willliam_q Posted April 18, 2020 Report Share Posted April 18, 2020 New project time!!! Like a lot of people, life is affected by Coronavirus. As someone who lives in UK (Northern Ireland) the lockdown is definitely having an affect. My work is unaffected thankfully, however my wife has had to close her business. Being 23 weeks pregnant she won’t be opening up now until at least October. By then we could be in a second wave of Coronavirus and therefore another lockdown. We are very fortunate in that financially we will be ok for about a year or so, if we are careful. After which there could be lifestyle re-evaluations . So to get to the point, my last build cost about £700-£800 and there’s no way I can justify the same expenditure on a new project. The aim of this one is to use what I have at hand as much as possible. I need a project that comes with limited health risks i.e limited power tool use ( I don’t want to risk injury and put unnecessary extra pressure on health service). and is cheap. This will not be a scratch build. I have a 20yr old Yamaha EG112 which at the time cost me £120. It was a great 2nd guitar but has been unplayed for the last 15 years, and the last 5 it has been thrown amongst my construction timber wood pile in my damp garage. Needless to say it’s not in great shape. My initial plans for it are to turn it into an 80’s rock tribute guitar, it has SSH configuration and I’d hope to keep it that way. Parts I have laying in spare parts boxes: Chinese Floyd rose copy PRS Tremonti SE bridge pickup Fender Highway One neck and mid pickups new Strat wiring kit (pots and switches) reuse the existing guitar machine heads. They are crap but with a Floyd great tuners aren’t necessary. Work to be done: fix dents in the neck maybe swap the current frets for Jumbos maybe route the fretboard and install rosewood binding to hide fret ends fix dents in body install Floyd rose surface mounted swap the current pickups for some upgrades change the colour depending on options make a new pick guard I’m fairly decided on the colour but undecided on the pickguard and pickup cover combo. I’m leaning towards a black pickguard, I could potentially make one out of carbon fibre which would be a cool new thing for me to try. what you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted April 19, 2020 Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 Yamaha EG112 - that's essentially the budget Pacifica, isn't it? This old refurbishment thread of mine may be of interest to you. It looks like it's going to be pretty garish, but black on yellow gets my vote. Be gentle with the chinese Floyd copy. That way lies stripped threads, poor plating and easily-worn knife edges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted April 19, 2020 Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 i like the black and yellow... but if you do this you might be required to play stryper covers on it (hehe 80's reference). I like carbon fibre. I would say that it'd be nice to tie the carbon fibre in a bit more... what about a headstock overlay too? get a plug cutter and do carbon fibre dot markers? you could get a plastic emg style cover for the humbucker and use single coil covers and put a carbon fiber layer over them. just spitballing here. whatever you do... I'm certain it'll be fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted April 19, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 @curtisa yes it’s a budget Pacifica. The guy in music shop at the time told me the only difference was mines was made in somewhere like China vs the Pacifica being made in Korea...or something like that. Can’t remember the specifics. I’m sure the Pacifica has a bit more quality parts to it. im thinking black and yellow too. In terms of Carbon Fibre, I can get a yellow carbon fibre mat as well (on eBay) and could potentially layer black and yellow cf. when the pickguard is bevelled the yellow should show through. Could be great or it could be a mess....who knows I’ll think about where else CF could go but at the moment I think I like it just as the pickguard. And I love garish guitars, just don’t possess one yet so this will be a first Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted April 19, 2020 Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 10 hours ago, willliam_q said: I’m fairly decided on the colour but undecided on the pickguard and pickup cover combo 80's... Black pickguard and pickups were typical for stock guitars of that era. Fluorescent pink and/or green would be even more garish, maybe seen more on Ibanez guitars, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted April 19, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 Lifted the guitar out for a first look, it’s not as bad as I thought but there will be a substantial amount of work to be done. I checked the truss rod and it’s still working. It needs a good clean first! neck isn’t as dinged up as I thought it was so will just come out with a bit of sanding. It feels surprisingly good! there is a bit of fret wear though. Still undecided if I should refret with Jumbos although the current frets look like some could be seated better. The body is very light. The moisture in the garage has definitely affected it, you can see the join lines coming through the paint. the neck fitment looks good but I noticed a hairline crack going through to the body cavity. Nothing that can’t be fixed. I don’t know what type of body wood this is, it scratches easily with my finger nails so thinking it’s basswood? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted April 19, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 I now need to order up a few things. the Nut with my Floyd is too wide, I need a 42mm nut. I think I’ll replace the tuners as well, there’s too much ‘patina’ on them for my liking! the Floyd Rose route will end up very close to the pickup cavity. I think I’ll need to block off the current cavity and route from scratch to allow it to sit right top mounted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted April 19, 2020 Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 40 minutes ago, willliam_q said: the current frets look like some could be seated better. There's so much gunk that even on a 30" screen I can't tell whether it's just a crack in the patina or a poorly seated fret. After a thorough cleaning you can try sliding a piece of paper under each fret. Paper is better than a razor blade since there's no chance that you could lift a fret off with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted April 19, 2020 Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 52 minutes ago, willliam_q said: the Floyd Rose route will end up very close to the pickup cavity. I think I’ll need to block off the current cavity and route from scratch to allow it to sit right top mounted. If the bridge pickup route is much like as it appears near the neck pocket (ie, an oversized swimming pool cavity) it will present a problem mounting the two tremolo posts for the Floyd, as there won't be enough meat left in front of the posts to prevent them collapsing forward under the combined tension of the strings. Blocking up the bridge pickup cavity and rerouting it to leave as much timber in front of the trem posts as possible will likely be mandatory. Also factor in shimming/angling the neck in the pocket to account for the much taller bridge height than the standard Fender-style trem that's on there now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted April 19, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2020 8 minutes ago, curtisa said: Blocking up the bridge pickup cavity and rerouting it to leave as much timber in front of the trem posts as possible will likely be mandatory. My thoughts exactly. Yes can make a shim for neck angle as well. 31 minutes ago, Bizman62 said: After a thorough cleaning you can try sliding a piece of paper under each fret. Might do that! Although I’m definitely thinking about swapping out the frets anyway as I really like Jumbos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted April 20, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2020 A quick look on eBay and standard pickguard blank material can be got for around £15. Suitable carbon fibre material and almost 3 times that. Can’t really justify the extra given the original value of the guitar and the parameters of this project. so black material it is then ive ordered up some parts at the weekend and got postage confirmation the morning...I have to wait till the middle of June!! in the meantime I can crack on with sorting out the body routs and hopefully pickguard blank will arrive quicker than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted April 20, 2020 Report Share Posted April 20, 2020 Probably a good choice given your earlier comments about limiting your potential impact on the NHS should things go wrong. Carbon fibre dust from cutting/shaping is not pleasant to deal with. You could always go for the ghetto approach to a pickguard - what about cutting a sidewall from a big black plastic tub from the hardware store? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted April 20, 2020 Report Share Posted April 20, 2020 1 minute ago, curtisa said: You could always go for the ghetto approach to a pickguard - what about cutting a sidewall from a big black plastic tub from the hardware store? Why buy a tub when black plastic can be acquired from empty canisters? An LP record would also be large enough for a Strat size scratchplate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted April 20, 2020 Report Share Posted April 20, 2020 You'd surely want to use an old Stryper LP as the scratch plate on such a build? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted April 20, 2020 Report Share Posted April 20, 2020 On 4/19/2020 at 5:42 AM, willliam_q said: I don’t know what type of body wood this is, it scratches easily with my finger nails so thinking it’s basswood? That's probably a very good guess. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted April 20, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2020 Not sure about the ‘ghetto’ suggestions above, the plan is to make the guitar better looking... I might have another problem though, I haven’t checked if the car parts shops are open. I might struggle to get paint for spraying. another covid distraction arrived today, a Mooer GE200 multi effects pedal. Looking forward to trying it out. Had to get it with a baby on the way I want to be able to practice through headphones! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted April 20, 2020 Report Share Posted April 20, 2020 1 hour ago, willliam_q said: Not sure about the ‘ghetto’ suggestions above, the plan is to make the guitar better looking... It depends on whose garbage can you're sourcing from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willliam_q Posted April 23, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2020 Started work on the body. Didn’t do too much, just enlarged the trem cavity to make it uniform to fit a block into it. The block is from scrap alder from my 5150 project a few years back. the trem screws will likely be routed out or covered by the new trem so I’ll leave them unless I think it will show in the final finish. next step will be to add some wood into the swimming pool cavity to support the trem studs. I’m in two minds as to whether I should completely fill the swimming pool and the route the individual pickups or whether I should just add a strip of wood for support. Hmmm. The pickguard material arrived today, I’ve never made a pickguard before. It’s black/white/black 3 ply plastic. Any tips as to how I should cut it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted April 24, 2020 Report Share Posted April 24, 2020 14 hours ago, willliam_q said: Any tips as to how I should cut it? The 'profeshunnul' way would be to make a template from MDF and then route the shape using a 45 degree pattern bit in a table router. The original pickguard could even be used as the master template for the MDF pattern. The 'really profeshunnul' way would be to ask someone to CNC one for you direct into the pickguard blank. The low cost way would probably involve a lot of painstaking hand-cutting and sanding. The 45 degree bevel typically applied to the outer edges will still be a challenge to execute with anything other than a router though. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
komodo Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 When you make the MDF template, make one out of cardboard or other thin material first so you can make sure everything is fits exactly how you want it. Then make your thicker template based on that one. If you start with too thick of material, it's really easy to be off by not cutting perfectly vertical. I'm doing the same thing today, and will try to take pics and put them in my build thread for 'Cthulhu'. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Workingman Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 I have a Pacifica Strat that I upgraded. The wood on mine is Agathis. The neck is very nice. I like it better than my MIM Strat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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