The guitar thread

The guitar thread


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So I don't know exactly how long it's been since I last played, but I'm willing to bet it's been 5 years (possibly 6) since I actually had a bass in my hands. Call it the start of a very early midlife crisis, call it the urge to scratch an itch, call it a lame attempt to recapture my youth, but I pulled mine out of mothballs a week or so ago to start playing and rebuild my long lost callouses.

Or that was the idea rather, because I ran into two problems.

1 - There's been a small problem with a static buzz on my Peavey that I never got around to resolving. More on this in a second.
2 - Despite staying in its case for the last several years, the hardware on my Schecter had somehow become corroded. The bridge, the knobs, the frets, even the tuners had a bit of it going on. Look at this shit.

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This was originally "black chrome", but it's obvious that it was just a light coating of some sort to make the chrome appear dark. The one shiny knob is after I hit it with my trusty dremel, a buffing wheel, and some compound. The shiny bit on the bridge was how it came out of the case, it's like the dark coating just evaporated and where it didn't it left a rough texture.

Here are two shots of the frets, one with a flash and one without, you can clearly see the difference between the dirty frets and the one that's been cleaned.

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So what the fuck caused it? I don't know for sure, but I did a bit of research and I think it was actually from the case itself. Or rather the plastic off gassing that did it. Either way, the only black chrome that remains now are the tuners, everything else is the regular kind of bright work.

Now as for the Peavey, I made a thread about it on the Talk Bass forums, but they haven't been a huge help to me. The problem is that there is a low static sound I can hear when it's plugged in, but it goes away when I touch the pickguard or knobs. The more skin that makes contact the more it clears up, so I must have a grounding issue, but as far as I know I did it all correctly.

The bridge is grounded to the volume knob and I have a strip of copper foil connecting the pickup cavity to the pickguard, but it's still happening. So I don't know wtf is going on. But either way, I've decided that since I'm a lot more savvy with a dremel now than I was 7 years ago, I'm going to remake it from scratch. So I'm going to wait on trying to track down this gremlin till that's finished rather than waste my time and more copper foil.
 
Yes, I just got a new guitar last month. And no, I don't have the money to buy another guitar.

But holy shit...

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No, they have only shared this one so far. They just finished a koa one a week ago that they liked so much they did a Facebook live stream video just to show it of in the sunlight...I expect more pics or this one.
 
So here's what's happened with me over the last month.

I went ahead and make a new pickguard for the Peavey, and it turned out really really nice. Twice as thick as the previous version, all the holes are counter sunk, and the edge has a nice a really nice bevel to it. Here's what it looked like before and after polishing.

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I put some copper foil on it under the electronics but the static noise continued, so I decided to take off the bridge to check the ground wire and...

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It decided to take a big ass chunk of paint off with it, right down to the bare wood. There's simply no way to fix that without starting over from square one, so that's what I did. I've spent countless hours stripping.

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Filling.

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And sanding.

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I also filled in all of the original pickguard screw holes, since they had become worn out with age and use, with dowel rods. Sanded them down smooth and filled over top of them, and then redrilled them all, so everything has nice fresh wood to bite into. This was the end result.

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I put the stripes on last week and hit it with clear over the weekend. It's fully dried but not yet cured, so it's been hanging in the sun till it hardens up all the way. I know there's plenty of runs and it's covered in orange peel, but that will all be wet sanded and polished out so it looks just as smooth as before.

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Damn! Nice job!!!

- - - Updated - - -

They did post a 2nd & 3rd pic:
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Thank you, it's the same design I did last time around, just a bit more dialed in and refined.

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When it's all done I'll take a photo of it in the same location as a real comparison on the new pickguard and paint.
 
So pretty!
 
This is totally cheesy, but awesome in an 80's kind of way, and I like it a lot.

Mark Kendall's J Frog guitar made by BC Rich

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They only made the one for him, which he eventually donated. I kind of want one like that.
 


From Gefle Metal Festival 2016-07-16 \m/
 
Back in 2004 i sold my Jackson KV3. And i have regretted it ever since.
But this week I saw a used one for sale and i couldn't resist!
 
My crotch and thighs are just not friends with V guitars. :lol:
 
Here's me back in 2003 i think!


:D
 
It depends on what your goal is. If your goal just to pick up a few chords to play along with some recordings or with friends? If you can get past the finger soreness and keep it up, it can be fairly easy. If you really want to *learn* it, though, I would definitely start with some sort of lessons to make sure you don't start off with bad habits like I did. They can also tech you how to devise the guitar to keep it in tune, and feeling good. That guitar has a tremolo which can be a little tricky because it's spring loaded and can be tricky to tune if you don't know how to do it properly. Once you know, it's fine.

Just know that with an electric guitar, you'll need a cable and some sort of amp (or similar app/software and input).
 
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How much is that in USD? Brand new these go for $129 and they are not bad guitars for beginners.

NecroJoe is mostly right. Don't worry too much about tuning a guitar with a tremolo - it's not as bad as people make it out to be (especially these Squier Strats - they tend to stay in tune).

How easy? Depends. I taught myself, and like Necro mentioned - I taught myself a lot of bad habits that I can't get out of now. Most chords are relatively easy, and once you learn some simple chord progressions (C-D-G) you will find that you can play along with a lot of pop-rock songs.
 
NecroJoe is mostly right. Don't worry too much about tuning a guitar with a tremolo - it's not as bad as people make it out to be (especially these Squier Strats - they tend to stay in tune).

And with that, I did say that when you learn *how*, it's "fine". I was just never taught how to actually use it when I had them, and it was always a point of frustration for me...but now that I understand them and how to set them up, I think I'd be OK with one even though I swore them off years ago. :) Just takes more thought than a fixed bridge like a Les Paul or a Telecaster.
 
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