How every DASUT begins its journey

• Make sure you don't lose any bits; you won't find replacements easily.
• Each part has its own size of wood screw. Separate the screws by size and keep them organized.
• Take photos before each part is removed.

• I do fret work on every guitar I own. I like to set my guitars up to suit my playing style.
• This particular guitar was bought new and had a very good fretboard, all frets levelled and polished. There was no real need to do it here, but for second-hand guitars it's a must.
• There are plenty of videos on how to do this. Search for “guitar fret work”, “how to level frets”, “fret crowning” or “fret dressing”.

• Use masking tape to cover all the areas you will cut.
• Use a marker to draw the cuts. You don't need to be precise.
• Locate the cuts on both sides of the guitar and make sure you don't cut into the electronics cavity.

• Cutting at an angle to the grain is difficult. Make sure you don't “dig” into the wood too much. I almost made that mistake here and had to sand a lot more to level it.
• Use 60 → 120 → 300 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surfaces.

• Use whatever type of wood filler you can find.
• Apply it as a very thin layer and let it dry.
• Sand everything with 120 → 300 grit sandpaper.

• Congratulations! You've just completely ruined a perfectly good guitar.
• To prepare for paint, sand all surfaces with 300 grit sandpaper.
• Clean all surfaces.

• I like playing on scalloped necks, so much that I simply can't play a guitar that doesn't have one.
• I also like an “uneven” scallop: flat under the thicker strings, going deeper into the fretboard towards the thinner strings.
• If you like to feel the fretboard under your fingertips, skip this and leave it be.
• If you'd like to experiment with a scalloped neck, find a round rasp and dig in. I've modified 12 necks: the first took me a week, the last about a day. Take your time, be patient, and don't ruin the frets in the process.

• If you're one of those guitarists who believes an instrument's sound is affected by the thickness of the paint, this will make you cry.
• I used a simple roller to apply 3 layers of paint. Use whatever method you like, spray cans included.
• In my case I had to wait 12 hours between layers to let the paint dry.
• After the first layer, I used wet 2000 grit sandpaper to smooth out the surface.

• This is where you'll wish you had kept your wood screws organized (if you didn't at disassembly, as advised).
• Start with the neck: add the nut and tuners.
• Continue with the body, but keep both components separate. It's much easier to work on the electronics without the neck attached.
• On the body, attach the components in this order:
  1. Insert the ground wire into its location and make sure the exposed copper touches the metal of the bridge post.
  2. Use a hammer and a piece of hard wood to tap the bridge posts into the body. Don't strike the posts directly with the hammer.
  3. Add the neck pickup.
  4. Add the bridge pickup.
  5. Solder all connections.
  6. Mount the pots. In my case I also added markers for the pot positions.
• Mount the neck.
• Add strings and complete the setup: truss rod adjustment, string action, tuning, intonation, etc.
• Test the guitar.

Congratulations, your work is done!

• Or, in my case, I didn't like the sound I was getting.
• I changed the capacitor on the tone pot for one at half its original value.
• The capacitor change wasn't enough, so I decided to change the pickups.

• Make sure you don't scratch the surface when you remove the old pickups (like I did).
• Insert the new pickups and solder everything again.
• Test the guitar.

Now I’m happy. The different pickups gave me exactly the sound I was looking for.

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