My first build ES-1GT

Hi Everyone,
This is my first build. I have had guitars for over 40 years. My first was a cheap second hand 12 string which I eventualy replaced with a Maton 12 string with pickup and cutaway neck. This had been my go to guitar for decades. Along the way I picked up a 1982/3 JV Squire Strat (Japanese) which has mostly gathered dust. I was so used to the 12 string that the Strat felt weird to play. Recently I got a Gretsch Electromatic (2020 model). Single cut with Bigsby in Fairlane blue which was my introduction to hollowbody guitars and is now my go to. I am mostly a sax player though and was talking to the Bass player in our wind ensemble about guitars. He makes his own and this ignited a spark in me to do the same. He suggested I start with a kit so here I am.

If I take my start date as the day the kit arrived, my diary should be a month old but writing it up never quite happened until now so I'm playing catch up. Here is the first installment..

I've been looking for a 335 style semi hollow in cherry red for months now so I thought I'd start with an ES-1GT.
It was ordered on 31st March and it arrived on 11th April.
Considering that the 31st was the Friday before Easter, the postage time was impressive (thanks Pitbull).

In the mean time, while I was waiting for the package I decided I needed some tools.
I have most of what I need for woodworking, electronics and Sax repair and overhaul but nothing specific to the Luthier trade.

First up, a neck rest made from some scrap timber, and felt:

Attachment 44251

Here is the kit being unboxed:

Attachment 44250

And here it is with a dry fit of the neck:

Attachment 44252

More to follow.

Hi and welcome davidhart.

Nice work on the neck rest!

Cherry red finish should look great.

Thanks Trevor.

Ok, so getting back to the build diary after more waiting for purchases to arrive.

Made some more tools:

Attachment 44349

This is a leveling beam (timber rather than aluminium), a fret rocker (cut from scrap material) and a straight edge from a 600mm ruler with notches ground with a dremel. Way cheaper than purchasing.
I aslo bought a crowning file and Fret erasers.

Good one mate. The way you are going, you wont have to buy any tools. Cheers

Hmmm, 3 months later.....
Its not that I haven't done any work on the kit. Rather, I've been really slack documenting it. I have however taken lot's of photos so getting back to it now.

I bought some cherry red and mahogany red Colortone stains.
After a light sand of the body & neck I stained all over with the mahogany red (which is darker) to hopefully bring out the flame in the maple veneer then lighly sanded it back:

Attachment 44678

I then re-stained with the cherry red:

Attachment 44679

I then piled on more of the cherry red:

Attachment 44680

Then added some mahogany round the edges, just to darken it. I wet it down with a mist of water to get an ide of what it would look like laquered:

Attachment 44681

I also stained the neck and headstock and dry fitted it. Not such a good photo, looks way pinker than it actually is:

Attachment 44682

I bought a tin of Mohawk nitrocelulose laquer but unfortunately it is now Winter and too cold to spray so I will have to wait until it warms up.

I can't say that I was that impressed with leaving the headstock plain red and as I have plenty of time until the weather warms up, back to YouTube and online shopping I went. I've seen videos of how to do mother of pearl inlays. How hard can it be?
Turns out that it is not so much hard as very time consuming.

My surname is Hart and my dad had a keyring with what is probably a family crest that featured a stag. Why not I thought. Many stylised images from the internet later I drew what turned out to be a combination of a few images the transferred it onto some 50x30x1.5mm mother of pearl. I cut this out with a jewelers saw (slowly, going through many blades), then added my surname. I also bought a Blackwood headstock plate which took ages to arrive from China and turned out to be way too thick. I cut it down with my bench saw (tricky that!) then sanded it to 3mm with a belt sander, collecting the dust for later. I also bought a router jig thingy for my dremel.

Attachment 44683 Attachment 44684

I traced around the MoP then routed out a 1mm rout and glued it in with super glue. I used additional superglue mixed with the dust I collected to fill the inevitable gaps then sanded the whole lot back.

Attachment 44685 Attachment 44686

I then glued the Headplate onto the headstock. I put the machine heads on just to see what it would look like. Came out ok.

Attachment 44687

Next time though I will use 5 minute epoxy as I kept losing the fill in the gaps and ended up using epoxy mixed with wood dust to finish it off.

It should look really great with the lacquer on.

And the headstock is better dark IMO. Nice inlay work.

I’d be a bit concerned that 3mm is a bit thick. You’re adding to the overall headstock thickness, so there will be less of the tuner post sticking out. It obviously depends on what tuners you’re fitting, but some have holes lower on the post than others, and with some conventional tuners, you may not be able to get enough turns round the post for stable tuning. Locking tuners won’t have a problem, as there should be less than one turn on them (unless you choose to add more).

Gibson use black fibreboard on their headstock facings these days, (rather than the holly veneer they used to use) which is about 1mm thick.

Ah, You’ve added a photo and you have locking tuners. No problem then.