Hello, I'm a new member and this is my 1st post. I hope I'm correctly observing board etiquette and contributing to an existing thread rather than starting a new one.
I'd just like to share some pictures of a cheap guitar I've been mod-ing.
I'm more of an acoustic player than anything else, but do love my electric guitars, have owned & played an old Telecaster since 1984 though my most used electric is a Danelectro U2, Korean re-issue bought in 1998.
I love my Danelectro but have always hankered after that sound with the addition of a tremolo bar. I have seriously looked into adding a Bigsby to it (too much work). I was lucky enough to borrow a Dano' Hodad (the one with the Bigsby already built on) but frankly I didn't get on with it. I really like the look of lipstick single coils, and although the Hodad's twin coils can be split, the look and sound of the thing just didn't gel with me.
I was seriously considering getting one of these, thought it might be fun to eventually put a set of lipsticks on it (and Mustang up the pickguard a bit with bits & bobs from Ebay). The price was within my rather limited budget and the guitars are well reviewed, my only reservation being that I really wanted a guitar in seafoam green/aquamarine.
Then I saw this. Not only the right shade of green (well, near enough) but also with a pearloid pick-guard AND an offset body - very cool! (IMHO).
Cheap too.
So, I ordered one.
Out of the box? well, frankly, it's a bit of a dog. The "pawlonia" body is absurdly lightweight, the supplied 9's gauge strings were ghastly (which is fair enough, I guess) and the whole thing felt flimsy and cheap. That's what you get for ninety quid I guess. BUT, the colour, the pickguard the body shape still look appealing to me, and the neck isn't too shabby, if a little slim for my tastes.
I really like the trashy surf-punk aesthetic of it and figure it'll look intensely cool with a set of 'lipsticks' on it.
I'm no luthier by any means, my intention is to get the guitar looking, sounding and playing as well as any layman could manage, without getting into major surgery. I'm basically just going to upgrade the hardware over time, nothing that any Joe Shmoe couldn't manage with pretty much just a screwdriver and an adjustable spanner.
I ordered a set of these, bear in mind I'm really on a budget, and I don't think the guitar would merit a pricey set of Seymour Duncans or Kent Armstrongs.
Ideally I'd have had proper Danelectro shape & size pickups but that would have meant a lot of work, routing the pickguard. These Artecs are designed to drop into Strat size pickup holes.
In the "swimming pool" you can really see how crummy the bit of wood is that they've used to make this out of.
Having wired the pickups in conventional manner, I then stumbled across a "budget hack" for Strat pick ups, namely physically swapping around the positions of the middle and neck pickups. This means I can get bridge and neck at the same time (it's a brilliant but simple mod, means you lose the middle & bridge combination, but that's my least used & least favourite setting on a Strat anyway).
The pickups are low-output, which is inherent in their design, they sound great though, nice and chime-y.
It now has a "proper" set of 11's on it.
I've replaced the control knobs with pearl-capped Tele style ones, the pearl doesn't quite match the pickguard, but it's still a nice visual touch.
I've also bought a chrome tip for the whammy bar and the pickup selector (haven't got that on at time of photographs).
Then there's the headstock. I am by no means ashamed of playing a Gear4Music guitar, but their logo is horrible.
So I treated myself to custom logo from Rothko & Frost, it's easily the classiest thing about the whole project. I decided to call it a Twangylectro, by way of tribute and as my real name is Gus it struck me as amusing to have "Gustang" as the model type.
Lastly, the heel/neck joint. It also featured the horrible Gear4Music logo, so it had to go.
I found this one cheap on Ebay too. It's generic as anything, but an improvement over the original.
I intend to get a set of tuners with pearloid knobs, to complement the rest of the guitar's look, but that'll have to wait till my reserves of pocket money have replenished.
I was originally contemplating upgrading the tremolo bridge, the one it's installed with is very flimsy and cheap looking, but you know what - it works really well. My only beef with it is I can't "deck" it as much as I'd like. Ideally I'd have all five springs on it (I use the whammy bar sparingly and only ever for 'dipped' notes, can't get my head around floating trems and pulling notes up) however the trem block is only drilled for three holes! (and, frankly, it looks a little squint to me) but, as I say, it works fine, I may well leave it.
So there you are, my cheapo, cheapo, offset, lipstick-equipped, seafoam green, Dano-Strat hybrid, dream guitar.
It'll probably never leave the house, I shall play lots of surf/spy/spaghetti type music on it for my own pleasure.
Thanks for reading.
Last edited: Sep 01, 2017 04:02:41
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