I just finished up one project so it's time for another. I have this donor RG570 body that I used while my last swirl was curing so I decided to carve it up into a Jem. Eventually it's going to be a Dark PAW swirl. I have a 550 neck for it that I'm going to try to make my first fretboard for, thinking ebony with pyramids...

Got the handle and lion's claw done, new output jack drilled, and old jack filled. Next is converting the pup routes to direct mount. I'll put up pics of that if anyone is interested. So here's the progress so far.

Coolio

looks nice.
was wood added for the claw or you just make it longer than normal ?

i did my first grip the other day and it was alot easier than i imagined.

I didn't add any wood but I made it a little steeper angled slope so it didn't go much longer.

The grip was a lot easier than the claw for sure. I used the measurements for the grip from projectguitar.com, but moved the whole thing back about 3/16 or 1/4 it seemed like his was too far forward towards the horn...

Very nice work man, the claw looks very clean.

I did the same thing on my grip, but I used a 3/4 inch bit instead of the recommended 7/8". I think it made the whole route look a little better.

That came out great man! I used a 7/8 holesaw on the top 3 holes and a 3/4 holesaw on the last. If I do it again I will probably stick with those.

The claw's not perfect, but it came out pretty decent considering it was freehand with a Dremel

I have a little filling and smoothing out to do on the pickup routes and then it will be ready to finish priming...



I've been doing some testing with some new fluoro colors and I think this is the swirl pattern I'm going to go for on this project. I like smaller tight lines of colors instead of big patches and so far this paint seems to be working well for that. It's a little blotchy and runny because the wood had some wet patches of thinner in it from cleaning the previous swirl off....

It might just be me, but the thin spots look cool as hell. It's giving the swirl a sort of "nebula" effect. Very "outer space" looking.

Yeah man I'd probably be more than happy if it came out like that minus the little globs of black

Got around to finishing up the body work and priming the RG/Jem.... The holes are filled and the next step will be to dunk it.

I'm using 1shot flouro green, pink, and chartruese and black to do a PAW sort of swirl. There's going to be a lot of black like the swirl pics I put up...





I also did some work on my RG470 project. It has a walnut veneer and the back and sides are ebony stain. I'm pretty happy with the veneer, you can't even tell where the two pieces join in the middle, not bad for my first time

I got 2 light coats of sealer on before I ran out...

Dude...that 470 looks BAD A$$!!!

I'd love to see you do a natural wood pickguard on it like my 570, maybe in a natural quilt maple for contrast??......... that would look incredible!!!

Looking forward to seeing the dip on the 570!!

Thanks man! A wood pickguard would be cool man but I'm diggin the walnut a lot and don't want to cover any of it up

I really wanted to do the swirl today, but my herniated discs didn't want me to... Too hard to have the right kind of attitude and patience when the back is flared up bad...

Did the swirl last night and I really like how it came out except for the back, but it's the back so... meh

I was going for a darker more chaotic version of the PAW and that's what happened. I used 1shot paints for this swirl. They are a real PITA to work with compared to Humbrol, but the flouro colors are like day-glow. The pics do not do the colors justice at all...in fact if it looked like the pics in real life I'd start over

The front is just gnarly(in a good way). It's like you fed a PAW some red kryptonite. I kinda like the back too since it has a different flavor to it.

cool man gnarly is pretty much what I was going for on this one

I didn't want it to be all perfect lines and nice even swirls... I mixed the paints around until they were almost starting to blend trying to get some craziness going on...