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Thank you!

fly me too the mooncaster and let me play the fuck out of it.

Did most of the wiring today.

Feels weird to wire something outside of the guitar. LOL

2021-05-14_08-56-26 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Got the pots and switches loaded in. That lower horn toggle was a bitch. LOL The rest was pretty easy. I like the Gretsch tips and knobs.

IMG_20210515_183427 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

IMG_20210515_183432 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

IMG_20210515_183439 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Damn, Chris, that's looking incredible!

Thanks! This one has been a battle but it is finally shaping up.

This looks like a lot more work than your typical builds but it's really paying off. That's one if the best DIY dye jobs I've ever seen. And the black inside the F-holes totally makes it. I have no idea why anyone leaves them bare. What a great build!

Are you putting chrome or bare HBs in this one?

This one has covered humbuckers coming in. I am also using chrome pickup rings. PAF style.

Thank you on the dye job compliment. The dye part was pretty easy. The clear coat was a total pain for some reason. The tru-oil kept being blotchy and gritty. It hasn't ever given me problems before. I don't know if it is because this is all maple or what, but it was a pain. The satin poly went on so much easier.

It is always a learning process right?

Since the headstock decal didn't work on the wenge, I had this plate made.

IMG_20210520_153828 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

99% done. I need to screw in four tuner screws. I found out that these tuners have staggered heights and I installed them in the wrong spot. While removing them I stripped out four of those dang mini screws. Oh well. Easy enough to fix. Could be worse. The Revel Midnight Rider P.A.F.'s in raw nickel arrived and look amazing. I am really happy with them. Those installed pretty easily. I used some damaged strings to get the neck mounted and such. Even though I got shorter screws for the angled neck pocket area, the two short ones still seemed a bit too long so I chopped about 1/4-1/8" off with my dremel. The strings installed pretty easily with the Les Trem. I much prefer it to stringing a Bigsby. It basically works the same as well, but the strings top load instead of having to wrap around and under to little pins. I did use a 0.5 degree Stew-Mac wood shim. The strings were too high off the board with the bridge all the way down. It worked great. Other good news: all my wiring seems to have worked correctly. The toggle works, the tone toggle works, and the three pots work as intended. I figured they would, but you never know until you go live. I am super pleased with how it looks visually and how it sounds. The Mooncaster body is MUCH smaller than I expected. I was thinking it would be like a Sheraton or so, but it is almost Strat body sized. Well that is enough blah blah blah's from me. Here are pictures.

IMG_20210523_171927 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

IMG_20210523_171945 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

IMG_20210523_171932 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

IMG_20210523_171950 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

https://youtu.be/sFd9M6_7YSY

A demo.

Holy moly, is that ever a sharp-looking build. I don't envy you having to mount that wiring hardness, but that sounds amazing. Those low-wind PAFs sound great. I especially like the tone of the neck pickup. I'm not normally a PAF guy, but I could get along with those.

Good PAF's have a single coil sort of tone but without noise in my experience. These are really nice for sure.

Seconded, it really sounds as good as it looks. The Gretsch style tone switch is interesting. I could see that being pretty useful for country stuff.

Also, props on the ink, octopus tats have always been up there in my book, and that skeletal kirin is way cool.

Thank you! The same artist in Seattle did both of those.