Almost There...

The lacquer on the Rick body has had plenty of time to dry hard now, and we tried screwing the hardware in place. Unfortunately we hadn't followed everyone else's advice and tested the screw holes were correctly alligned before painting the body.

There were several misalliged holes on the body. The hole adjacent to the neck pick up was completely wrong and there was no way the pickup could be screwed down with the wire correctly passing through the hole so we had to improvise:

We carved out an area of the wood with a knife blade to the right of the neck cavity to allow the cable to pass through unhindered when the pickup is screwed down. The carved area is hidden entirely when the pickup is in place so all is well.

We also found that the some of the holes for the scratchplate screws don't line up. Fortunately they're so innacurate that we will be able to carefully drill new holes for them without coming into conflict with the existing holes.

Despite thinking that the inside of the neck cavity would require sanding to get the neck to fit, it actually fits OK - there's just a bit of a knack to getting it in.

We attached the neck to the body and screwed in the two humbuckers. We also attached the control knobs to the scratchplate.

The two photos below show the guitar in its current state of completion. The tailpiece that we ordered and mentioned in the last post arrived and is shown in the photos (not screwed in) - but it's a bit too big really. I'm still deciding on whether to use it (it leaves very little space between the tailpiece and the bridge) or the original one that came with the kit. It looks great - just that little bit too long.



The tuners that we ordered had also arrived - but annoyingly weren't quite the right ones. After thinking we had thought of everything (Chrome, 3 left hand, 3 right hand, to fit 10mm holes) we hadn't considered where the screw holes need to line up on the guitar neck. The Wilkinson tuners we had ordered have the screw directly beneath the tuner. The kit necks come pre-drilled with holes down and slightly offset from the tuner.

We've returned the Wilkinson tuners and ordered some Gotoh ones from http://www.highlystrung.co.uk/ (We've ordered the SG381-20C ones. At least I hope we have - as of tonight the website is showing them as out of stock. Hopefully we got the last set!)

The Black Stripes

With the bodies of the LP kit and the Rick kit pretty much finished colour wise, this evening we focussed on the neck of the Rick kit and tried to replicate the Rickenbacker stripes shown to the left.

We achieved the effect by placing masking tape down the centre of the back of the neck, and down the centre of the headstock where the black paint should be. We then used this masking tape as a guide for placing more strips of masking tape over the areas of the neck that should remain blue. Finally we removed the central strip of masking tape exposing the areas of the neck that should receive the black spray.

We then used the transparent black spray paint we had ordered from SS20.com to spray the exposed areas. The intention was that some of the grain of the wood would still show through the paint - but the paint dried a lot more opaque than it appeared when wet and when completely dry the effect is just like normal black spray. A coat or two less would have left more of the grain showing through.

However, when the black paint had dried and we peeled off the masking tape any worries about the grain not showing through were cast aside as the finished result looks brilliant. A few pictures of it below:

To complete the Rick kit we've ordered some better quality tuners and a nicer tailpiece than the one supplied with the kit, again from http://www.axesrus.com/

Cutting Necks, Fitting Hardware and more blue paint

A few developments since the last post:

The Les Paul, with the colour finished has been fitted with hardware - before and after photos below:

Some of the hardware is better quality than that supplied with the kit. The scratchplate and humbuckers are from http://www.axesrus.com/.

The headstock has been cut to a Les Paul style shape too and sprayed black - but I don't have a photograph of this at the moment.

The Rick body, which was looking very green due to the yellowness of the wood underneath has had many, many more coats of clear blue lacquer to try to bring some more blue to the colour. Finally, it is looking really good. It's not blue like the originally intended colour, but is now a fairly deep turquoise which looks quite spectacular - far better than the photos do justice.

The "Sunburst" finish is more apparant in real life too with the outsides of the guitar appearing a deeper turquiose than the centre.

The neck has been cut into a Rick style shape and sprayed the same colour as the body. The next step for this neck is to attempt the translucent dark/black areas that feature on a real Rickenbacker. We were unable to find black, transparant nitrocellulose lacquer like the paint that the rest of the guitar is finished in, but have found some "Transparent Black" aerosol spray from SS20.com, a site that sells aerosol paint for skateboards and graffiti art.

The cans are cheap and we're going to test some of the spray out before applying it to the neck in case we ruin what we've already done! If it is suitable then we should be able to mask parts of the neck and spray the sides of the front and the centre of the back with transparent black.

Finally, a couple of pictures showing the guitars side by side in their current state and the Rick body and neck side by side:

Glorious Technicolor (Well, a greeny blue actually!)

The coloured laquers arrived today and we started spraying the bodies of the guitars. The guitars were screwed to small planks of wood through the screw holes where the neck would be attached and hung from beams in Neil's garage. We placed a fan heater in the garage to warm the air to assist the drying of the lacquer.

The LP was given 5 coats in total - leaving it a rather nice turquiose colour. The first coat hardly made any difference to the colour of the wood at all, but subsequent coats left the guitar first green, and then progressively blue with each coat.

The pictures below show the guitar after no coats, two coats and four coats.












We sprayed the Rick body too, but this is a bigger job as the whole body has to be sprayed, not just the top. Also the lacquer did not seem to take as well to the wood. So far it has had three coats and still looks clearly unfinished. After the first couple of coats on the LP, the colour started going on much quicker, so hopefully after another few coats we can bring the Rick body up to the level of the LP body.


The photo of the Rick kit is a bit misleading - the guitar does look a bit more blue (well, green really at this stage) in real life - but it's still going to take a few more coats to bring it up to the standard of the LP finish.

Matt Black, and a change of plans

The back of the Les Paul body got sprayed black today - the finish looks excellent:



The Rick kit hasn't been touched yet because it's going to be blue all over and we haven't got any blue stain yet. It turned out that the shop around the corner that sells the bright coloured wood stains mentioned in the previous post has closed down. Also we tried applying some wood stain to the back of the LP kit before spraying it black and the stains don't hold very well - the Saga kits have got quite a bit of sealant over their basswood that prevents the stains getting into the wood. Rather than spend ages sanding the guitars down, we're going for plan B.

Plan B is to get some spray on nitrocellulose laquer from the Manchester Guitar Tech web site which they recommend for colouring guitars. Some of the laquers they sell are translucent allowing the grain of the guitar body to show through - the effect we're trying to achieve. We've gone for the "Clear Blue" colour.

They claim it's fairly light when sprayed thinly but "more coats result in a deep blue" - so we're hoping to achieve the desired blueburst effect by spraying more heavily around the outsides of the guitar than in the centre.



As shown to the left, the sunburst finishes the lacquers can create is incredible.

Time will tell whether we will be able to get anywhere near that finish!

Picking Colours

Last night we had a look on the Internet for wood stains to stain the bodies and necks of the guitars. We've both decided on blue as a main colour - all over for the Rick and just on the top for the LP which will have a black back. We'd rather stain the wood than spray it to allow some of the wood grain to show through, particularly on the LP that has a lovely flamed top.

We've chosen stains from Hannants - the colour range is great and they sell them at a shop around the corner. Hopefully we'll be able to pick them up today and start the staining next week. We've chosen the colours Toy Blue and Jet Black.


I've seen the type of effect I would like to recreate on the Rick kit - a lovely blue burst effect on the body, and a blue neck with the Rick style stained skunk stripe running up the back of the neck. I need to figure out how I can make that work though...



The Rick pictures above are of a Rickenbacker 360 rather than a 330 but show the overall effect we would like to achieve on the guitars.

The Les Paul has arrived

We've finally managed to sort out a replacement for the Les Paul Jr. that was sent by mistake - the Les Paul kit arrived in the post yesterday. It looks good with a nice flamed arched top. Much nicer!




The neck fits snugly on this one, although it sits a little high and may require some sanding to get a decent action. Like the Rickenbacker, I placed the hardware on the guitar to get some idea of the look of the assembled look:






Next we're going to buy some wood stain and have a go at testing some colours on some test pieces of wood before applying the stain to the guitars. We're hoping to stain the wood rather than spray it to keep some of the grain visible through the finish - particularly on the Les Paul where the flame top is very nice indeed!


In other news, I found another blog, Ash's Guitar Build of someone who has been through this process on a PRS style Saga kit. I think their finished guitar looks amazing!


Also, there is an article on building a Saga PRS style kit on the Manchester Guitar Tech. site.

Hopefully these will prove themselves as useful resources as we continue the build.