Pictures (Guitars)

[peterg]

Great  FiveseveN, i like it.
Mich P.

+1 awesome!

[haveyouseenhim]

The bit on the pickguard is the rim of a . .357 mag I cut down.

Oh yeaaa    Just what I like. Now all you need is some of my shotgun shell knobs.

[bluebunny]

Brilliant!   

[Shoeman]

The bit on the pickguard is the rim of a . .357 mag I cut down.

Oh yeaaa    Just what I like. Now all you need is some of my shotgun shell knobs.

Great minds think alike!  I have a vintage vibe Tele with a selector knob I made out of a 158gr FMJRN bullet  ( I load my own ammo) and another Tele I call the TeleBlaster that my brothers made for me when I turned 50 last year that has 12ga knobs, .38 brass selector knob, and the string tree is a .45ACP rim. Pickguard is cold blued steel.  It's walnut, weighs a ton, but plays and sounds great.  It's not shown in the picture but I made a strap for out from my old Service Rifle sling (I also used to shoot Highpower Rifle competitions) to complete the look.  I like my hobbies loud and/or dangerous I guess. I also used to roadrace motorcycles   

[Fishface]

Nice!

What are those pick-ups?

Monster magnets!

[Tony Forestiere]

Sorry. Gotta say it. Mike + Geoff = (shooting) match made in heaven!
You kids have fun, y'hear!  

*edit* BTW Beautiful body grain. Hope it plays as nice as it looks.

[haveyouseenhim]

Great minds think alike!  I have a vintage vibe Tele with a selector knob I made out of a 158gr FMJRN bullet  ( I load my own ammo) and another Tele I call the TeleBlaster that my brothers made for me when I turned 50 last year that has 12ga knobs, .38 brass selector knob, and the string tree is a .45ACP rim. Pickguard is cold blued steel.  It's walnut, weighs a ton, but plays and sounds great.  It's not shown in the picture but I made a strap for out from my old Service Rifle sling (I also used to shoot Highpower Rifle competitions) to complete the look.  I like my hobbies loud and/or dangerous I guess. I also used to roadrace motorcycles  

Nice!!!   On my main guitar I have 12 gauge knobs, .22LR selector, 30-30 killswitch button, and a 30-30 trem arm.

Sorry. Gotta say it. Mike + Geoff = (shooting) match made in heaven!
You kids have fun, y'hear!  

We had fun at our last shooting match:

[amptramp]

Which one are you?

[Jdansti]

I'm going to put a vintage-style 3-barrel bridge, and probably swap out the pickups.. and give it a black pickguard.

Wow-looks like Santa had us down for the same thing!



I also plan to I upgrade the bridge and pickups. I got mine new and the nut barely had any grooves in it and it really needed a professional setup. Once those things were done, it is now playable, but I'm having a little buyers remorse. I bought it because I wasn't happy with my Chinese Squire Affnity Tele shown below. While I was waiting for the MIM Tele, I worked on the Squire. By the time the MIM arrived, the Squire was playing really well. It still feels, plays, and sounds better than the much more expensive MIM!  Maybe the pickups and bridge will fix things.

Here's the Squire. I replaced the bridge, pickups, pots (push pull switches for the split humbuckers), pickup selector switch, and added a Tillman preamp and a bypass switch. 



This is my Japanese HM Strat from the early 90's. It's a great playing and sounding guitar.



This is my Hamer Velocity 25 Bass. It sounds and plays pretty good.



This is my Taylor Acoustic. It has a very deep resonant sound. This is from the early 90s when they still made everything from solid wood.



Here's my Martin 12 String. It's a great sounding guitar. Martin put all of the value into the neck and body and left off the frills such as binding and inlays to keep the cost down. I added the inlays. They're actually very thin vinyl stick-ons, but the look pretty real and dress it up nicely.

[skullservant]

Finished this guy today.

Was given to me with just the neck and the body.
Routed the neck pickup cavity for the humbucker route, Phat Cat in the neck. Squier Fat Tele pickup in the bridge. Wilkinson bridge with brass compensated saddles, no tone control. MIM Tele neck. The guy who originally had the body epoxied it before he stained it, so that's why its got all the weird cool marks on it. Plays pretty well. Could use a fret job, but I'm not going to complain too hard.

[Jdansti]

Nice job!  I've got the same Wilkinson bridge on the black Squire above. I think it enhances the tone better than the original Squire bridge. I also drilled through the body and added string ferrules which I think also helped. Are your strings attached at the bridge or through the body?

[skullservant]

I did the same and drilled through the body! Just something that lets me sleep easy at night knowing there isn't a ton of tension on the top of the bridge haha

[Jdansti]

You probably did a better job than I did. The body didn't fit on my drill press. I free handed the drilling from the top side and the drill must have not been perpendicular to the body. From the back the holes are not evenly spaced or aligned.  I also had a small bit of cracked finish around a couple of holes. I ended up buying a blank chrome control plate and mounting it over the holes in the back. It looks great as long as the plate is in place.

[skullservant]

I don't even have a drill press. Did the exact same thing you did. They aligned fairly well but I did have two that got kind of close together. Ended up just sanding down one of the string ferrules on the back to make it fit, worked out just fine haha

[davent]

^'til Santa came through with a real drill press i made do with a stand like this (non-pivoting), still pull it out to use where the drill press doesn't have the reach or where work can't be taken to the press, works great.

[therealfindo]

I'm going to put a vintage-style 3-barrel bridge, and probably swap out the pickups.. and give it a black pickguard.

Wow-looks like Santa had us down for the same thing!



I also plan to I upgrade the bridge and pickups. I got mine new and the nut barely had any grooves in it and it really needed a professional setup. Once those things were done, it is now playable, but I'm having a little buyers remorse. I bought it because I wasn't happy with my Chinese Squire Affnity Tele shown below. While I was waiting for the MIM Tele, I worked on the Squire. By the time the MIM arrived, the Squire was playing really well. It still feels, plays, and sounds better than the much more expensive MIM!  Maybe the pickups and bridge will fix things.

Here's the Squire. I replaced the bridge, pickups, pots (push pull switches for the split humbuckers), pickup selector switch, and added a Tillman preamp and a bypass switch. 

Hey, nice!

I also have a squire affintiy.. butter-blonde. I put a 6-saddle GFS bridge on, and some GFS Neovins with some nice caps for tone and treble-bleed which was a huge improvement, and the action is really nice after getting the frets professionally done. At first, when I got the MIM, I wasn't sold on the hotter pickups, but I really like them now (I had thought of putting some Keystones in, and still might try them) I will put a wilkonson 3-barrel bridge on as well, when these strings need replacing At that point I'll take it in to the tech to get the frets done and see if can get the action a fraction lower. I like that they're both different guitars. The aquire has lots more 'spank' and is fun to play chords on, but the string spacing is too small.. the MIM feels like a serious guitar, and is nicer for lead, and has a bit more body to the sound.

[Jdansti]

Nice guitars!  I agree with your review of the differences between the Squire and MIM.

When I replaced the bridge on the Squire with the Wilkinson bridge, it was a little shorter and the old screw holes were visible. I found some little black plastic plugs at the hardware store to cover the holes.



Here's the blank plate I used to cover the ugly sting holes.

[therealfindo]

oh, you converted it to string-through as well.. I"m not game to try that

The six-saddle bridge I got from GFS covered the old holes..

[Mac Walker]

#13, almost finished.  First attempt at a semi-hollow body.  I bought a CNC machine over a year ago but haven't had much time to learn how to use it.

Anyway this is eventually going to get something else for the bridge, a humbucker or maybe something a little fatter than a normal single coil tele bridge (any recommendations?).  Still thinking of other things I can do, I know it really needs a neck pickup, but whatever....



Necks in process

[bluebunny]

First attempt?  I don't think you need too much more practise - that looks great!      What's the finish?