OrenG

I just looked up the Ibanez Pick Holder strip and I'm trying to figure out a cheaper alternative because the only place that has it for sale wants around 20 bucks for it. It says it's reusable, adheres to the guitar and the pick, yet leaves no residue and if it begins to not adhere as well, just wash it under water. Something tells me it might have to do with static but I'm not sure. Anyone know?

Nope, I was planning on getting a spray nozzle along with the spray paint.

Bump. Any information for my questions ^ would be appreciated.

I'm going to stop changing my mind every five seconds about what I want in a tail piece/bridge so for now I'll leave that alone. What I do know is I'm going to add a DIY black ice overdrive, as well as route a larger control cavity to accommodate more knobs and switches compared to the existing which is only one volume knob. While I'm still writing this I might as well discuss these items: I need to know how to/where to get - Fender Trans-White paint - finish the neck so it has a "mild golden vintage tint" - template for firebird pickups - Firebird pickups If anyone needs reference pictures to better understand what I want as the outcome for this project, Click Here. I have found that upon closer inspection of the neck, I was right in that it has no truss rod. -Many Thanks, OrenG

Obviously the holes need to be perpendicular to the body or the ferrules wont line up, a drill press is the job for this. Although, the first time I did ferrules i didn't have access to a press so i drilled plenty of holes in a piece of wood, found the 'squarest' one and used that hole as a guide for the string through holes. It worked fine but a press is much easier, faster and foolproof. Hmm, since I don't have relatively easy access to a drill press, I may want to go the route of a Les Paul style tailpiece and bridge. Something like this and this. Hopefully once I strip the paint, I can fill the existing holes for the existing bridge with some wood putty. I'll have to check this once I'm at home, but I don't think there is a truss rod inside the neck since it is so low cost. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to solve this? It appears to be a once piece maple neck.

Alright I've run into a small problem with the bridge. Upon changing the crap factory strings to Boomers, I realized that the tail piece is similar to a hard tail strat, however the anchor-holes are not going through the body, but instead through holes in the bridge. If I was to replace the bridge, how would I go about drilling holes and installing these?

Next weekend is the weekend that I start this epic process of transforming this guitar into a one of a kind masterpiece. First up on my To-Do list is buy paint and strip, prep, prime and paint, then clear coat the body, and move on to sanding and clear coating the neck. (the neck isn't smooth at all, nor does it have any sort of sealant to protect it from use.) I'm thinking of adding a few things to the paint job. For some reason I want to cross the 60's/70's/moon landing together in the theme of the guitar. Starting with the NASA logo font as a decal. Anyone else got any ideas?

I can't believe I forgot this, but I finally got pictures of the thing. I will edit this post when the pictures are uploaded to my Flickr account and a link will be provided. EDIT: here it is Photos I apologize for the quality, I took them quick with my crappy 2 megapixel camera and forgot to compare it to a standard ruler for size comparison.

The guitar has been purchased, I will begin work on it as soon as I get my materials. It plays ok, frets are slightly on the small side, but over all it will serve it's purpose as a travel guitar. I'm thinking about making the headstock less pointy and more strat like by using some sort of belt or power sander. -OrenG

Frank, Thanks for the input, I'm a big fan of your work; I had no idea that you posted here as well as on MyLesPaul. I really can't say why Restoration Hardware carries the things they do, as with the vintage toys, to the pocket hand warmers and shredding scissors, Restoration Hardware would be the last place someone would look to find a guitar. However the sad part is that it is only sold online or through their catalog.

Here are the rest of the pictures

I really hate it when I do this, but I've decided to go a different route with the guitar. If you've been on eBay looking for strats, no doubt you'll come across Mandi's FireCaster. I'm going to attempt a mini FireCaster clone with the parts as follows. Gold Schaller Tuners Gold rolling string trees Graphtech Graphite Nut Gotoh Tune-O-Matic/Tailpiece Volume/Tone knobs (Gibson Gold Top Knobs) Two Gibson Firebird Vintage Gold pickups Small 3 ply white pickguard Gibson Three way switch, gold. (Possible if found, Hard rock Singapore and Las Vegas key chains/pins cut off and used as headstock back/front "logos") (If I really wanted to go overkill on this thing more then it already is, I would throw in a Gold Schaller Original Floyd Rose With Ghost Acostic Saddles.) and of course the Restoration Hardware mini strat which has now dropped in price from 150$ to 74$ :D Here are some rehosted pictures from the ebay auction since they go down and out about every week, and hotlinking isn't nice Credit goes to Mandiscustomshop ebay user.

Hello, It's been a while since I last wrote in, and this time I should be able to pull off this project with very little money. the base of the project is this: http://www.restorationhardware.com/rh/cata...&navCount=4 5 Gold Schaller M6 Tuners 1 Gold Hipshot Xtender with gold M6 Schaller 2 Fender String Guide Am Stan Gold 1 Floyd Rose Locking Nut, L5, Gold (Tail piece/bridge undecided) Volume/Tone knobs (Gibson Gold Top Hat Knobs) Two Gibson Firebird Vintage Gold pickups Small 3 ply white pickguard (custom made in AutoCAD) 1 Gibson Three way switch, gold 1 Gibson toggle switch ring, cream and gold lettering 1 Gold Allen Key Holder (mounted on the back of headstock) Custom Decal How does that sound for a travel guitar? -OrenG

Ohhh... Damn! I didn't even notice, thanks for that. However I still need someone to answer my two questions Please?

Does anyone have an answer to both questions?

Emmm..What?

Yeah, it is a bit much I'll agree, but I suppose I'm doing it because I like a challenge. And I just noticed I spelled legends wrong. Does anyone know of a Frankenstein spray paint stencil / ??? I'm looking to photoshop together this so I can get a feel for what it will look like, and possibly make some changes to the design. -Thanks, OrenG

Oh, I knew I forgot something. So, I realize that the Ibanez neck won't exactly fit since its not a fender, and it has 24 frets. Does anyone know what I need to do to route the neck pocket for the proper size? -Thanks, OrenG

Hello all, I'm not really a regular here, nor have I been here in a while, so I thought I would put this project here. I'm going to be working on a dream of mine that goes back for quite some time, the quest to build a Van Halen Frankenstein clone/replica combined with various other guitars. However its going to be more of a clone then a replica, or relic. I'll go over the parts and more detail below. The body is from Guitar Fetish, the replacement black Stratocaster body, and a replacement Ibanez JEM neck from etguitars with "Glow-in-the-Dark" Blue and Green DNA spirals, Red blood vesicle, and Green g-i-t-d side dots. The headstock inlay will be an Ibanez check mark without the Ibanez, possibly the world Custom in an Ibanez font. The body painted with a Van Halen stripe job (black, white, red) with Paul Gilbert F-Holes, and a Steve Vai Y2KDNA style swirled neck, and headstock. The pickguard will be made of clear plexi-glass, and the underside will be painted to match the Van Halen paint job exactly. The reason for this is so I don't have to fill the cavities with wood. Just as a side note the truss rod cover will be made of semi translucent black plexi-glass, and the tremolo cover will be a modified Stratocaster trem cover for easy access to the Treml-no also clear plexi-glass painted to match the Van Halen paint job. The pickups will be from bridge to neck: Schaller Hot Stuff, Dimarzio X2N, and Dimarzio Dactivator-X bridge. The selector switches will be 3 Gibson style switches, for each pickup. Position 1 on the switch will be coil on, position 2 will be coil tapping, and position 3 will be off. I'm also going to install a big red Buckethead style Kill switch. The tremolo will be a Schaller Floyd Rose, and the tuners are 5 Schaller Locking tuners plus one Hipshot D-tuner, The nut will be the provided Schaller locking nut, as well as a Treml-no. The body will be routed for a Lions claw. And finally, the Strap buttons will be StrapLoks, with a No.1 Hamburg Strap. Now for the other non crucial details. Under the tremolo, I will be placing a recreation of SRV's custom sticker. Two holographic eyeball inlays on the right half of the guitar, just as a little personal touch. And a 777 BK all seeing eye pyramid inlay below the Custom Sticker. I hope to have this project completed sometime before 2010's end. I'm hopefully getting the body and neck next summer. Just wanted to post this to show what you can be expecting from me in the near future.

Ok, I was looking for something in the Super Distortion neighborhood, what is the Strat equiv to a Super Distortion? -Thanks, OrenG

My overall style is somewhere between metal and a classic rock sound. So an overwound pickup wound be perfect. Right? -Thanks, OrenG

The so called "over wound" pickup myth, is probably one that is false, there is no myth, but the myth is supposedly that overwound pickups do nothing more for the tone of the guitar. -OrenG

Hello all, It has been quite a while since I last posted here, and I had a question about pickups, so I figured what better place then Project Guitar? Anyways, I've been reading up on Strat pickups and getting a warmer tone since I have a late 2007 model Mexican made strat that doesn't do the fender sound any justice. So the question is really what kind of pickups should I get for my Strat? I was thinking about a set of Tex Mex's. -Thanks, OrenG

Hello, It's been a while since I was on so I thought I'd ask a few questions. First off I now have a Mexican made strat, the question I have is does anyone have any good relic-ing tips to make it look more like Clapton's Blackie? By relic, I don't want to ruin the body at all, just age the removeable pieces, such as the knobs, back plate and tuners. -Thanks, OrenG

Alright, thanks guys. I have my heart set on getting a Fender American HHS Stratocaster, how would I put the chromedomes on a humbucker? Thanks, OrenG