RestorationAD

Now the Green Of course the can let me down and it is blotchy. So I will wet sand it out this week and get a new can of Fluorescent Green.

Dressed frets and filled grain on S9

Backplate done. Name is VOID. As in "Into the Void"

Tubes. Old amps like quality tubes. My .50 cal has mostly USA made tubes. God help me if one of them ever burn out... I will have to go Russian at that point. The .22 is already all Russian and it is not the same.

Ahhh.. .the SG is a player. No neck angle. The ABM bridge base plate is recessed flush with the body. The SG is basically a 24.75" S9 with an SG body and 3+3 headstock. I really like my right hand to be close to the body when playing. I really don't like TOMs anymore. The older I get the more it makes my wrist sore playing the traditional TOM guitars. The idea was I wanted an SG body guitar I can pick up whenever and play like my S9 express... a real workhorse. The guitar turned out a bit heavier than I wanted but it is so monstrous... I can't wait to put good strings on it and set the intonation. The Boogies like it. I miss my Mark IV and the 4x12 EV cab but the Calibers do a good job of being Boogies. I re-tubed the Studio with all Electro Harmonics 12ax7 and that gave it the liquid fire Mark II C+ lead tone at low volume. The .50 Caliber + is the greatest version of that amp ever... coupled with the Theile ported EV it is a true monster capable of Master of Puppets like devastation. Funny enough I bought the .50 and EV cab for $500 a long time ago. I bought the Studio .22 for $500 as well. I have to say best $1000 I ever spent on music equipment. I have a complete hand wire kit for the Blackheart I just can't find time to tear it apart. And honestly it pales next to the boogies.

I guess I will start on final assembly on the wookie while I wait.

Strings are on, nut is roughed in, tuners are fit, pickups are fit. Somehow I ended up with a low fret at the 9. I must have pushed too hard with the fret press. It looks a little over seated. It is only off a hair so when I level and crown it should be fine. Everything else fit like expected. I will let it sit a few days then take it apart for painting.

Going to continue with the rough setup before painting routine. I am not a fan of surprises after finishing.

I like ABM stuff a lot but I think I have a few Tone Pros just laying around in my parts box http://www.tonepros.com/avt2m-tonepros-wraparound-set-wmsprs-locking-studs-for-prs-santana-models/

Tx @Andyjr1515 I am not going through this with the S9. Even though it is scheduled to be Loch Ness green...

I like that. Maybe I will build one... doh.

Yup. Last SG ever. It was horrible. I lost 6 weeks just painting and repainting... Right when I was shooting the burst the wind picked up and started blowing the white floating cat o nine tail seeds into the garage. I raced to close the door... Then @ScottR a damn gnat landed in the fresh lacquer. Luckily he freed himself and I only shot over his foot prints.

It is not even close to my old level of build but I really wanted something I could beat on, not care if it got dinged, and comfortably play everyday. Cool thing is it is easy to play sitting at the computer (only my headless were good for that before).

About done now. Just need new strings, set the intonation, make a back plate, and probably make a pickguard.

I had a set of pickups picked out but they didn't seem right. I dug around in my box and found this set of experimental things. 3/8" Allen poles with A8 mags wound to my Destroyer spec (basically a vintage DiMarzio Super Distortion). I made a mess getting all the old guitar equipment out of the closet. Took me a while to remember how to solder...

To celebrate the win I had a brew And played the Hand of Doom

Of course this didn't even go well. The old lacquer didn't flash out fast enough and I developed a few foggy areas and runs. So I waited a week and sanded it out. Once it was flat I used the very last few drops of the orange to fix the burst and shot it with a few coats of new lacquer.

So I went to war with the SG over what color it was going to be, I planed to paint it Olympic white. It had other ideas. A good friend took one look at it and said "You can't paint it". I said it is just mahogany and I need another brown guitar like I need another hole in my head. Little did I know that he would put the Romanian Gypsy curse on the guitar. So I sealed it with gel super glue. I then painted it Appliance White with epoxy. It fish-eyed. And I don't mean little one here or there. I mean several huge right in the middle of the best parts blisters. I was pretty mad. It took a weekend to paint and a few days to dry. I grabbed the Mek and whipped it all off. That left white in all the grain. Bad start. Next I grabbed a can of flat black. I shot it with engine flat black and all was going well. I was thinking this isn't so bad. Then I looked at it and hated the black. I waited until it was dry and shot some White Epoxy over it. Looked good... seemed like I as getting white after all. Next morning I came out and it had blistered again... Mek back to bare wood. Grain was filled with mix of white and black. Grabbed some lime green paint I have been sitting on. Back in the day I painted all my guitars this nasty Dodge lime green. After a coat I felt it looked just like my old guitars.... Mek back to bare wood. Grain was filled with mix of lime green, white, and black. I gave up. Fine if it wanted to be bare Sapele that is what we would do. I sanded it back with 400 grit paper in my DA. Worked out really well. I grabbed my trusty 30 year old can of brown grain filler and covered the guitar in hopes to cover up the multi color grain fill. Didn't work. Next day I was cleaning up the excess and the white kept popping through. The only choice I had was to sand way back with 120 though the sealer until the grain was clear. I decided that was a no go as it would compromise the wonderful SG lines carved into this thing. The difference between this and a real SG are subtle. But on the arm rest and belly the carve is concave not flat. The lines are sharp. The top horn is a bit sharper than a regular SG. I couldn't risk a re-sand. I grabbed a very old jar of nitro that I had mixed up several years ago for another project. It had a good orange tint and the lacquer had started to darken so it was very vintage looking. I cleaned up what I had and shot a base coat. It stuck and didn't fisheye. To round it out I added a bit more orange and used my burst gun to make it a vintage orange burst. Done. The SG won. It was natural and the only thing I could do was look on as my hopes of a white SG gassed off in lacquer fumes.

Alive. Lacrosse season is over, vacation is done, Jeep is mostly fixed. Time to build some guitars

I disassembled it. I plan on redoing it. Will post when I start.

No I wouldn't. Stop. That is crazy talk. No one worth their salt would get caught dead playing a gold guitar that was not a Gold Top LP. And all the Gold Top LP had CHROME hardware. So stop. I also have called several parts distributors and petitioned them to stop selling gold hardware to builders. It didn't work... but I tried to save you silly lot.

Shut it.

Did a pre finish setup on the SG Found out I am going to have to recess the bridge on the SG (kinda planned on it anyway but now I am sure) Overall it is mostly ready to go. Have to make the neck thinner and recess the bridge.