I got a Harley Benton kit for Christmas, which was a perfect excuse to up my skills and build a guitar I’d buy myself.
I wanted to go for a seafoam green stained guitar, but the coat that was on the body already penetrated so deep that I couldn’t sand it off without messing up the body. I probably should have started with a layer of white stain as well, since the wood turned out pretty dark. I decided to go with a more worn look (not relic though), and I like how it turned out. I finished it with penetrating finishing oil and Renaissance wax.
With regards to hardware, I put in a brass trem block, vintage saddles, Wilkinson vintage split shaft tuners, roller string trees and The Heritage RPS6 Jimi Hendrix style pickups. I also redid most of the wiring.
When I put the guitar together, the pickup selector had died, so I replaced that with a proper one as well.
The setup took me a while, but is as good as it’s gonna get with an action of 1.25 - 1.5 mm and an almost straight neck.
I probably put in two to three times the money that the kit costs, and a lot of hours, but it was was worth it.
That’s rad you did a good job
Looks sick man. I actually really like worn look it has.
Well-loved look goes hard :)
I dunno if it will help now, but you might be able to bleach the body to reduce the intensity of the colour.
(Would 100% test on an offcut that has been stained and finished like the main body)
Maybe for a future build, but for now I’m happy with how it turned out. I still have half a bottle of stain, so who knows.
Nice! I think the faded green looks pretty cool. I’m jealous.
If I were you I’d make up some kind of decal to put on the headstock, because I always feel like they look slightly strange blank.
Also I’d probably go with a vintage white pickguard at some point too, as the bright white stands out too much against all of the other vintage-looking stuff.
Yeah, I need to find something for the headstock. I’ll work on the pickguard as well. I bought a mint green one, but it was way to green. I saw a cool Hendrix parchment one, but the angle of the bridge pickup is reversed, and that won’t fit in the body cavity. I’ll probably end up relicing this one.
Nicely done! Will show the photo to my husband, he will definitely appreciate this as he made a DIY guitar himself some years ago - even chose the seafoam green color, though went for an opaque finish.
That is gorgeous work… now, for the 60-thousand dollar question… how does it play?
It plays like a dream, low action, near perfect fretwork. I spent more time on the setup than I’d like to admit, but it was worth it.
Looks great! I saw some of your progress shots on Pixelfed, nice to see it here too!
Looks great dude! I build a les paul body over a decade ago and never got the electronics to work lol … one day I’ll finish.
