Me and Billie say Hello, World!
Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:27 am
Hi. I'm Larry, this is my brother Daryl, and this is my other brother Daryl.
To keep things short over here since I'm posting my build to the blog, I'll summarize.
I don't play guitar particularly well. I can hack my way through "Wish You Were Here" and actually sing it at the same time, but that's one of about three songs I have in my play-and-sing repertoire. I haven't had a guitar of any kind for about four years, but I decided I wanted one for home recordings, and just to bang on. (For the same reasons, I have an electronic drum kit.)
I'm also pretty broke, so even a $200 guitar would have been a hardship. I could have bought a pre-assembled Ammoon Strat for about $62, but I decided it would probably have to be dismantled anyhow so why not start with pieces and save five bucks (though I spent far more than $5 putting a finish on it). I hoped to end up with something that plays something like a 70's Classic Vibe Squier Strat, because I liked that the last time I picked one up. I can't really remember if this neck feels like that one or not, it's been too long.
Anyhow, the neck had a back-bow, but I was able to save it with some desperate measures (namely, heating it up and standing on it). It plays nicely when set to the recommended action for a Strat, and now that I've done a second pass of fret-leveling, I may be able to bring it down more than that.
The pickups sucked. I knew they would suck. I ordered single-size humbuckers as replacements, and they are much better. I also bought replacement pots with push-pull switches, but need not have bothered. They aren't an improvement, except on the tone circuit. If you have a single-coil type guitar and the original tone pots, you might like 500k pots better.
tl;dr: I'm not really a builder, I'm a musician that wants a custom guitar but I'm too cheap to buy one. I bet that's how a lot of you got sucked into this. Hi.
To keep things short over here since I'm posting my build to the blog, I'll summarize.
I don't play guitar particularly well. I can hack my way through "Wish You Were Here" and actually sing it at the same time, but that's one of about three songs I have in my play-and-sing repertoire. I haven't had a guitar of any kind for about four years, but I decided I wanted one for home recordings, and just to bang on. (For the same reasons, I have an electronic drum kit.)
I'm also pretty broke, so even a $200 guitar would have been a hardship. I could have bought a pre-assembled Ammoon Strat for about $62, but I decided it would probably have to be dismantled anyhow so why not start with pieces and save five bucks (though I spent far more than $5 putting a finish on it). I hoped to end up with something that plays something like a 70's Classic Vibe Squier Strat, because I liked that the last time I picked one up. I can't really remember if this neck feels like that one or not, it's been too long.
Anyhow, the neck had a back-bow, but I was able to save it with some desperate measures (namely, heating it up and standing on it). It plays nicely when set to the recommended action for a Strat, and now that I've done a second pass of fret-leveling, I may be able to bring it down more than that.
The pickups sucked. I knew they would suck. I ordered single-size humbuckers as replacements, and they are much better. I also bought replacement pots with push-pull switches, but need not have bothered. They aren't an improvement, except on the tone circuit. If you have a single-coil type guitar and the original tone pots, you might like 500k pots better.
tl;dr: I'm not really a builder, I'm a musician that wants a custom guitar but I'm too cheap to buy one. I bet that's how a lot of you got sucked into this. Hi.