Hetfield Uncle Milty (Iron Cross) Les Paul Custom Replica

I've used it on maple necks. One coat of a light amber tint is probably enough to give it a subtle aged look. Two for a more obviously aged look. Any more and it then becomes more of a colour in its own right. Some lacquer suppliers do both a light and a dark amber tint. I've only used the light stuff, though the dark stuff might give a more smoke-impregnated look to it. Spray it on first then cover it with protective clear coats (otherwise it's liable to wear off). I'd go with subtle, as it's very easy to overdo the effect in isolation. Keep a copy of the picture with you as a guide. Too little tint will look better than too much.

Subtle will definitely be better for this build. Even the ESP version I posted looks like they overdid the tint in my opinion.

Possibly. I've seen a couple of mid-'70s LP Customs with that level of yellowing. It can all depend on the level of exposure to both UV and tobacco smoke.

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Originally Posted by CascadiaGuitarGeek

When the kit arrived I gave it a once over and noticed a few issues. Luckily they weren't going to affect the finished product. The flame maple veneer had the joint line skewed and off center, but I'll have a solid black finish so no big deal there. The binding work was rough around the cutaway. This was easily scraped down though.

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The shape and binding on the headstock looks pretty good. I straightened the neck and checked the frets, which were pretty level. That was a relief since my last LP kit took a whole lot of work to get playable, and even still has to have high action.

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his is a custom isnt it with binding on top and bottom of the body is that a pit bull kit ? who did the binding on the head-stock and the Gibson shape

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Originally Posted by phrozin

his is a custom isnt it with binding on top and bottom of the body is that a pit bull kit ? who did the binding on the head-stock and the Gibson shape

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It isn't a Pitbull kit. It was from Guitar Kit World before the last redesign of their site. In addition to their custom kit orders, they had a few in stock kits including a Les Paul Custom copy and a Ken Lawrence-ish explorer (that I wish I would have ordered too). My kit does have the 7 ply WBWBWBW binding on the top and bottom of the body, and came with the 5 ply headstock binding and headstock shaping already done. I wouldn't be surprised if they got a warning about doing that.

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Originally Posted by CascadiaGuitarGeek

So before EMG started releasing their pickups with metal covers, James had a set of EMG 81/60s modified to look like vintage gold PAF humbuckers. This isn't as easy as it seems, since the EMGs have an epoxied on plastic cover that is larger than the inside dimensions of a standard humbucker cover. The solution I've seen on other forums is to sand/grind back the stock covers to fit inside the humbucker covers. Then cut the heads off some pole piece screws and epoxy them into the holes in the new cover. We'll see if I can do this without wrecking the whole lot.

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Hey mate, have you considered painting the EMG covers in the same way you're doing the iron cross?
some gold and clear should get you pretty close.

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Originally Posted by zeromick

Hey mate, have you considered painting the EMG covers in the same way you're doing the iron cross?
some gold and clear should get you pretty close.

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I did give that some thought, as well as just going with a gold EMG Het Set. But I wanted this to be as close to the original as possible, without starting with an actual Les Paul.

Nice weather and a bit of free time has come upon me so it's time for some more painting. Next steps will be decals and tinted poly.

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looks good Cascadia, how wide is the binding on the top ? The masking is quite wide around the bottom edge

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Originally Posted by wokkaboy

looks good Cascadia, how wide is the binding on the top ? The masking is quite wide around the bottom edge

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It's roughly 5.27 mm. Some of that edge might be the actual binding itself. When I masked I tried to keep it back from the edge a little so I'll have a bit to scrape off.