Something was missing from the Sex Panther. One of the reasons you know it works is because of the bits of real panther. My Sex Panther has no real bits. My friend suggested a way to ameriolate that and as soon as he said it, I was all in!

Internet to the rescue! I ordered a bag of panther teeth from the internet. Then I modified one to act as a tip for my toggle switch.

I wanted a way to thread the tooth onto the switch. I had to make a threaded insert for the tooth with an M4 thread. Home Depot does not carry M5 threaded inserts for panther teeth so I had to make one.

I started with the smallest brass nut I could find. Then I drilled out the hole in the nut until I got to 3.3mm and used an M4 tap to cut new threads. Then I filed the nut down until it was round and the outside was 1/4″ diameter.

I drilled a hole in the tooth to accept the post from the toggle switch. Then I drilled a 1/4″ counter bore to accept the threaded insert. I had to orient the insert in the tooth so the tooth would point down. Then I glued the insert into the tooth with CA glue.

After the glue dried I filed the sharp corners, sanded, and polished the tooth. It looks super awesome!

Now that the finish is done on the body and neck, it’s time to assemble. Holes are drilled in the control plate, pots and a 3-way toggle installed, strings, solder, and away we go!

The guitar is cool as shit! It’s super light, but not neckdivey (even with locking tuners). The whole look is awesome with the pink black and wood. I’m suuuuuuuuuler happy with it.

I did install a Floyd rose style string retainer bar. It really gets a good break angle for the strings.

There is one more surprise thing to do before it’s complete.

I’m at the point where final polishing starts, and parts start to go on.  Now is the most convenient time to check things out and give myself one more opportunity for surgery.

The neck required some tweaking because of the finish. I had to sand off some of it at the heel so it fit the pocket good. Also a couple of the tuner holes needed opening up (also because of the clear coat).

Everything else fit good, and it gave me the opportunity to see the overall look.

Yeah, that’s a cool fucking guitar.

Now it’s time to polish. The headstock and neck should be pretty easy, but the fretboard will be a PITA.

While texting with my friend, I came up with a way to describe the “vibe” I am going for.

It’s like a barn, an upscale barn, but the barn has a dark side. The kind of barn where the cows wear a monacle and speak with a British accent. But also the kind of barn where the cow is going to hit on your wife before the night is over and you should worry about her taking him up on it. The kind of barn where things that don’t make sense, make sense. The kind of barn where the guitar player in the band plays a Telecaster with a humbucker in the bridge.

I think if I said that, you could pick this guitar out of a lineup.

2 hours later…. I needed to do a couple things.

The hole for the neck pickup wire was a bit weird. The wire kept interfering with the plate for the pickup. I had to lower the opening for the wire so it could stay under the pickup.

This neck has a truss rod adjustment wheel in the heel area. When I put the wheel on, it wouldn’t fit. I had to open the area up a bit and took the opportunity to paint everything black.

I’m finishing the neck with nitrocellulose lacquer.  This is an old school clear coat that gets hard and can be polished real smooth and shiny.  It also feels good for a neck.

This finish is built up using multiple layers so they can be sanded level and then polished.  To save time and material, it’s good to make the wood as smooth as possibly blue before the lacquer.  For this, I’m using an epoxy product.

The headstock face is going to be black with a car ol sticker.  I’ll prolly use polyurethane to finish the sticker (it builds up faster, cures faster, and dries harder).

First step after sanding is to fill the pores in the grain. I’m using Epoxy for this which is a thing 2 part epoxy that is easy to work. You basically mix it up, smear it on with a spatula and scrape as much off as you can.  Then some sanding and reapply a second coat.

After some sanding, I painted the headstock black and fit the tuning machines.  They are Hipshot Grip Lock tuners with cool open gears.

I decided I wanted to have the neck a darker color so I stained it with some minwax stain from the hardware store.  It looks awesome!

Next I will spray a couple coats of gloss polyurethane on the headstock to give the decal a good smooth place to stick.  Then I will start to spray the nitrocellulose lacquer on the neck and fretboard.

I’ll put some more coats on the neck and then let it harden a couple weeks.

Now time for the headstock!  The sticker is applied to the clear coat from a while back.  Then spray a bunch of clear on top to “bury” the sticker.  I’m aiming for enough clear to completely cover the sticker and make the whole thing level and smooth.

Now about 10 billion more coats of clear and let it harden for a week or so.

The neck looks awesome