Yamaha SG-3 tear-down and restoration

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Lovely job, as usual.

Just to echo everyone else's sentiments, the best of luck with your surgery.

[rexter]

Hey Ben, like everyone else here hope all goes well with surgery. Did not realise this was on the cards when I saw you and you fixed up the Buickmaster... enjoying playing that again. Take care of that skilled hand man!

[FloralGreen]

Love it so far!

[Pacafeliz]

dude... any updated on yer health?

[theworkoffire]

dude... any updated on yer health?

Yeah, I'm ok, Pat, thanks - had a very serious cancer scare after an MRI scan on a strawberry-sized lump in between my little and ring fingers and out onto my palm. Was diagnosed as a soft-tissue sarcoma, but biopsy results came back with something unexpected and very rare, but not life-threatening. Will still need surgery etc., but won't know much more 'til next week.

Apart from that, I have a shed-load of pics to update on this...

[jimboyogi]

dude... any updated on yer health?

Yeah, I'm ok, Pat, thanks - had a very serious cancer scare after an MRI scan on a strawberry-sized lump in between my little and ring fingers and out onto my palm. Was diagnosed as a soft-tissue sarcoma, but biopsy results came back with something unexpected and very rare, but not life-threatening. Will still need surgery etc., but won't know much more 'til next week.

Apart from that, I have a shed-load of pics to update on this...

Ben, great to hear that it is better news, and crossing all fingers and toes that the news keeps improving.

[rexter]

dude... any updated on yer health?

Yeah, I'm ok, Pat, thanks - had a very serious cancer scare after an MRI scan on a strawberry-sized lump in between my little and ring fingers and out onto my palm. Was diagnosed as a soft-tissue sarcoma, but biopsy results came back with something unexpected and very rare, but not life-threatening. Will still need surgery etc., but won't know much more 'til next week.

Apart from that, I have a shed-load of pics to update on this...

Ben, great to hear that it is better news, and crossing all fingers and toes that the news keeps improving.

+1 - sending good thoughts your way Ben

[Pacafeliz]

[HorseyBoy]

Terrific news, Ben. Thanks for the update, and stay well!

[MattK]

Go Ben. So many sick guitars in this world need your help.

[fuzzking]

Still sorry to hear about the need for surgery. Best of luck and get well soon!

[theworkoffire]

Ok - whole heap of pics of where this is up to now.

Pressing in the frets:



Filling the ends of the slots with superglue and rosewood:



Filing the ends down:



I'm not sure I could have been any less consistent with the pressing, but I wanted them quite low anyway - here leveled prior to crowning and polishing:



Ok - enough of the neck...this is the state of the back of the guard...



...and the front:



And the pickup covers are super-gnarly:



Too gnarly for me...so this is the complete antithesis of the usual coffee/Guinness/rat's piss/bag of spanners relic chicanery.
I started on the single pickup cover with a toothbrush and T-Cut, scouring pads, very fine wet&dry paper and eventually my buffer wheel:



That worked fine, but I couldn't think how to do it on the double cover without destroying the Yamaha logo. This was as far as I got before I had to stop:



Then I stumbled across a whole bunch of vintage PC freaks who found a way to reverse UV damage to old keyboards - the trick is a very strong clothing stain-remover powder mix, counter-intuitively left in direct sunlight for a few days:



Result!




The pickups were particularly nasty:



Complete with maggot...



I gave all the steel hardware an electrolysis bath to remove all the rust:








And buffed the knobs!




Shiny box of bits:



And now the body's freshly primed. I have a couple of days to try to get some pearl on this - I have one random rattlecan of pearl white I picked up on the cheap from Rothko&Frost, but I'm going to try to do this manually with some slightly tinted oly white and pearl powder:

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Love the maggot shot & that electrolysis bath looks like lasagne!

Great work on the pickup covers too.

[46346]

the unstoppable work of fire! really enjoying your process, man.

[antisymmetric]

Inspiring!!