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Here's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
I've been playing guitar now for over 33 years, but never got around to going electric. I'd settled my heart on a Gibson Les Paul, however given my budget constraints, I had a choice of an el-cheepo copy, or a Saga kit. The kit idea turned my crank and sounded like a lot of fun!
First order of business was to do some research, what's out there and what do I look out for. The and pages at really helped and gave me many good pointers which were put to good use once my LC-10 arrived in the mail.
Sound Bites: , ,
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Here's what the basic kit contains
Everything you need to build your own Les Paul
Brand new out of box experience |
Sanding off the sealer
is it epoxy?
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Still sanding |
After stripping the nasty sealer off the Les Paul body, I assembled it and gave it a basic set up. All of the electronics worked, and the tone was pretty good.
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even more sanding |
Whew 6 hours later,
I'm done! |
Test run |
I stained the sides and back of the body with a mixture of walnut and mahogany stains from Minwax, then hit it with about 18 coats of clear, sanding and smoothing between each coat. My mistake was using a brush on Minwax clear which never went perfectly level. I resorted to a spray bomb Minwax fast drying clear, for the last 6 coats, much better.
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Sounding good |
Intonation's not bad |
Hmm, should'a tightened
that a bit |
Now for some clear coat |
Brushed on several coats
to build, later I'll spray |
How many pieces of basswood
can we count? |
The figure of bookmatched
maple, looking nice |
Testing out headstock
shape, and inlay |
Spray time |
The neck was a different story, I made a mock up of the head stock out of wood from an old skid, and experimented with creating an inlay. I made a "Mother of aluminum siding" logo of my own design. Once I was happy with the concept, I attacked the Headstock for real, and inlayed a Mother of Pearl version of my logo. My routing job wasn't perfect, but once the gaps were filled in, it looks very professional.
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Ham'ing it up for the camera |
Look at that grain! |
Without the camera flash,
the body looks nice |
close up shot, managed
to keep the binding clean |
another closeup |
sure shines nice! |
mahogany back |
closer |
pick guard and truss
rod cover |
Given that I was going with a blond finish, the black accessories were a bit stark, so I got some flame Maple veneer and laminated it with some mahogany to make my own pick guard and truss rod cover.
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walnut and mahogany stain
sanded back to give spalting
effect |
the full neck |
another neck shot |
Next I attempted to stain the neck using the same colors as the body, however I hadn't been as thorough with the stripper on the neck, and it went all blothcy and was real nasty to behold. I let it dry, then sanded if off, but it had penetrated the grain and sanding wouldn't remove it all. So I made lemonade. I re-stained with walnut let it soak in, then wiped off and stained again with mahogany while it was still wet. The end result is a pleasing grain with a bit of the spalted maple feel to it.
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sure looks nice |
scarf joint |
I think I'm getting the hang of it. |
Sanding and polishing the finish to a rich lustre was time consuming, though uneventful.
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Some tear out inside the pickup
rout. |
head stock and MOP
logo, first coat of paint |
Here we can see the construction
of the top. Seam between back and
curved front bass wood is clearly
visible. |
Headstock,with final finish coats,
still needs polish, but
low spots are now filled. |
Finished at last,
Plays like a dream |
Headstock,with final finish coats,
and polish. Almost looks
professional, doesn't it? |
Final assembly went without a hitch, everything lined up as it had in the pre-assembly step. For final setup, I followed the steps outlined on Guitar Attack, and except for a couple of nail biting minutes as I tuned the string slots in the nut, I was able to make it playable.
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It's really hard to capture that
flame with a camera. |
I love the figure on the maple neck. |
I was concerned about color match
from neck to body,
my fears appear unfounded.
I really like the result. |
The intonation is almost perfect with the toughest spot to get right being the lower 3 frets.
Now all that's left is to enjoy playing it for the next few decades. (Wink)
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Here it is! |
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Update!
I got tired of looking at the black plastic trim pieces and knobs after putting the effort into the wood pick guard.
I used some left over walnut from another project and fashioned new pickup rings, volume and tone knobs as well as pickup selector and trim ring |
New Pickup Rings were fun to make as the original trim rings used as a template are very thin along the sides of the pickup. I also had to carve to fit the curved top. Many trips back and forth from the spindle sander to the guitar body assured an almost perfect fit |
The control knobs were a challenge as I don't have a lathe. I cut them out using a hole saw to go 1/2 way through the blank, then used the scroll saw to finish cutting them out. I then attached a bolt to my drill press table to act as a spindle while I rotated the wood part against the spindle sander. |
Using a disk sander I was able to shape the small knob for the pickup selector switch. The washer plate was made using a hole saw to define the ring then it was cut out of the blank using the table saw. Finally a disk sander was used to finish the thickness. |
Here's the finished product. It has a much warmer look to it in my opinion |
Builders Notes
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What I've learned:
Neck Angle:
When I first assembled my SAGA I had to adjust the bridge and stop bar quite high off the body of the guitar. When I tried to adjust it to where it "looked" right, the strings buzzed. What to do? I couldn't get my action down to 1/16" at the 12th fret without buzzing. I put a half of a business card at the edge of the body in the neck pocket and that addressed my intonation and tuning issues as well as the high bridge and tailpiece locations.
Tune-o-Matic Bridge:
The Tune-o-Matic bridge design allows you to compensate for neck angle, if the neck is angled toward the back of the guitar, then the bridge needs to be adjusted up to compensate. However, while the bridge can be adjusted up to 1/2 inch, my experience suggests if you have to adjust more than 1/4 inch away from the body, it is time to adjust the neck angle. Tailpiece/stop block position affects break angle of the strings over the bridge. A steeper break angle gives the strings more "feel", shallower angle makes them feel "lighter". Tailpiece/stopbar should not be adjusted so low that strings come in contact with the bridge housing this will cause string breakage. While there's no general rule for tailpiece height, 1/4-3/8" above the body is in the ballpark.
According to Gibson USA
"Adjustable Stopbar Tailpiece. The stopbar tailpiece may be adjusted up or down to change the downward pressure across the bridge. There is usually no need to adjust the stopbar unless the strings are moving out of the saddles, in which case the stopbar should be lowered."
Now that those problems have been addressed, I've discovered that my acoustic players hands can pull it out of tune just by bottoming the string to the fretboard. I'll now need to dress the frets to address that, or compensate my playing style to grab a bit more gently.
Nut:
After mucking about with the nut to adjust the action I finally decided I'd messed up the stock plastic one beyond the point of no return. sell pre-slotted replacement nuts for literally hundreds of guitars. Sadly the SAGA LC-10 isn't listed. I was able to find a very close match for the SAGA nut by measuring and cross-referencing the GraphTech catalog. Part No. PQ-6225-00 Tusq Nut is a perfect fit for the SAGA neck. I ordered direct from the Graphtech website and it arrived in the mail within a week. I had to sand about 1 mm from the underside near the low "E" and about 1.5 mm under hi high "E" to get the action just right. Now I no longer get that annoying twangy sound from my open strings.
Electronics:
Dear Chris,
My son and I built the Saga LC-10 this summer in three days and we love it. It fit together perfect from the box and it looks good, but we are having an electrical problem I have been unable to solve despite repeated attempts.
It produces a very loud electrical hiss when plugged into an amp, with or without us touching it. If we touch (with a finger) either the bridge, tailpiece, pods, female cord connector, or the rectangular (metal) pickup plates, it hisses even louder than when we aren't touching anything. I
I have even (temporarily) hooked up wires between various things, and reread the schemmatics numerous times to see that I am correct.......all to no avail.
Before I go out and spend $200 to trash the whole electrical system, please advise. Your site didn't mention you had any electrical problems, so I'm stumped.
- Brian and Christopher (Allentown, Pa.)
Hey there Brian and Christopher! What a fantastic project for you and your son. You’re right I didn’t mention that problem, but I certainly did experience it. I only had it with the neck pickup though.
The SAGA wiring leaves a lot to be desired, consistent coloring of the wires especially.
If you have a multi-meter you want to check the pickup leads. Disconnect the pickup wires, connect one lead of the meter to the base plate of the pickup and then test the pickup wires each in turn, there should be no resistance for the ground wire and something between 7k and 9k for the live wire.
I suspect that SAGA has you connecting the ground wire where the live wire should be and vice versa. Reverse the wiring on the pickups and the hiss should go away. On my guitar it was easy to switch the connectors since they both pointed the same way, I’ve heard others say they needed to clip the wires and solder them together.
Also double check the bridge ground once everything else is set right.
I also recommend getting the Les Paul wiring Upgrade from Guitar Fetish, it includes new POTS, switch, jack and capacitor. I used that in my guitar and it made a huge difference in the sound. I used the schematic available for download at and did the modification to allow independent volume control of both pickups while on the middle position of the selector switch. I've combined their diagrams onto a single PDF file
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