Pictures (Guitars)

[GGBB]

That came out great Gord,  never be overstated how important patience is to getting excellent results!

GFS pickups? I've a couple beat up 51's using a variety of their pickups and tuners.
dave

Thanks Dave.  A lot of 51 modders use GFS pickups but no, I'm too cheap even for GFS.    They're a Mexican Tele neck pickup I picked up from Craigslist ($25 inc. bridge p/u) and a Gibson P94-T that was originally in an Ibanez jazz box I also bought used (put the original Custom 58 back where it belonged).  I lucked out - they make a great combination - love this guitar.

[space_ryerson]

My first at home electric build, a non-reverse Firebird copy.

Congrats! That's fantastic work.

[Mika]

= My DIY GUITAR =

[seadi123]

My new guitar

[vigilante397]

My lead guitarist had been complaining about the tone of his Mexican strat, so I beefed it up a little with three humbuckers. I also took out the 5-way selector in favor of three ON-OFF switches so he can have any pickup combination he wants. I was going to add phase switching, but he couldn't tell the difference so I left it out

[Will.mendil]

Cool idea!

[bluebunny]

Nice job, Nathan.  I hope it wasn't you who took that huge ding out the side!   

[Liquitone]

I finally bought me a bass-guitar. It appeared for sale on a local musicians Facebook group during my morning coffee. It was cheaper than my fulltone '69 and decided I wanted it in a split second.
The guy told me he had never before sold anything so quickly, as he posted it less than a minute ago. There is something about Firebirds and Thunderbirds that really appeals to me, and this one had just the right color, much more subtle dark tobacco sunburst that the brighter sunburst finishes on other Epiphone Thunderbird IV-pro's I've seen.
The electronics where missing so I restored that and put flat-wounds on it. I think it would look better with white pick-guard and chrome hardware and pickups, and have the gold version of these knobs on it, but may just lookout for another cheap Thunderbird that already has this.

[vigilante397]

Nice job, Nathan.  I hope it wasn't you who took that huge ding out the side!   

Nope, that was him However when I was boring out the space for the humbuckers I put about a 1/4" hole straight through the back  needless to say I did that job for free, didn't even charge him for parts.

[igerup]

Pics of my first DIY guitar. Yes, it is a kit from Cozart (made in China?) but it's surprisingly good quality.
Body is basswood and necks are maple. The guitar is a bit heavy, but that was expected.
The only electric/metal parts that came with the kit that I didn't replace
were the frets, trussrods, bridges/tailpiees, wiring, switches and jackplate.
I sprayed on about eight layers of nitro. No wax polishing done yet. Wetsanding done only on the back of the necks, so far. Had to be careful with that; nitro is very, very thin.
The fretends needed some serious filing to feel comfortable; but that's not really surprising. When massproduced, more expensive fiddles from wellknown brands have sharp fretends
we can't really expect affordable kits to have smooth ones, can we?     
Locking tuners by Jinho; a Korean brand made in the same factory as Wilkinson hardware, so they are good quality.
The black nut is graphite (probably a bit on the soft side, materialwise) the other nut is Tusq. One humbucker (the black one) is from
Stewart-McDonald with added coiltap switch, the other three are noname but very good sounding taken from other guitars. Potentiometers are 500 K log
Alpha with 22 nF tone caps. There's a Switchcraft output jack, too.  It feels great to play; the 12-string neck is wider than the 6-string (only by 5 millimeters, but that makes a huge difference).
Fretboard radius is 12" I guess. I don't really know, there's no info about that over on the Cozart Ebay shop. But it feels exactly like my Les Paul, which has a 12" radius so my guess is probably right.
The necks are not glue-in but screw-in; I don't really think that's a bad thing. It took about a week to complete the guitar; what with letting the nitro dry properly between each spraying.
It was great fun and I'm dead set on making one or two more guitars. Not another double neck, though. It's got to be a Flying V.

[igerup]

Pics of my new semi-hollow body guitar. It's a Harley Benton (inhouse (made in China?) brand of German mega-seller Thomann) E35.
It sounds and feels great. The only post-purcahse modifications I did to it were:

1: replacing the potentiometers with 500 K log Alpha + 22 nF tone caps
2: replacing the plastic nut with a graphite one.
3: replacing the noname humbuckers (I put them in the above double neck fiddle) with vintage style 10 Kohm mini-humbuckers. Man, are they awesome!
4: replacing the one! (really, there was only one)    strapbutton with two Schaller Straplock-type ones.

Having only one strapbutton on a slightly neck-heavy guitar is a bit awkward, I guess. 





Yeah, that's my pedalboard in the background. Two laptopstands taped together side by side.

[italianguy63]

Here's some pics of my 1st attempt at a DIY.  It's a partscaster that started life as a 60's Classic Vibe body.  It's about 60% Squire, and 40% Strat.



"Bullet" neck, ended up being nice quality and straight.  Rosewood/maple.  I re-decaled it and upgraded to some cool pearl machines.



Inside it has 50's style wiring, with high quality Bournes pots / 5-way, orange drop, and pullback wiring.  Strat Alnico 5 PUPs.

Gold trim off a Mary Kaye Strat.  Strat import (RH) Gold Trem, upgraded to big block steel.  SRV bits for the look.



MC

A buddy of mine sets of Stats.  He set the neck, saddles, trem, and did the fret work.  It is a solid guitar at the right price.

MC

[Liquitone]

Nice one italianguy63!
I was really surprised how good these Classic Vibes are for the money, even the pickups are very good. I bought the same 60's sunburst 3 years ago and I absolutely love it. The finish chips off quite easily, but I don't mind that, plus I like the thin finish. The necks also feels pretty good, and I like the vintage tuners. It also stays in tune pretty well, even with heavy tremolo abuse.
Only downsides maybe are the stock pots and thinner and lighter tremolo block, but I've replaced those. (I did notice an improvement in sound with the heavier Fender tremolo block). oh, and the stock pickguard has a very ugly raster-printed tortoise pattern, but I see you also improved that.

[italianguy63]

Yeah-- I did a bunch of upgrades.  The Squire electrics were cheap-- fixed that.  Didn't have a neck when I got it.  The body has a thick finish on mine, but it did have one (not noticable) chip where the neck affixes-- it's a polyester finish I think.  I swapped the trem for a gold Strat. MIM one-- I used the 40mm steel big block from GFS-- nice add.  In all it is a pretty sweet guitar.  A "real" Strat like this would be 3 to 5 times the cost, and not much better actually.

[Liquitone]

Yeah, it's very good out of the package, but also a very affordable way of making a great guitar with upgrades indeed. The body on mine is 2-pieces of alder and it's very light and resonant, no comparison to my other Squier, And I'm not ashamed wearing it in company of real Fender owners.  I'm keeping mine sunburst, but planning to collect others and give them a nice nitro finish. I'm afraid others have picked up on it though, because the prices on the 2nd hand market aren't that much lower than the retail prices.
Here you can see how ugly the stock pickguard is compared to an allparts, and how thin the finish on mine is. It's indeed a polyester finish.

[italianguy63]

Yep!  2-piece alder.  It is also thicker than a typical squire, but still not as thick as real Strat.  My pickgaurd was a Fender brand mother of pearl.  Still had the protective film on it, but did not go with the "program."  (It's for sale!, the pickgaurd).  I think my biggest gripe was the cheesy pots and switch.  But, that was easily remedied.  If you have not tried Bournes pots-- they have brass bushings and super heavy duty and smooth.  But, the mounting hole is slightly larger, and the shaft requires an extra jam nut behind to make them sit at the right height.  BTW your finish won't chip like that if you don't use your axe for target practice with your air-rifle.     MC

[Liquitone]

Haha! It was mainly the little treblebooster attached to the guitar strap causing the damage, which is a lot cheaper than a custom relic job.
Those heavy duty bourns pots are what I put in mine as well! I may have interest in that mother of pearl pick-guard, it will probably look better on a classic vibe I'm planning to finish in Surf Green than on the sunburst.

[italianguy63]

I'll take any reasonable offer.  I don't need it.   I also have some other sundrie extra parts I don't need.  I have a nice USA gold trem too (didn't fit the classic vibe!   )-- PM me if interested.  Extra chrome Squire trem and tuners too... not worth much.

[wildebelor]

Just got this in the mail yesterday!
Loving it so far...

[SonicVI]

My Epiphone Crestwood inspired build.  Honduran mahogany body and neck, amazon rosewood fingerboard with oval celluloid inlays and binding, cherry nitro finish, ebony headstock overlay, original 60's Epiphone trem, tone pros bridge, 2 mini-humbuckers and one Firebird mini-humbucker (homemade), 6 way pickup switch.