johnsilver

Thanks imgettingcloser. Trying to finish the SG this week. I know you know you'll still need to seal and fill the mahogany before applying the trans black. Good luck!

I like it BigD. The colors are all warm and natural and there are details but the overall design is clean and uncluttered. I'm warming up to the bridge.

Algee, if Setch says that 5/8" is safe, then its safe. Must have been "operator error" on my part. Anyway, now I get to try a burst.

Well, I did a bit of polishing and put the hardware on the SG. Everything went on pretty smoothly. Now I'll begin with the electronics and hopefully complete that early enough tomorrow to go though a preliminary setup. Only one week to go before I leave for Australia. I might make it. Here is a pic of the headstock with tuners (Gotoh Keystone style) installed and truss rod cover on. It's a Gibson cover but upside down as the top of the cover matches the shape of the headstock top. Here is a pic of the guitar as it stands now. The sun went behind a cloud so the guitar looks a little purple. That's a TonePros TOM and tailpiece. I haven't removed the protective cover from the pickguard yet. clicky I'll post more pics tomorrow if I make further progress. Thanks for looking.

I haven't tried the hacksaw mount blades. They are the same thing as the standalone microplane blades though so should work ok. For me, I'd rather have the individual tools rather than have to change blades on a hacksaw. The hacksaw blades cost almost as much as the individual tools.

Imgettingcloser, I think you were on the right track in your first post. If you look at my current thread "An SG for my son" in the In Progress section, you will see some pics of how I approached a finish similar to what you were describing. No big insight on my part - the process came from Stewmac's finishing book. Might be good for you to get that - lot of info and recipes as well. Basically, the process I used was: 1) sprayed a coat of vinyl sealer on the mahogany 2) applied a walnut brown pore filler (purchased from LMI). It filled the pores but also stained the mahogany a darker brown. 3) Let the filler dry for several days then sprayed another coat of vinyl sealer At that point, it you were happy with the color, you could then begin to apply clear. If you still wanted it more brown, you could add Colortone dye to your clear to make a transparent brown and spray 1-2 coats of that before building up your clear.

Algee, looks like a great project. Looking forward to seeing the progress. A word of caution from experience. I put a 5/8" top on my LP build because I got a great buy on some flame maple from a local supplier and that was the max thickness we could get from the board. A 5/8" top is cutting it very close to get a typical LP carve and not carve or sand through to the mahogany below. My carve came out great, but when I was sanding up through the grades, I sanded through the maple at both sides of the waist. Annoying because I couldn't then proceed with my intended amber finish. Current finish plan is to do a burst to hide the sand throughs.

In my experience, it softens quite quickly - a matter of seconds moving the dryer back and forth rapidly just as Drak says. Maybe my wife had an industrial model. I don't usually soften large sections at once. I'll apply the binding to the gentler curves first and then use the dryer to softer small sections at a time to get around the tight spots. That way, I use the binding ledge in the body to help me keep the shape of the binding i.e. helps avoid twisting of softened plastic.

I think you will get a variety of opinions on this one. I don't really have an opinion on which is best since I've never used hot water to soften binding. I have used a heat gun (read that as a small hand held hair dryer) to aid bending binding around horns several times. It works fine and quickly, but you do have to be careful not to overheat the binding for safety reasons. It doesn't take much time with a heat gun to soften the binding sufficiently, so try it out on test pieces. In fact, try both methods on test pieces and see which you prefer.

Anything is possible.

Thanks for all the support guys. I thought to enter something into GOTM, it had to be a guitar. Right now, its only a guitar body. Some answers: Thunderblitz - its regular old celluloid nitrate binding on the neck and headstock. White, single ply. Maiden, I know what you mean. The "design" of this guitar evolved over time. My son requested an SG Standard or Special, cherry red with the black pickguard, etc (basically the School of Rock guitar as Fatalities points out). After playing around, I decided to add the maple top and ebony fretboard. He still wants the big black pickguard, so I left it at 22 frets. I located the best figure in the maple on the bottom part of the guitar so it will remain visible after the pickguard is on. Its a fair question as to whether this will all work or not. Oi Dayvo, I like Aussie Rules. I barrack for Richmond. Alas, my misguided son barracks for Collingwood. Screwdelulu, I did spray the finish. I'm not an experienced finish guy. My son has some automotive painting experience and he helped me get started with the modest equipment that I have. Also, I bought Stewmac's finishing book and video. It has several recipes in it for SG Red, so I experimented a little since I had two different color woods. In the end, this is what I came up with. I sprayed a vinyl sealer on the mahogany parts, then filled the pores using a walnut brown pore filler. This left the pores filled and darkened the mahogany. I dyed the maple walnut brown using Colortone dye in alcohol, then sanded it back. I rubbed some of the pore filler over the maple top - it didn't fill anything but did stain the wood a similar color to the mahogany. I made a transparent cherry toner using cherry red Colortone dye in nitrocellulose lacquer and sprayed two coats followed by a coat of clear nitro to lock in the color. After that, it was a matter of spraying multiple coats of clear nitro, drying, sanding and polishing. This is basically the process recommended by Stewmac's book but modified a bit after testing on scrap. Here is a pic of the body after spraying the vinyl sealer. Here is a pic after applying the walnut pore filler. Here is a pic after dying the top with walnut brown (although it looks black) Here is a pic after sanding back the top. Here is a pic after rubbing the top with walnut pore filler and wiping it off. The whole guitar now has a fairly consistent brown color. Here is a pic after spraying the second coat of cherry red toner. My test pieces indicated the cherry color alone came out a bit red, so I added a couple of drops of walnut brown dye to the mixture. Came out pretty close to what I wanted. Thanks again for your support. This forum has been very helpful to me in this project. Cheers.

Guys, thanks. Pete, Gibson makes an SG Supreme with a figured top, although strangely enough not in the classic cherry color. This is partly why I decided to make this guitar the way I did. Sort of a cross between an SG Standard or SG Classic and an SG Supreme. Gibson SG Supreme I've never seen an SG with an inlay at the first fret, even with dot inlays. Guess I could have done that to make it different. Looking forward to getting to Melbun.

Hyunsu, thank you. Your comments mean a lot to me. I have watched your work with admiration. I have copied your comments and posted them in my work room. For example, you once said "guitar making is always happy work". I agree. Here is a pic of the body just cut out, and a few more pics. And a few more pics (hopefully, I did this correctly). heel neck front back headstock and inlay fretboard fretboard2 test stringing color

I'm building an SG style guitar for my middle son. He lives in Melbourne, Australia and we are going to visit him in two weeks. Can't wait - 3 weeks in Oz. I'm trying to complete the guitar before I go. If I can't, hopefully the finish will be complete and I'll do the rest with him while I am there. Over a few beers and a barbeque of course. The guitar is based on an SG, mahogany body and neck with a big leaf maple drop top to add a bit of figure. I tried to finish the color in a traditional SG heritage cherry and I wanted the figure to be somewhat subdued under the color. The fretboard is ebony and it has an ebony headplate. This is my second guitar to make. It has many firsts for me: first top over a base wood, first set neck, first block inlays, first custom inlay in the headstock, first toner coat, etc, etc. He wants an SG Standard style pickguard on it, and only wanted one volume and one tone control. It has a 3 way switch and the jack is in the end. It will have Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and a Jazz in the neck (what a concept!). Here is a pic from a couple of weeks ago after a flash coat of nitro. It needs to be sanded out and buffed. More pics to come if I get it completed.

Congratulations. Have fun and be safe.

I wasn't sure if the fretboard was going to be salvaged. Even if it is and will be put on a new neck, he needs to know the scale length before making a new neck and that's better determined before taking the old neck off IMHO. In any case, if a new neck is to be fitted using the existing bridge location, the neck will have to be built somewhat more precisely to fit the scale length instead of building the neck to approximate scale and then locating the bridge holes.

I just looked at the Mighty Mite site and the Motherbucker has 4 conductor wires - the blue is hot and the black is ground and the red / white are soldered together. Since you are making an SG, I'm assuming you have 2 volume and 2 tone knobs and a 3 position switch. As an example, here is a diagram for that configuration from the Seymour Duncan site that includes a coil split. The conductor color references will be different so you need to follow the MM ones. There are lots of diagrams on this site so you can pick the one that meets your needs. Hope this helps. clicky

Brian, thanks for the link. I'll be in Melbourne visiting my son and daughter-in-law during the time when the show is on. I'm bringing him a guitar I've made for him. I definitely plan to have a walk around the show.

Cool, especially since that is where I already drilled the hole from the electronics cavity. Thanks Mattia.

If I'm using a TOM bridge with tailpiece, can I run the ground to a tailpiece stud instead of a bridge stud? It seems it wouldn't matter since both tailpiece and bridge are in contact with the strings.

Great links by Stiffy and Setch on removal or repair. My two cents on the fix: If you decide to go with replacement, it seems likely to me that you will need to build vs buy a neck in order to get a good fit at the neck/body join and to get a correct scale length since the bridge holes are already located in the body (unless you decide to fill those and redrill under an opaque finish for example). If you build, take measurements off the old neck such as profile and shape at various points along the neck e.g. at the nut, 12th fret, etc. This way you can replicate the shape of the original neck. You should also measure the scale length before removing the neck. Gibson scales were nominally 24 3/4" but that actually translates into several actual scales such as 24 5/8". Your fretboard slots will need to match your scale. If you use the original bridge placement, the neck will have to be built very accurately in length in order to get the correct scale length so the guitar will intonate. Good luck and have fun!

I believe ya I lived in HK for a couple of years, just over the mountain from you near Repulse Bay (where Repulse Bay Road and Island Road come together). BTW, the neck does look nice...

Russ, congratulations on this guitar. It was an interesting build with some innovative aspects and nice features. I'm glad that you say it plays well and sounds good. It is not a guitar that evokes ambivalence and that is a good thing in my book, especially on this site where many people are trying to create something for themselves. However each individual takes it, it is likely to influence them one way or the other.

Rokeros, can't pick the location. Is that the Mid-levels?