How Much Work Would Be Required..

[Ezro]

Hey guys, how much work would be required to take this guitar: http://cgi.ebay.com/YAMAHA-EG112-ELECTRIC-...1QQcmdZViewItem and take out the pickups and put in 3 single coils and change the paint color/knobs/bridge and pickguard?

[Doeringer]

Lots, but before we get into a long discussion of how too's and especially why's - could you give us a little insight on your guitar refinishing experience? This way we can answer your question better.

[Daniel Sorbera]

changing the pickups, bridge, knobs, and pickguard will be easy. Doing a refinish is very difficult.

[Ezro]

I have never done any refinishing, I was planning on bringing it to a shop or something.

[radrobgray]

I have never done any refinishing, I was planning on bringing it to a shop or something.

that would cost you more that the guitar. just find a guitar that has all the things you want. then you wont end up spending heaps of money.

[Drak]

It's a plywood guitar, you don't mod those things, you just play 'em as-is.

[GregP]

You can get a new Pacifica (or whatever you want) as-is for far less than you'd pay in money and frustration trying to modify this one.

The pickguard is NOT an easy job, either-- Yamaha has nonstandard pickguards, and you'd have to make your own using a pickguard blank, if you wanted it to have 3 single coils. That's a job in and of itself, if you want to do it with quality and precision.

Greg

[Ezro]

so wait, what if I don't want to refinish and I just want to switch the knobs and pickups and stuff, would it be worth it?

[Daniel Sorbera]

It depends. I've played some cheap guitars that we're great, and some that had fret problems and did not play well. It's pretty much the luck of the draw when dealing with something in that price range. I'd deffinitly go to a store and play a guitar first before buying. I'd never buy a guitar off ebay.

[marksound]

I put a partso together with one of those bodies a few years back. It was solid basswood, but like the man says you either have to use the stock pickguard or make one yourself.

By the way, those guitars aren't bad stock. Nothing fancy--just basic low end stuff, but they work.

EDIT: If you want something a little easier to modify/upgrade, you might look for one of these. I got one for $60 when Overstock.com was blowing them out before Christmas. They're made in Indonesia by either Cort or Samick (mine's Cort), so the quality is comparable to others from the same factory (not too bad). For a beater, they're hard to beat. Ahem.