BUILDING A SAGA SG-STYLE

Note from GuitarAttack:  Cool inlays, cool bridge, and nice execution.  Great work!

From Levi Zinser -

This guitar was built by my father and me from a Saga SG-10 kit. Do note I used an AllParts bridge, fret inlays from Creative Cuts and two Fender knobs on the volume pots. The headstock itself its shaped to look like a JayDee guitar.

A few reasons for this build: (1) I used to have an SG, that my ex had me sell.  It was an Epiphone G-400, but the neck on it was just not comfortable and it had a crack in the body under the finish, so aside from one recording session it never got played
(2) I'm a big fan of Black Sabbath, so I wanted to make a copy of Tony Iommi's "Old Boy" SG, however I didn't have the cash for the Schaller 455 bridge, so I went with the "badass" style that Iommi had on the Monkey SG and John Birch SG (I might make a metal pickguard down the road).

It took my father and I about four months or so to do this project.  My first guitar (also my fathers first) was a Gibson Melody Maker (it lives in my safe now) so I had a fondness for the wrap around bridge. The holes were plugged with wooden dowels I got from a hardware store. A bit of Bondo was used to level them with the body, then shot with some primer (I think this was Sherman Williams).  To set up the new bridge I just averaged out the distance between the two old bridge holes and then the body was drilled for new anchors. The paint believe it or not is Rustoleum gloss black, 4 or 6 coats, the Meguiar's Mirror Finish was used to level it out after a few weeks of drying.

I had the grooves of the nut filed down to bring the action down at the first fret.  I set the action up to mach my Gibson Les Paul Faded Double Cut (that I swapped the P90s out for P100s, but that's another story).  The intonation on this have been a bit of a challenge.  I had the U on the treble side of the bridge ground down a bit to bring it in more and things seem better.  I also put pencil graphite in the nut slots to help with tuning.  I had to do some slight truss rod adjusting and had to file on the 13 fret a bit.

The cross inlays come from Creative Cuts.  The other night I painted on the headstock with a paint pen and put and LZ in a circle (like JayDee did their logo on Iommi's SG) then wrote Tony Iommi Custom.  To make the circle I traced the base of a 35mm film canister. I've used it live a few times tuned in E flat, and now it lives in C#.  Someday I hope to get a Schaller bridge on it and a Gibson Iommi Humbucker in the bridge position.  One last note -- one of the strap lugs was relocated from the back of the guitar and that hole plugged with epoxy.  The lug was moved to the horn, like both my LP DC and Iommi's SG.

This SG plays a LOT better than the Epiphone I had, it feels a lot like a Gibson other than the body seems to be a lighter wood than mahogany.  If only Saga would make an SG kit with a bound fretboard and P90 slots I'd build Iommi's Monkey SG.

Levi Zinser

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