Wiring it up and finishing touches

Lacquered Up

As agreed, my co-worker Kerry would paint and finish the guitar. Working with a friend who I’m told has finished guitars for some big names in rock, the guitar was finished in a brilliant, beautiful deep red. They did a fade on the neck, keeping the natural mahogany visible in the middle. The finish looks just great.

Giving her a “voice”

Wiring complete

Although the guitar came back to me wired up, due to some last minute changes in components I re-worked the electronics. For a single-pickup SG with a Golden Age P90, the work is fairly trivial. The lacquer had plugged up the holes a bit, so after carefully reaming them out with a 3/8″ round rasp, I was able to install the freshly wired components and give her a spin.

Finishing touches

One thing that I had originally wanted was to label this guitar with the band’s name and logo. Unfortunately due to time constraints there simply wasn’t enough time to inlay something into the headstock. Also, as I knew I wanted it painted to match the body, an inlay would have been painful to work around – or clean up subsequent…and I definitely wasn’t going to inlay a painted headstock. So that left something like a waterslide decal – however this would have required the painter to do the work and this was already a rush job for them.

The idea came to me to have the pick guard and truss rod cover engraved. Fortunately we know a wonderful person who does this stuff for a living – and has helped me out several times in the past with urgent requests. She not only agreed to take this one last minute, but as this was for charity, the work was done gratis!

My wonderful wife coordinated all of this, including the drop off and pick up of the work – and it was perfectly executed. After filling it with some gold paint and sanding it back, the results were better than I’d envisioned.

Fresh from the engraver

Filled in with gold paint using a toothpick. I’ll handle the overflow with a scraper and some 2000 grit paper.

The Final Product

I think the finished product looks great. It sounds great as well – though I’ll save that for when I can get someone more accomplished on the electric to wail on it for me.