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Build Electric Guitar from parts, Partscaster, partstele


tncutler

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Hello My name is Tyson, Im new here.

I would like to assemble a guitar from parts, possibly.

I joined my first band 5 years ago, bought a MIM Strat, my friend upgraded the pickups, I love this guitar will not get rid of it. However it has a tremolo bridge, which i do not like. not into tremolos. I dont like guitars that go out of tune when a string breaks. I blocked it off, but the guitar didn't feel as good after, So i put it back the way it was.

My other guitar is a frankinstein aria my friend gave me, this thing has some great qualities, it has one dirty fingers humbucker in the neck. hum wired to a pot so you can blend one of the coils, making it a single coil. Rosewood fret board super silky, sounds great. However , bolt on neck with no plate, has to be re set alot. also pots are shitty. looks really bad,

What I want

  • Rosewood fret board
  • Hardtail
  • Strat or tele body. not super important just like em
  • Quaity pickups
  • quailty neck
  • Tunning stability
  • quality hardware

Thats the basic idea, this is my first time, I dont really care about brand names, I care about reliabilty and sound.

I have no idea about:

  • Musical qualities of wood... what woods for the body to stay away from
  • what companies have decent hardware
  • Are there good donor guitars? could I buy somthing cheap and change a few things?

Budget $550

Thanks any help would be apprecitated

Tyson

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  • 2 weeks later...

I reckon you should check out Fast Guitars. They do a Tele kit (http://www.fastguitars.com/index.php/guitar-parts/standard-guitar-kits/tele.html) and a Strat (http://www.fastguitars.com/index.php/guitar-parts/standard-guitar-kits/strat.html) which are of a very high quality and within your budget. Of course, paint and hardware on top of that will suck up the rest of the budget, but it should work. A Tele is generally cheaper than a Strat of course.

Ping an email and tell them we sent you their way. It is possible they might have a Strat without the rear cavity and trem routs on stock (or might mill one custom) since you don't like trems. Beyond that, don't scrimp on your hardware at least in the long term. A set of cheap import Wilkinson tuners will do the job, however upgrading them further down the line is worth considering now. Buy tuners with the same mounting pattern as "what you WOULD prefer", such as Hipshot, Schaller, etc.

Donor guitars tend to require some work in order to get pieces to work with each other. Depends on whether you want a Frankenstein or building it up from the basics to what you want to start out with. I've got a cheap Alder Aria MAC body sitting around which originally came with a vintage-style tremolo. I routed the cavities out and infilled them with spare Alder in order to convert it to a different guitar. Most things are possible, but you budget will dictate what you can or cannot easily do to leave you with a playable instrument straight away. That Aria will likely cost me another couple hundred Euros to get it to where I want it.

There are a bunch of kit builders out there, but we've found Warmoth and Fast Guitars to be the highest quality for your money. Import kits are cheap, but you don't make a saving as such. Crap fretwork, unstable necks and all the stuff you want to avoid.

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