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Super Destroyer

I really like Destroyers. During his Racer X days Paul Gilbert had a destroyer with an Iceman like top horn. It was a 2 page spread in one of the guitar magazines from the 80's. I only could find one picture on the web and it is not very good. Then just yesterday I found 6 pictures of Bruce Bouillet's Orange Iceman/Destroyer on the Ibanezregister. I always liked the orange one better than the pink one so mine will be orange. Mine is not an exact copy as there are some elements I didn't care for. Time to make one. Since this is an experiment I decided to keep the cost low and use Poplar/Maple/PauFerro. Poplar body and solid maple neck with pau ferro fretboard. I haven't bought the hardware yet but do have a SD Screamin Demon for the bridge pickup, though I am thinking about winding my own pickups. Since this one is for me I will keep the electronics simple.

Neck : Maple
Fretboard : Pau Ferro
Scale : 25.5
Frets : 24
Trussrod : Warmoth

Body : 2 piece poplar
Tuners : Locking Tuners
Pickups : My Hand Wound HBs
Bridge : ABM Single bridge
Electronics : push/pull volume swith

Paint: Neon Orange
Hardware: Black

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The tenon on this one will be really long. It reaches past the bridge. I put a really thin poplar cap over it for aesthetics and to prevent any creep from ruining the paint after a few years. Plus poplar is really easy to sand. Right now it is going to get 2 hand wound humbuckers. The neck is a giant slab of rock hard maple. I mean rock hard, tool ruining, takes three days to sand chunk. The headstock will get a walnut/maple veneer then the face will be painted to match the body leaving the thin walnut line around the headstock (Just like on the Yellow RG550). After checking out Spoke's Explorer with the curves I decided to do the same and put contours in for the belly and forearm. I also blended the neck joint.


Here we go.


Body and neck pieces



Neck parts

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Fretboard is pao ferro



Gluing headstock ears on. This is always a pain and I have since changed my technique. I now do all this early in the neck build.

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It is one of these


Initial shape of the volute area. I did this the day my Dragon rasps came in. They are awesome, not sure how I survived without them. The headstock is really thick and will be trimmed down later.

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Shaping the neck. Nothing to see here! My brother took these pictures of me working.... wasn't going to post them but I needed shaping pictures.


Getting close

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Routing the neck for the really long tenon. I am not sure why I did it this way. I was building 5 at the same time and I was worried about strength. I learned from the RG build that the shorter tenon would have been fine.


Neck route finished

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Fit test. Got to love how this is shaping up.


Fretting done

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Re-shaping the neck because I was not happy with the shape. I needed it to be wizard thin.


One more look

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Pickup cavitys cut into neck



Neck ready to be glued


Neck glued


Electronics cavity

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Roughing in the tenon cover. This is the rig I used to do the straight lines and the plate that is going in.

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Shaping the neck joint and belly cut.

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A look at the forearm relief.

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Covered in CA to seal the poplar.

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Where we are now. Fit hardware I haven't bought, sanding, painting left.


I worked on it! I drilled the input jack.

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All right here we go... ABM Single bridges. After deciding to hold all the bridges in place and drill them all out together. I made some spacers to ensure I had equal spacing and keep the bridges square. Then I wrapped them with tape in a compensated position. I needed something to center the drill bit so I took my counter sink apart nad used it.

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A picture of the spacers and the finished holes. If I had to do it again I would calculate out all the holes, mark them and drill. It worked well enough just not sure it was the greatest idea. The poplar is really hard to keep a bit from wandering in. This one has the maple neck tenon 1/4" down so the screws have plenty to bite into.

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Routing the HBs. When direct mounting them I usually set them even or a little below the bottom of the neck.

Somehow I didn't take any pics while routing the neck pickup.

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Polishing frets. I didn't take any pictures while I was dressing the frets or shaping the nut. I bought a diamond file of eBay for $30. It worked well enough. It is 230/320 grit and it made crowing really easy. I think it could have left a cleaner finish as I still had to sand all the frets a lot to remove the scratches. I will say that it is still much better than my old Gurian file.

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A little mock up. I will finish the nut and string it up this week. The bridges are slightly crooked but it is not what you think. I put them on with some stainless screws so I don't mar up the stock black screws before it is done. However the SS screws heads are not perfectly round. The original black screws are.

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Extra shots

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I managed to get this one up and close to running while hiding from family over the holidays. Strings, fret-job, nut, pickups, and wiring all done. Wound the pickups for this one a while ago and was glad to finally hear them. They are aggressive but have a very smooth response, no unpredictable squeaks or squawks.
Second guitar I have used these [url="http://www.allparts.com/6-in-line-Mini-Lockers-Black-p/tk-7574-003.htm"]ALLPARTS locking tuners[/url] on and I am thrilled at how they work. Cheap, tight, nice ratio, and light which solves a major issue I had with most locking tuners, and they come in silver, black, gold. If you are interested in them PM me and I will let you know what I can sell them for.
I guess next up is taking it apart and painting.

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Another quick front shot and a look at the back.

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I am now in a holding pattern as I am waiting on the weather to clear up to paint. Also in the process of designing a new set of pickups for this thing to more closely emulate/modernize my 82' Destroyer.

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Really nice Brett! How much will it weigh when you are done??

This one is standard RG weight. The ABM single bridges and aluminum locking tuners ... simple electronics and poplar keep the weight down. I would hate to have built this out of a heavier wood. Next one will be a shorter scale though... there is a reason Destroyers and Explorers are 24.75


I am about minimalism. No pickup rings... no complicated electronics.


She is the sister of this guitar http://guitarlogistics.blogspot.com/2009/09/custom-rg-in-desert-sun-yellow.html

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