October GOTM

[Brendan]

October Guitar of the Month (for Guitars and Basses finished in September)

Enter your finished guitar or bass here to be judged for the Pit Bull Guitars October Guitar of the Month.

Please remember:

For Guitars or Basses finished on (or before) the end of September.

One guitar/bass per member per month.
It must be a Pit Bull Guitars kit (mods and upgrades acceptable).
Guitar or Bass must be finished and playable.

We need at least 4 photos:
· full guitar shot from the front;
· close up of the body finish;
· shot of the back of the guitar; and
· close up of the headstock (please, no brand name logos)


Please post your photos in this thread. If you are having issues posting photos on the forum, please email them to brendan (at) pitbullguitars (dot) com

Please note: This competition is open to amateur guitar builders only. If you are making and selling guitars for profit, you are ineligible. Also while there are some stunning guitars around - you never know what the judges are looking for, so we encourage anyone who's built a Pitbull during the month to enter!

Competition for October closes at the end of September (Perth Western Australian time).

The sorts of things we judge on include:
· How well have the body and neck been prepared
· Is the choice of finish for the style of guitar appropriate
· How well has the finish been applied
· How well has all the hardware, pickups, etc, been installed
· Does it have the 'Wow Factor'· Which guitar would you make a beeline for in a guitar shop. That is, which one would you most like to take home.

BTW - remember that the winner is invited to be a guest judge the following month!

[ozzbike]

The Build Diary....

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ad.php?t=10588

Standard Electronics, bone nut, Gotoh Tuners, Switchcraft jack, recessed jack socket.

Spray can black body finish. Stained and Spray poly neck and fretboard.

[ozzbike]

Just two more....

[Sonic Mountain]

Gloss black is the hardest paint to do really well. I think you’ve made a great effort. Getting that really high gloss requires the right products, and while possible by hand, is best done with an electric buffer. Personally I think this has a lovely vintage look. Once it gets a bit of wear and tear I think it’ll look great.

[ozzbike]

Gloss black is the hardest paint to do really well. I think you’ve made a great effort. Getting that really high gloss requires the right products, and while possible by hand, is best done with an electric buffer. Personally I think this has a lovely vintage look. Once it gets a bit of wear and tear I think it’ll look great.

Sonic, thanks for the nice comments.

My idea was classically simple like the photo on my first page of my build thread. I hope I got close.

She plays really well. 😎

[Simon Barden]

4 years after joining the PB forums and ordering my first of many guitar kits, I've finally finished one of them! Its the SGJ-1, which just happened to be one of the two kits that arrived in May this year.

I didn't use any of the kit hardware except the control cavity backplate. So we have:

Bare Knuckle Nantucket 90 P90 pickup.
3.0mm fibreboard shim made for the pickup.
CTS pots
Pure Tone 1/4" output jack
WD Music PIO 0.022uF capacitor
24-spline knobs for CTS pots and metal pointers from Axesrus.
Musiclily adjustable wraparound bridge
Kluson revolution 19:1 vintage style rear locking tuners
Bone nut
Schaller strap locks
3-ply truss-rod cover
Bespoke 3-ply pickguard more in keeping with a vintage SG Jr pickguard shape.

The body was first grain filed with dark brown tinted Aqua Clear grain filler, then stained with spirit-based Vintage Cherry stain. It was then sprayed with some clear nitro lacquer, then some vintage cherry tinted lacquer to help cover up the odd wood blemish and centreline join line that I felt were too prominent on their own, and more clear lacquer on top of that. Various sand-throughs saw localised touch-ups with brown Sharpie and vintage cherry nitro.











The headstock had a 0.8mm thick fibreboard veneer fitted on the top face, which helped give a nice solid edges and corners. It's so easy to round off the basic wood headstock when sanding, whilst the fibreboard is far harder and keeps it shape so much better.

The SB logo is a thin pearlescent vinyl disk with a black decal over the top. And then much clearcoat.

The locking tuners are a bit heavier than the standard vintage Klusons, but the guitar still balances well on its strap. At 6.2lbs/2.8kg, it's a nice light guitar to strap on and play.

The neck has a good vintage Gibson feel to it. It's quite rounded in feel, but not too chunky and comfortable in the hand. Certainly different to the more ubiquitous modern C-shape that most of the kits have. the fretwork was pretty muck spot on, with no rough fret ends. I did do a token fret level, but it really was minimal and I could have got away with not doing one. The neck joins the body at the 22nd fret, and with the SG cutaways as well, there's certainly no limit to upper fret access. In fact this shifts the neck forward a bit, rather like on a Firebird, one reason that SGs are prone to be neck-heavy. It does mean that the guitar is very long, and you'll need an extra long case to fit it in. I bought a Gator XL ABS case for it which is 4cm longer than standard, and it fits in with 2cm to spare.

Action is low, rather than super-low (my normal set up), so about 1mm on the treble side and 1.5mm on the bass. Below that it does get a bit buzzy.





It's obviously got a P90 with a wide flat coil and is very liable to pick up hum, a lot more so than a Strat or Tele single coil does. So the pickup cavity and control cavity were foil shielded, and I must say that it's very effective. There is some very slight hum, but no more so than even a humbucker equipped guitar, as long as the guitar isn't placed right next to an amp (where the hum is then more magnetically induced from the transformer than from RFI).



I've wired it up in the 'vintage' way, with the tone circuit connected to the volume pot output, rather than input. This certainly saves any need to fit a treble bleed circuit, as it cleans up really nicely without losing any top-end when the volume is reduced. And if you want a clean sound and have any gain at all dialled in your amp, then you'll need to turn that volume control back to get a clean sound and stop the guitar from overdriving the amp, as it does have a lot of output. Certainly fatter than a bridge Strat or Tele pickup is, but still with a lot of clarity, just how I envisaged it would be.

[blinddrew]

Can't believe it's your first submission! That front finish is sublime

[fender3x]

Amazing attention to detail. It looks like a faithful better-than-original

[Bugeye29]

Looks fantastic Simon, a great effort.

[Sonic Mountain]

Really nice Simon, kicked of with a couple of classics this month.