Hetfield Uncle Milty (Iron Cross) Les Paul Custom Replica

So I figure that it's time to start tracking the progress on my attempt at making the Gibson Custom Shop signature model that never was: the James Hetfield Uncle Milty / Iron Cross. The original is a modified 1973 Gibson Les Paul Custom with Sperzel locking tuners, customized EMG 81/60 pickups, reconfigured electronics, some aging and drunken scratching on the finish, decorative iron cross and gold vinyl racing stripes.

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The guitar started making appearances around 2001 during the recording of St. Anger (apologies) and was used often live until around 2009. At this point James was trying to work out a signature model deal with Gibson, but they couldn't come to terms on it so he ended up doing a version of it with ESP (this just doesn't seem right though).

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I was excited when I came across a LP custom kit that had the full on 7 ply body binding and 5 ply headstock binding with legally questionable shaping.

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Nice start - enjoy a cool tribute build

Looking good. Except the inlays in the small images are not the same...

I think from memory the esp have there flag shape inlays on there signature editon thats probly the one in the little photo. I think i like the block style myself. So many cool Lp builds in the works

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Originally Posted by Thigg88

I think from memory the esp have there flag shape inlays on there signature editon thats probly the one in the little photo. I think i like the block style myself. So many cool Lp builds in the works

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Exactly. I just included the ESP model photos for comparison. I'll be doing the original Gibson version with block inlays.

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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Looking very nice!

So I needed to get a few additional parts to supplement the kit for this build. I found some gold vinyl racing stripes that looked to be about the right size that will go on after the finish is applied. I'll be replacing the stock tuners with satin gold Sperzel locking ones as per Mr. Hetfield's preferences (and mine too, now that I've used locking I don't think I can go back!). Not pictured below is the 'Custom' headstock decal that will go unnamed for now.

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I think the trickiest parts of this build will be replicating the Iron Cross and pickup modifications. I decided to use a piece of black pickguard material to cut out into the cross shape. Then I will spray paint with a metallic iron, followed by a clear coat, followed by a metallic gold paint. Then I'll sand back the gold to simulate the aged metal plating look of the original.

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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Nice target to aim for. You'll probably need to use some amber-tinted clear lacquer coats as well as standard clear lacquer to get the aged yellow effect for the binding.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Nice target to aim for. You'll probably need to use some amber-tinted clear lacquer coats as well as standard clear lacquer to get the aged yellow effect for the binding.

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Absolutely. I'll need to go over the headstock "inlay" as well to replicate the vintage look. Have you played around with that at all? I assume that it's a bit tricky to get the right amount of amber in there so that it looks aged but not comical.

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.

no worries Cascadia, I had a look at the pre-painting pics and saw the binding is quite wide and it's not a PBG kit.

Tough decision to paint over flame maple veneer !

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Originally Posted by wokkaboy

Tough decision to paint over flame maple veneer !

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I did feel a little bad about that because it has some nice flame on it. But this particular project didn't call for it, and if you look closely at the photos you'll see that they totally messed up the joint line on the veneer.

wow yeah the veneer join line is way off centre and the flames don't match. Oh well no one will know now its covered in black paint !

Don't leave it too long to take the tape off and scrape the binding. The softer the paint is, the easier it is to scrape.

In keeping with Simon's advice I got onto peeling the tape and scraping the bindings tonight. Here are the before photos with the tape peeled off. It was a sloppy tape job but I just wanted to minimize the amount of paint to scrape.
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And here are the results after a tedious evening of scraping.
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Looks pretty sweet so far CCG!

Sweet indeed. Scraping is tedious and those paint flakes stick to everything!

Looking awesome CGG. I can't wait to see that done. I love the black with the layered binding.. keep up the good work. I am hopefully putting my last coat of clear on tonight then sit and wait to cure for final cut and polish.. then two more kits waiting to get started.

I would it cut back flat after a couple of days; it's just the finer grades of grit and the polishing that you need to wait for the full two weeks or more to do. Sanding back will considerably increase the surface area of the finish, and so help it dry.

Thanks guys. It was a mess with all those sticky plastic bits but well worth the effort. Good luck Drummerdude with the clear coat.

Nice work CGG! The 'before' pics almost shocked me but luckily you also posted the 'after' pics ;)

Looks great! I know the paid of scraping the from to show the purfuling. Its hard and you've done a great job.

"he has committed heinous crimes against society, take him to.......... THE SCRAPING ROOM!"
NOOOOOOoooooooo please your honour! Gimme the chair! Anything but the scraping room!


yup, done a bit of scraping :P

The black looks great

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Sounds like we could form a scraping support group here.

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Originally Posted by CascadiaGuitarGeek

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Sounds like we could form a scraping support group here.

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Yep, we meet twice a week, it's just down the hall, next to the Sanding support room!

That is gonna look sweet Cascadia. I cannot wait to see this thing finished. I didn't mind scraping the binding on my tele build. I actually made my own scraper instead of a razor blade. I took a piece of flat metal bar and grinder it down share and counter ground the tip like I saw on a video from StewMac and they show how the Gibson people scrape bindings and it worked great. I just squeezed my fingers at the proper depth of the binding and moved fairly quickly and the tip being ground backwards kept it from digging on where the veneer meets the binding. That was the tricky parts on mine.

Looking awesome keep up the good work.

Tonight I got the decals on the headstock (partially censored in photo). I dug out a bone nut from my collection to replace the stock black plastic nut as I think that is what is on Hetfield's original guitar. He may have changed it over the years though.

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nice looking headstock CGG, I assume you pixellated the bottom half the diamond shape too ?