PeMe's sgd 612 doubleneck

It has finally arrived! my sgd612 doubleneck.
After finishing my first build (a 12string tele) i orded a doubleneck, as i always wanted one.

Out of the box it looks kinda rough, alot rougher than the tele, but i think i can smooth it out quit a bit.

I'm thinking about finishing it painted all black but that can change along the way and i hope for some ideas from you guys along the way, maybe staining it instead, time will tell
Attachment 20538 Attachment 20539
I do like the grain on the fretboard tho, but the frets needs some work.
Attachment 20540

oooh big job lined up!

Oh very nice.....doing the BG 46 kit myself. First step....talk with weirdbits about what you intend to do with electronics. Your kit appears to have three switches.....mine has two.....made it a little harder.

Even BASSWOOD can look great with a stain......have you considered some of the water or alcohol based stains out there? You can get a great finish with Tru Oil or wipe-on Polyurethane over stains.

Whilst not a big fan of Dingo Tone....I will acknowledge the beautiful grain it lifts out from hiding in your wood.....personally I would recommend doing the deep or base colour and then the intensifying coat.....but use Tru Oil or Poly as the gloss coat.

Good luck mate....you will love the work. :)

P.S. I can highly recommend the Tone Rider pickups from Pit Bull

https://www.pitbullguitars.com/tonerider-pickups/

I can also recommend the service and pricing of Real Parts for some extras for your build. http://www.realparts.com.au

Some wild grain pattern happening on the 6 string neck.

Been very, very tempted to have a go at one of these and will keep an eye how things progress.

Good luck and remember to have fun as there will be some challenges along the way particularly when it comes to wiring up.

on closer inspection of the necks i found out that it needs some sanding, its quit a few marks and dings on em.
what is the best way to go about doing it. Do i need to remove the frets sand it down and refret or can i sand across the grain so that i dont have to do a complete fretwork?

Soldering iron and wet cloth can help to steam out dents. Razor blade/scraper can scrape with the grain for a nice smooth surface between frets. Icecream sticks or plywood strips of different widths with sandpaper stuck on will allow you to sand with the grain and conform to the fretboard radius. It dependa on how much work is needed and the size of the marks/dents as to which method is best.

Thax WeirdBits!
Ill see what i can do with the fretboards.
Here's some pics of todays work, so far. I might work on it a bit more. Its kinda addicted.....:p


Ive reshaped the body a bit as i thought that the "fades" at the horns looked a little strange, i made em a bit more "faded" and i also reshaped the cutaway abit on the lower horn to get better access to the higher frets.


It doesnt show up that obvious on the pic but iv sharpend the edges around the fades
Attachment 20561

Here's a pic showing the lower horn.

Attachment 20562

Been sanding up to 400 now and have made up my mind on the color.
Waterbased ebony stain. Hopefully i get it deep black with the grain just showing a bit.
Final finish will prolly be trueoil, IF i can get my hands on some......

Thoughts, hints & tips are more than welcome :)

After sanding with 400 on Basswood you may struggle to get any stain to penetrate as once you reach 240 that seems to be the limit where any more sanding actually becomes polishing.

I tend to stop somewhere between 120 & 180 if wanting a lot of colour absorption. The smoothing out can be done later through the top clear coats.

A major change has been growing in my head today. Gonna paint the body white?! , dunno what to do with the neck yet but i think that the black hardware will go nice with a white body.
So, off to the workshop for some paint prep. :)

Ive started to prep the body for paint, dont have any pics of it tho.
And ive also starting on the necks.
While i was looking at the headstock of the 12 string neck i realized that the headstock looked enormous as the turnerholes was to far away from eachother, so i thought that i should try to place them i lill bit closer to eachother and therefore be able to make the headstock smaller.
I started to prep some ash that i had lying around to make some plugs for the existing holes.
I drilled a hole in some metal i had that matched the diameter of the turnerholes (10,5mm) and then started to push the wood through it
Attachment 20568

Then i glued it in place
Attachment 20569

i didnt cared much to get the grain matched as im planning on painting the headstock later on.
Here's the result after some sanding.
Attachment 20570

Nice work PeMe, what thickness was the steel you used for your forming die?

Have just painted my headstock where I plugged the holes. Give the primer time to shrink back before committing to your top coat and gloss. Even after doing all that I could still see the old tuner holes. Just saying. I used Nitro tho.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JB RETRO

Have just painted my headstock where I plugged the holes. Give the primer time to shrink back before committing to your top coat and gloss. Even after doing all that I could still see the old tuner holes. Just saying. I used Nitro tho.

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+1 to this. I had similar experience with plugging tailstop anchor holes in my LP build. At least 48-72 hours cure time per coat (Rustoleum 2x flat grey primer), plus a light wetsand (P1000) between each second coat to finally get a smooth finish across the plugs. I think i ended up with 6 coats on it prior to going back to colour.

Hope you have checked spacing between each tuner from the rear as from the front it didn't look too far off from being right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FrankenWashie

Nice work PeMe, what thickness was the steel you used for your forming die?

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The steel is 1,5mm thick. I didnt sand or smoothen the whole out so the sharpness of the whole could do its work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wazkelly

Hope you have checked spacing between each tuner from the rear as from the front it didn't look too far off from being right?

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There was nothing wrong with the spacing of the wholes, but i will reshape the whole headstock so the wholes needs to me redrilled.

OK, fair enough and understand that 12 tuners take up a lot of real estate.

Been down at my workshop for a couple of hours and getting closer for some paint on the body
Attachment 20719
Ive also started to work a bit on the headstocks
Attachment 20720Attachment 20721

Oooh, that headstock work looks nice!

I had some issues with the primer vs paint and needed to sand it all down to bare wood and apply another primer that was compatible with my main paint.
so after a few days of frustration im now at where i was a few days ago, but this time the paint wont crack when i start to paint the guitar and necks.
Ive learned the hard way that you need to know BEFORE you start to put on the primer if it is compatible with the 2 componet paint and if you aren't shure, test it on some scrap wood you have lying around so you dont need to put loads and loads of work into sanding down to bare wood.
Here are some pics of where im currently at in the progress.

Body and necks

Attachment 20929

Headstocks
Still love the grain on the 6-string neck

Attachment 20930

The body, ive reposition the controlls bit as i felt that the bridge would be in the way.
I've also moves the jack to the front just because i can :p

Attachment 20931

Nice work on the headstocks.