Congratulations goes out to Derek Peever for his guitar build, to earn him Guitar of the Month for September, 2025.

Derek used our DSGK-10 kit as the basis to create his guitar.

“My first double neck build!  First step was to make sure I had all the parts that I needed.  Then my imagination took over. I’m a lover of classic rock and a lot of my favorite music took place in the late 60’s through the early 80’s and many double neck guitars were used in that period. I wanted to replicate the guitars that I saw in my youth being used by my favorite artists.

I pulled the headstock template from one of my other guitars and shaped the headstocks using my drill press and various drum sanding attachments. 

The frets needed some work so I did a bit of fret dressing and polishing at this time, using fret and needle files, as well as a couple fret erasers and metal polish, although there was very little dressing needed.  I used a counter sink bit one my drill press to sink the neck bolts 3/16″ into the body and used 3/8″ wood dowel to plug the holes. Followed by a few layers of filler.

I glued in the necks using carpenter wood glue, I covered all contact surfaces, and used the bolts (shortened with a bench grinder) to tightly secure the necks. While using the two outside “E” strings of each neck to ensure the alignment was correct and to keep downward pressure on the necks.

I filled all the neck to body gaps with layers of plastic wood sanding with 350 grit wet dry sandpaper in between.  Those steps were very nerve-wracking as it was very permanent but it turned out quite well.

I filled all the original pickguard holes, truss rod cover holes and tail piece holes using toothpicks and wood glue as I planned to make my own pickguards, truss rod covers and lower the tail pieces.

I cut out two small pieces of maple hardwood with my handsaw to fill in the truss rod access hole by the nut so I can use two screw covers. Then glued them in with wood glue.  I used my drill press to drill out the bottom control pot to convert it to a body top output jack, and after quite a bit of measuring and using the existing angles of the controls layout I drilled out the hole for the volume pot.  I plugged the side output jack cavity with a piece of toilet plunger handle, hey it fit perfectly into the hole ok.. lol 😆. 

So now that everything was plugged, I sanded using 220 grit sandpaper on a palm sander for the body and headstocks.  I then pore filled everything with Lepage white filler then sanded, then filled again and sanded and filled and sanded.  I sanded everything again with 400 wet/dry sandpaper and got an area ready for painting. 

For this build I wanted to try and use readily available supplies that most people could find.  I sprayed the entire guitar with six coats of Rustoleum white primer, sanding with 400 grit sandpaper after three coats, and then again after the sixth coat was dry.  Once the whole guitar was sanded with 400, I wiped everything down and sprayed with Rustoleum white lacquer. Three coats a day then let dry,  and three coats, dry 24hrs and three more coats. With nine coats on the guitar I waited a week then began level sanding using a 2×2 sanding block and successively finer grits of wet dry sandpaper beginning with 800 grit, 1500, 2500, 3000 they the back of the 3000 grit paper side. 

I tried to use the sandpaper wet while trying to avoid holes which I’ve encountered issues with finish bubbles in previous builds, so to avoid the nightmare, I dry sanded around the holes to avoid this.

I used scratch remover that I got from W-mart years ago and it’s been really great for final polishing.  I applied light coats in a circular motion, let dry slightly but no all the way dry because it’s impossible to get off without wetting it again. I then buffed using microfiber cloths from the dollar store.  It came to a mirror shine after 3 coats and buffed.

I installed new pickups and pickup covers using my soldering iron. I secured the covers using a line of silicone on the top of the pickup bobbins and then soldered the cover to the base of the pickup. 

For the pickguard I used a template made of paper the I drew up for the new pickguards to transfer onto a piece of b/w/b pickguard blank. I used white masking tape on the blank to trace the template onto. I then used my scroll saw to rough cut the two pickguards.

I finished them off on my drill press with drum sander bits, to sand up to the lines. I rigged up a lansky knife sharpening system to cut the bevels onto the finished edges. Sanded the bevel edges with 600, 1500, 2500, 3000 grit wet dry sandpaper.  I used the same methods to shape the truss rod covers.

It was about this time that I noticed that the guitar finish was showing a lot of grain and reluctantly I decided to sand everything down again and refill, sand repeat etc… I would maybe recommend a better filler or maybe fill multiple times to avoid another of extra work. So after basically finishing the double neck twice it came out pretty nice!

I installed all the covers, pickguards, pickups electronics and used a three way DPDT switch and the three way SPST to cancel out the third switch, although the third switch would be more practical and I may install it later on. I used most of the original hardware as it is of great quality. 

After assembly, I set up the guitar and I am very happy with the final outcome. The build was very fun and rewarding!”