#guitar modding

[sleepdreamturnoversighnightmare]

I’M GOING TO INSTALL DUAL PURPLE DIMARZIO X2N’s INTO MY PINK PEAVEY VORTEX I

[sleepdreamturnoversighnightmare]

Brothers in arms: both loaded with a Dimarzio X2N

Left: Ibanez RG with a single X2N (wired in parallel), Killswitch, and Volume knob. Tuned to E standard (46-9)

Right: Jackson King V with an X2N (b) and a FRED (n) both with their own toggle switch for Series/Parallel, 1 Volume and Tone. Tuned to Eb standard (46-9)

[sleepdreamturnoversighnightmare]

Here’s some before, after, and during pictures of this Jackson V I modded a few months ago.

Picked it up cheap from a pawn shop in Elizabeth City, NC. It was originally painted blue (I assume by the previous onwer) and I sanded the paint off and stained it. Unwired the pickups and installed a Dimarzio FRED in the bridge position and a Dimarzio Super 2 in the neck position. Installed 2 toggle switches wired to the their own pickup for Series/Parallel wiring options. Also there was a big crack in the neck and I fixed that with some wood glue now’s it’s good as new. I really like how it turned out and I think it looks rustic af. Tuned to D# (half step down) D#G#C#F#A#D#

[sleepdreamturnoversighnightmare]

Recently fixed up this Ibanez I had sitting in storage for years. Had thought about many different ways to set it up but I ended up just throwing a Dimarzio PAF Pro in the bridge position wired to a toggle switch to put it in Series or Parallel wiring. Also has a Killswitch. It’s mainly made of spare parts I had lying around so I guess it qualifies as a “Frankenez” Tuned to D (DGCFAD)

[iheartvelma]

Squier Contemporary Stratocaster

A brief review.

I like how Squier has become Fender’s experimental sub-brand these days, offering offbeat remixes of their classics, to custom-shop styles, at relatively low prices.

I picked up one of these used recently, a Contemporary Stratocaster Hardtail in an attractive sparkly cherryburst they call ‘Sunset Metallic.’

It has a satin-finish roasted maple neck, laurel fingerboard, and a 70s-style larger headstock in gloss black, with a silver logo that is almost embossed-looking. The strings go through the body with a set of ferrules at the back, with a simplified Fender hardtail bridge with modern-style block saddles in black.

The SQR single-coils use Alnico 5 magnets, and the white pickup covers and knobs stand out against the 3-ply black pickguard. It’s got a standard 5-way switch, and a slightly nonstandard master volume and tone control setup.

Unlike your garden-variety Strat, this one gives all the pickups the same rakish angle, and moves the middle pickup next to the bridge to create a sort-of but not-quite humbucker.

Overall it exudes a kind of timeless cool that calls to mind the shiny-suited, white-pointed-shoe era of early New Wave and British pub rock circa 1978.

Unlike a lot of my guitars, I’ve left this one pretty close to stock. I only made a couple of upgrades for quality-of-life issues:

swapping in Hipshot locking tuners for ease of tuning up + stability

replacing the lone stamped-metal string tree with a pair of smoother Fender American Standard style units

and replacing the nastily protruding bridge saddle screws for shorter ones - palm muting is a lot more comfortable now.

Hipshot have a neat system to install tuners without having to drill new holes, called the Universal Mounting Plate, a 1mm-thick strip of metal with elongated holes for the tuning pegs to go through, and small side flanges to align the tuning machines.

In essence it acts like a big washer, enabling the tuner to be held in place by the tension from the threaded insert that screws into the body of the tuner. The elongated holes provide wiggle room to match your guitar’s tuner spacing.

Installing the string trees looked simple but required some precision drilling. The Fender string trees have not just a screw lug, but a protruding locator pin on the bottom, so you have to drill two tiny holes very close together.

In retrospect, that would have worked better if I had a predrilled, thin metal template, but (shrugs) some toothpicks, wood glue and black Sharpie cover a multitude of sins.

AND I’ve also strung it for Nashville tuning - aka a “high strung” guitar where you replace the bottom four strings (EADG) with their octave pairs from a 12-string set. It’s weird how the same chords sound different transposed up an octave.

[man-madewoman]

The Guitar

This is my Squier Jaguar. It originally came in SS, but I didn’t like the bridge pickup. I swapped it out for a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails. I also had problems with the action, so I shimmed the neck half a degree and raised the bridge. The bridge had life adjustment screws so I put in some blue loctite. The tremolo arm is kinda loose so, since I don’t have a vice grip for the hammer trick, I put on some duct tape then took it off which gummed up the socket enough to keep it where I want it. As for the stickers there’s no rhyme or reason, but I can say my next big change is a white pick guard for more stickers. Happy modding and happy playing!

[parkdon72butbetter]

After trying to do this since last may, I finally actually managed to finish my Dave Murray based custom Strat project

I learned a lot on the way and I improved a lot as a player in the process, it may have taken mangling the original wiring and replacing it all with my own because of resistance problems but I'm proud of the result

The amount of times I actually gave up on this and did something else is insane but it actually helped me learn a lot, you won't believe how proud I am off the wiring in my humbucker tele (the routing is a different story), the Strat wiring is a little less clean but that's ok

Anyway if you've read this far here's a before and after of my tele (I never really took any before pictures)

[basque71]

Custom painted/decaled pickguard on modified and upgraded Epiphone six-string.