February 4 2008: The body sides have been planed to 1-inch thickness and cut to shape for installation on the neck core:

The waste pieces cut from the body sides will be used to clamp them to the neck core after the chamber cutouts are done:

The neck core has been trimmed to the correct length:

I've penciled in the outlines of the chambers:

The body sides and neck core from the back:

February 5, 2008:

Got the body sides chambers cut, then glued them to the neck core:

New Pictures 4/19/08:

April 20, 2008:

The body has been carved to give it those classic SG-style contours:

This picture shows the neck heel - it's been partially carved down to give it the heel-less quality you expect from a neck-through instrument:

The layout of the control cavity has been sketched onto the back of the body, derived from pictures of a 65-vintage red mahogany SG that I found on Ebay, but modified somewhat to clear space for the Tele-style electro-socket jack. The two pots closest to the neck will be Tonestyler Volume/Tone controls, while the two controls closest to the end of the body will be Tonestyler 16-position tone control switches.

August 11, 2008: The neck has been carved, the fingerboard radiused, and the pickup and control cavities have been routed:

August 12, 2008: At Tom's request, I removed a little more material around the heel, primarily on the lower-bout side to make it easier to get at the highest frets. The area I just reworked is still in need of some rough-sanding to remove the marks made by the miniature sanding drum of the Dremel Tool, but you get the idea. :-) Tom will have no trouble reaching those last few frets, I'm thinkin'!

Sept 12, 2008: Two things have been accomplished:

• The side position marker dots have been installed
• The frets have been installed and the ends filed and bevelled

I'll take and post some pictures shortly.

Sept 25, 2008: Here are the promised pictures. First, the frets and side position marker dots are in. You can see them on the left in the picture below. Also, I've applied a coat of epoxy grain filler to seal the grain to allow for a smoother finish, and prevent the wood from soaking up mass quantities of lacquer. In addition, Tom asked me to finish the body with a bit amber tint, and the epoxy I've used has an amber tint to it.

In this next picture you can see the frets and side dots a little better:

The headstock, top surface. After the grain filler dries I'll level-sand and paint the top surface black:

The back of the headstock:

The back of the body after a coat of grain filler has been applied:

The neck heel area:

November 16, 2008: Control Cavity Cover, and two coats of Sanding Sealer:

The control cavity cover in place:

It looks white in the pictures, but it's actually cream/black/cream laminated:

The back of the guitar without the cavity cover, after two coats of sanding sealer:

The front of the body. The fingerboard is masked and will remain so until all coats of lacquer and gold top paint are applied:

Steps remaining:

• Paint top surface of the headstock black
• Two coats of amber-tinted lacquer
• Mask for the gold top paint
• Apply the gold-top paint
• Remove the masking and make sure the edges of the gold top are clean
• Apply about 6 coats of clear gloss lacquer to the whole thing
• Wait 2 weeks for the lacquer to cure
• Final sanding and polishing
• Assembly:
  • Mount pickups
  • Mount controls
  • Mount electrosocket jack
  • Do the wiring and test the electronics
  • Mount Bridge, Bigsby tailpiece, and tuning machines
  • Install and adjust the Buzz Feiten tuning system

I may have left out some minor steps, but the above captures all the important steps.

December 12, 2008:

Over the last few days I've done the black lacquer on the headstock and two coats of amber-tinted lacquer on the back and sides of the body as well as the back of the neck and headstock.

The first coat of the gold-top finish has been applied: Interesting phenomenon is that in the pictures the metallic gold paint looks a LOT grainier than it really is. Weird. I'm going to do one more coat of the gold paint, then remove the masking tape so I can start putting on the clear lacquer top coats. I'll be doing about 12 coats of that.

Looking closely at the pictures above, the gold looks really grainy. This is caused (as near as I can tell) by loose particles of the metal (which is a brass of some kind) that fell onto the surface of the lacquer as I was spraying it on. After these pictures were taken I dusted it off with a soft paint brush before applying the next coat of gold paint.

December 13, 2008: After dusting off the second coat of gold paint, I applied 5 coats of clear lacquer. Here's what it looks like after that:

 

I did the black paint on the headstock about two weeks ago, but now it has a couple coats of clear lacquer over that: