight and the rubber part of my hammer - this results in the friction points to be edgier and more pronounced. Followed by using a bastard file on the edges until smooth. Rinse and repeat, until I worked my way down the hole.
Getting the neck in was definitely the most satisfying part so far, as it now starts to look and feel like a guitar!
Next up is the tremolo unit, any other experiences with issues there with the MJT routing?