BUILDING A SAGA S-STYLE

From Eric Ponce de Leon <ericp006@hotmail.com>

My Name is Eric & here are some images taken of my Saga Strat Guitar Kit i bought from e-bay a few years ago .. it's had two paint jobs & three changes

The first thing i did was mount all the hardware.  I built another brand guitar kit prior to this one so i knew there would be some screw hole & other misc hardware problems w/matching up.  Next I installed all parts including pick guard, pick ups, input jack, neck, tuners, tremolo springs & claw, & thed disassembled the whole thing.

I got the body prepped for sealing the wood prior to stain and/or paint and decided on a cherry stain.  The stain ended up having really tiny bubbles coming through the stain.  I put it together the first time with Fender Lace Sensor/neck, Fender Strat/middle, Seymour Duncan Hot Rail Scorcher, Allparts pots, Fender stock sealed tuners, Fender 5-way selector switch, and a Tortoiseshell pick guard

Once I started noticing the tiny bubble coming thru the stain, even though they were very minor, it continue to eat away at me!  I sanded it back down but not all the way - just enough to keep the wood sealed.  I primered it and painted it BMW Jet Black-668... and then a few clear coats.

I then put it together w/all the same parts, same guitar just a diff color.  The first two changes had the same pick up configuration.

After paying it a while like that I decided to go with a diff set up.  I got a Dark Black Pearoid single humbucker pickguard, an Allparts 500k Volume Pot w/chrome knob, kept the stock tremolo (blocked), and threw it all back together.  This is how the guitar remains and will stay... so far...

The humbucker is a Seymour Duncan Dimebucker, which is killer.  I finished it off by shaping the headstock like a Tele instead of a Strat headstock.

The guitar is amazing to say the least.  I hope you can put these images on your site.  I am very pleased and proud of my work.  My next saga project is going to be a Tele kit.  I really love Tele's and really want to build another one of the Saga kits.  I build plenty of guitars & am always making changes...

By the way:  I didn't use any of the pick ups, electrical wiring, pots, tuners, or pick guard from the kit.

If anyone would like to take a look at any of my other project please hit me up @ ericp006@hotmail.com .  I'm also on MySpace under the band name ReallyBIGMidgetz.  From there i can get you to my actual MySpace page because I don't remember my screen name right now... hah!

Eric Ponce De Leon
Bakersfield, Calif

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