Bridge Conversion

[Ghwar]

I picked up an old bolt on jackson kelly for a steal this week, and I'm thinking I want to convert it in a few ways. . here was what I wanted to do..

Take out the neck pickup, fill the cavity with some poplar(same wood as the guitar) blocks and glue em in, shim any gaps, sand it smooth with the body..

Do the same for the tremolo cavity (going to add a tunomatic w\ tailpiece)

then, buy some quilt maple veneer and glue onto the body, stain black like that old marty friedman guitar finish.. which looked awesome:

That is the finish I am talking about.

any comments, tips, etc. would be helpful.. i have built guitars from parts befoer but nothing this ambitious

[Duff Beer Man]

i think that would be very do able. just as long as u know ur scale lenght and where to put ur bridge. Other then that its just gluein , sandin and stainin. Let us know how it turns out.

[Ghwar]

i think that would be very do able. just as long as u know ur scale lenght and where to put ur bridge. Other then that its just gluein , sandin and stainin. Let us know how it turns out.

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Ok, thanks. Now i have the motivation

What color and brand of stain should I get? where can I get a nice quilt maple veneer (probably have to bookmatch 2?)

[Ghwar]

another question, Do i have to do something with the neck? I have a les paul and the neck seems tilted back.. is that because of the TOM bridge? in that case my kelly won't work with a TOM??

[Duff Beer Man]

u will have to use a neck shim under the neck. Les pauls have a neck angle routed into the neck pocket, but seeing how yours is already done all u can do is stick a shim under the heel of the neck. About the brand of stain i dont really know, im doing my first stain right now lol, im giong to mix my own for my own color. For a nice piece of quilt, this is where ebay is your friend lol, here is a link to one of the most popular wood suppliers that all the guys including myself buy from.

[Ghwar]

won't that make the neck bolts not hold as good though?

Is there a fixed bridge you can buy which doesn't need an angled neck?

[Duff Beer Man]

no a shim is tiny. Like my esp kirk hammet uses two really small pieces of duck tape as shim. Well if u dont want to use a shim you could recess your TOM into the top of the guitar. To learn a little more about that read this thread that was started a little while ago about neck angles.

[crafty]

Carvin sells a T-O-M that's a lower profile, but you'll still have to either shim the neck or recess the bridge a little bit.

[Ghwar]

Carvin sells a T-O-M that's a lower profile, but you'll still have to either shim the neck or recess the bridge a little bit.

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thanks, I will look into it.. perhaps I will just keep the floyd actually - since it's a bolt on I wanted to get back as much sustain as I could. I imagine a bolt on guitar with a floyd rose would have almost no sustain, but i don't know if its worth the tone\sustain upgrade to use a tom

[Kevan]

Crafty- you're killin' me here.

Ghwar- check this out: http://www.tremol-no.com

It'll probably save you a lot of work and get you the sustain you're looking for.

[Duff Beer Man]

HAHA i totally for got about that kevan im sorry man. I am definately am going to be picking up one of those for all my floyd guitars tho.

[Maiden69]

Yeap, get the tremol-no... Even with the shims on it will not be the same! The amount of wood of the neck that will be touching the body will be minimal, and there would be not a good amount of "vibration" transfered. I like to think of those shims as the last resort when all means are exhausted and then some...

And the Carvin TOM is not much lower than the regular one! I got one and still used the cheapo Stew Mac sells (believe it or not it is better constructed!).

And if you are thinking on staining like Marty's guitar, better get a 1/4" cap instead of a veneer, the veneer won't take the stain that good.

[crafty]

BTW, does anyone know why they call it the "Kelly" shape? I've been trying to figure that out since I saw my first Jackson in the music store 11 years ago.

[Ghwar]

BTW, does anyone know why they call it the "Kelly" shape? I've been trying to figure that out since I saw my first Jackson in the music store 11 years ago.

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it was made by michael kelly or maybe thats wrong but it was someone with the last name kelly