Swanny Jr's MB-1

[Swanny]

While I put together my ES-12G my nearly 18yo son, Alex, was watching eagerly to see if I did a crap job, or if he would put out the cash to buy a kit to build. He already has an Epiphone LP Standard that he's taught himself a fair bit on.

Well he's been working hard with his two part time jobs, and now he has this kit ...



The colour and style will be up to Alex, not an old fart like me. I'll try and keep my hands off as much as I can, and get him to do the sanding and staining, and construction. It'll be a good experience for him, as you can't use an Xbox controller to sand!

So far he's ordered a pair of EMG active pickups, so it looks like I'll be doing a bit of routing to fit a 9v battery box into the body.

[wokkaboy]

nice one Swanny Junior, should end up with a cool looking axe.
How big are the control cavities on the MB-1 ? Presume he will route a separate 9V battery cavity

[Swanny]

You can see the rear cover in the top left of the photo, so it's not a large area.

I don't think I can trust him on a router yet... I'll be very cautious about it, myself.

[wokkaboy]

yeah with 4 pots in the control cavity there won't be room for the battery. Best have a separate box anyway with small latch so you don't have to remove the cover to change a battery.
If your son hasn't used a router before best you route the battery box cavity Swanny !

[gavinturner]

Congrats on the kit Swanny Jnr, and your new found addiction. Looking forward to seeing how the build develops.

cheers,
Gav.

[SwannyJR]

G'day Guys! SwannyJR here!

For anyone who is wondering i was hoping to get a finish like this:



Hoping to get the headstock on the MB-1 similar to the Schecter as well. I find the design rather "slick".

Going to be a awesome build with those EMGs

-Alex

[wokkaboy]

nice one Swanny Jr, a black/silver burst will look very cool !

[gavinturner]

nice plan!

cheers,
Gav.

[west0288]

Oooo! Another MB build! I like seeing these progress, so I'll be watching this build with interest. Have fun with it.

[Swanny]

Well, I've had the young bloke doing a bit of work off and on (more off than on!), and taught him how to sand. He's had fun with that!

First we hit it with a black stain, to see if there was anything we could do with the grain. Then it was over to Junior to build up his muscles.



Since the theme of the guitar is going to be a black and white style burst, we got some white stain from a large building, green in colour, and tried that out. Can't say that the results were impressive. The stain was like a thin paint, acting different to the ink I used on my ES-12G. It didn't seem to penetrate the timber at all.

I tried a couple of things on some scrap timber, diluting Liquid Paper with thinners, mixing it with clear (gave a milky translucent finish), but at the end of all our mucking around, we decided to go a solid colour.

In the meantime, after the young bloke pencilled in the headstock design, we tickled it with the jigsaw for a bit, and then more sanding! We also cut out a spot for the battery to mount in the rear, for the active pickups. (router slipped a bit...oops!)



Weather being absolutely brilliant at the moment... I waited till the humidity was just under 70% and put down some colour this afternoon.





Next up is to add the black burst.