More Current Update
I’ve been asked to do some modifications on a batch of guitars.
I’ve been dealing with things as mundane as installing new pickups to things requiring more precision — like fitting new necks to existing bodies & drilling lots of holes which damn well better all line up when I’m finished. I’ve also been installing custom circuits in some of the guitars - one gets an active EQ section, another gets a tone-booster circuit, and another one gets a gain/distortion type circuit along with some other custom control mods.
Finally, all the instruments get proper setups which includes truss rod adjustment, setting the action and adjusting the intonation. All of those things pretty much go hand in hand, because if you change one you affect the other two. All in all, things are coming along nicely.
I’ll just provide anyone viewing this a word of advice: Don’t buy cheap guitar hardware. It might work. It might not. But man-oh-day are you gonna be pissed when that bridge or set of new tuners doesn’t fit where it’s supposed to — or worse yet, when it doesn’t work at all.
Cheap hardware is usually made for cheap guitars — so the budget pickguard you find will fit your Mexican Strat. It won’t, however, fit an American Strat. Same as the money you spend on genuine Gibson replacement parts is wasted if you’re trying to upgrade or change the look of your Epiphone (I still hate cream pickup rings, so I’ll live with the mis-matched screw holes. Just need to do something about the trashy binding.)
Anyhow, here are some photos of the recent work: