PrusaCaster 4-Hole Bridge (Wilkenson / Gotoh)

Edit: 1/15/2024 Highly recommend the EMG T set that the YOYOMAKER remix was built around, including the modified control cavity piece. This is IMHO one of the best T kits around and it's a drop in replacement for the Bexgears pickups. It's also easy on the wallet ($199) compared to other active Telecaster kits, and the active pickups really suit this build. They sound like a Telecaster but modern and noiseless. Lots of twang and pop and all the things you want to hear in a Tele. Edit: 10/26/2023 After playing with the current iteration based off a Bexgears neck, I noticed that a couple critical things were out of spec compared to Fender standard for a bolt-on Telecaster neck. Here is what I noticed that led to me creating a new core piece you can try out: The Bexgears neck is not drilled to Fender standard for the mounting hole spacing (even accounting for the eyeballed drilling on my Bexgears neck). It's slightly narrower length-wise, enough so that a Fender neck wouldn't fit without plugging the holes and re-drilling. The original Prusacaster model, as well as the remixes, all seem to have an incorrectly measured neck pocket compared to Fender standard. While the width is correct, the depth is too long by 1/8 inch, which means a neck will not reach to the end of the neck pocket, and thus only will be held on with the bolts and not with any body resistance as the strings are tuned to pitch. This isn't the end of the world, but structurally it's better to have the additional contact plane (this is why the best bolt-on neck builders will meticulously get their neck pockets perfect with their necks, so there is no play in the neck joint). It's better to have to sand down the neck heel to get it to fit than to have to shim IMHO. I'm not sure if this oversight is because these cheap Thomman and Bexgears kits don't know how to use an in-spec routing template or CNC for some really well documented and obvious Fender specs (3" long is hard to miss), but I figured I'd try to fix the problem and provide a new core file here that also includes the correct mounting holes for 4-hole Wilkenson / Gotoh bridges if people want it. Basically, I added 1/8 inch of material to the bottom of neck pocket. I haven't tried this core file yet since I don't have a spare Fender-spec neck, so if you want to try it, tinker down the STL file so you only print the neck pocket and save yourself some filament in case I got it wrong. Why Fender spec, you ask? Because almost every 3rd party neck builder of quality follows that spec so things can easily bolt together without extra work. Fender, Warmoth, Musikraft, USACG, etc, should follow this spec if you get a neck with pre-drilled guide holes in the neck heel. Original Description Ok, I'm going to try to be as detailed as possible since I noticed quite a few potential show-stoppers putting this together. I've been playing guitar for about 20 years and have a pretty good handle on how things need to be for a guitar to function properly. This is yet another remix of a remix of a remix of a… well, you get the idea :) I originally checked out YOYOMAKER_east's Japancustom version since it's the only model I saw that had a 4-hole bridge along with string-thru holes. I prefer Gotoh / Wilkenson bridges as they tend to be better built than the cheap zinc you get with the kits out in the wild, and they also come with compensated brass barrel saddles which helps greatly with intonation. The challenge with this model, though, is that it seems that YOYOMAKER_east created his own neck, which is not a standard Telecaster neck heel, and that means that his neck pocket is about a mm too narrow for aftermarket Telecaster necks (including the Bexgears neck that is super-cheap on Amazon right now). So I hopped into Tinkercad and figured out how to hack off his neck pocket and hack on the Bexgears model's neck pocket, which I had tested and is the correct size (indeed, it's perhaps a little too big, but not the end of the world as the bolt fitment and alignment with center is what matters most). Version 1 of that model is included here. It was a fun learning experience in figuring out how to get two separate parts properly aligned. Printed out everything seems to line up and I can intonate, despite the crappy Bexgears neck where someone drilled one of the bolt holes about ½ - 1 mm out of square, which causes a slight misalignment of the neck in the pocket. The bridge holes in the model also seem to be slightly misaligned with center, which I wasn't able to correct--when putting on the bridge you can see that the left bridge pickup pocket wall intrudes under the left part of the pickup mount on the bridge. I ended up holding the bridge a little to the right when screwing it in. If I ever figure out how to do it I may see if I can nudge those screw holes ever so slightly to the right. Also, fun note – let your part cool before inserting screws depending on the PLA you used. I was too excited since I spent all weekend testing parts and you'll pull out plastic since it's still soft if you try screwing things in while it's fresh out of the printer. A little voice in my head told me (at 1am) that I would have issues being so eager, and it was right! I also used M5 inserts for the body mounting points, but since YOYOMAKER_east's insert link was for a Japanese company with a big leadtime, I grabbed some Ruthex M5 brass inserts on Amazon that work fine in the holes he added--there's just a tad bit of space around them. If you are careful with your soldering iron and don't push them in too far, you'll be fine. I found it helpful to put in an M5 bolt immediately after putting the insert in to help keep any excess plastic from filling the insert hole and making it harder to screw in the bolts. Note that the very top-left mounting hole on the main body piece is smaller since it came from the Bexgears kit after I hacked the neck pocket on. You can still use the same Ruthex insert, you'll just want to drill it out a bit or jam a soldering iron in there to melt a bigger hole, and then sand down the excess (it's not a part people will see, after all). I printed on a Bambu P1S in cheap Silk PLA for the core. I am out of my better PLA till later today. If you have a 258x258x258 or bigger bed, like the P1S, P1P, X1C, etc, you can actually print this out leveled flat instead of on the right body face like in the Prusacaster blog post, which means you don't need supports (I'm not fond of the supports being under arguably the most important part of the model, the neck pocket). You'll have to turn off your skirt since it won't fit--this prints right to the very edge. Needless to say, if you print this way, make sure your bed is pretty darn level (which is one of the reasons I love my P1S, as that has yet to be an issue). The string ferrules will print correctly when printed flat but a little ragged, so just clean them up with a knife, otherwise everything is okay without any supports. I used 8 walls and 30% infill. The part came out very strong and pretty beefy. Used a bit less than ⅔ of a 1kg spool, something around 600-650 grams. On a P1S on Sport mode (124% speed) I printed in about 12-14 hours with stock PLA speed settings. 124% didn't seem to negatively impact the quality. I also included the other parts for convenience, as well as a remix of the bottom left body part that I added an arm contour too. I also included a “fitment test” part I created to make sure everything lined up without having to print the hole thing. You can print that out and see if your neck and bridge will align properly. Pay no mind to the ragged state of my photo, this was a test build and not my final, but everything is functional (even with just two screws in the bridge plate). Overall after hours of tweaking intonation and fitment, the guitar plays well despite the misaligned neck from my $89 Bexgears kit (which, be wary of those kits as whoever is drilling the holes doesn't seem to understand “measure twice, cut once”). It's certainly not up to the level of my PRS and Suhr, but it's also a fraction of the price built by a noob like me :) For those who want to use the Bexgears kit, here are my thoughts: The neck is actually pretty okay. The nut wasn't cut perfectly (the high-e string in particular, had some sitar sounds I had to work out), but it's functional. No glaring issues with the fretwork. The truss rod works. The big potential show-stopper is the neck bolts, as the way the person at Bexgears is drilling these is through the matched body, and they aren't doing it very well or with any sort of proper guide / jig. This means that the neck probably fits the Bexgears body just fine, but will NOT necessarily fit our printed part correctly, given the printed part has squared bolt holes while the Bexgears neck will not. So watch out for the neck if you get this kit and measure the bolt holes and check that they are square. In general, the Bexgears kit is not drilling neck holes standard compared to Fender specs for a Telecaster. So while their neck will probably fit the holes in this model (assuming they themselves drilled them properly), it will NOT fit other necks without having to plug the holes in the neck and re-drill (or just get a blank heel and drill it yourself). The Bexgears neck will almost certainly require you to file down the nut slots. There's no way they're putting in the labor to do that for you for $89, and it's a must if you want your lower fretted notes to intonate correctly. No pilot holes for the string trees on the headstock, which are a must with these tuners. If you use staggered tuners instead of the included ones, not an issue. Tunes work fine. A little wobbly with the motion but they seem to hold tune okay. The wiring harness is surprisingly good and the quick connects are convenient for getting things working quickly. I'm not shy with a soldering iron and electronics, so I may upgrade in the future. The output jack doesn't quite match up with the screw holes, but you can get away with just two and it'll hold fine. Or just print your own jack plate. The bridge pickup is surprisingly good for an $89 kit. It sounds like a 50's Telecaster. Quite twangy. The neck pickup is NOT good. It sounds like they underwound it, which isn't helped by the metal cover. Not much treble or output at all. I could probably make it serviceable with some amp tweaking, but it's a far cry from the hollow metallic plunk of a good Telecaster neck pickup (I may be biased as I'm comparing to a Lollar in my Nash telecaster). Most surprising to me, whoever did the electronics had the foresight to reverse-wind the neck pickup, so the middle position is hum-cancelling. Not what I'd expect on an $89 kit, but very cool. Overall, if you were to just put the kit together and not make a Prusacaster out of it, this kit is an incredible value. Just watch out for proper screw hole alignment on all the parts. I used this kit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082ZG8FS7?th=1 I used this bridge: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081CBKZPD