Malakai

holy crap thats beautiful. more pics man!

Labor costs is probably the main difference. This also includes skipping on quality control, not being too careful when selecting wood, etc. On dirt-cheap ($100) guitars, the hardware and wood is very low quality. You'll find flimsy tuners, bridges that will wear out quickly, plywood bodies etc. However, if you step the price up just a bit (say to $300) you can sometimes find instruments where the primary difference to a similar US made instrument is price. dunno about that. My Squier actually has pretty good tuners. They're very fluid in movement and require and dont require alot of effort to move. The locking ones that I just bought are much stiffer(maybe thats what people want? I dont know). My buddy's new american fender had these god awful tuners on it. I had to turn hard to get any movement. Now the trem on the squier sucks. The knife edge is pitted and destroyed after a year of non use since I never used the trem much. Just replaced it with a wilkonson style from guitarfetish. I dont think many companies make bodies out of plywood anymore(The offbrand knockoffs probably). Wood quality? Seriously unless it's a transparent finish\oil finish the quality\grade doesn't matter all that much as paint is covering it's defects. One thing about the cheaper ones is plastic nuts.

Won't quite work if the problem is that the slots aren't deep enough to hold the strings properly. True..but a pre slotted nut should accept a 10-46 string set without a problem, well for a graphtech one anyway. graphtech probably. Allparts graphite not. Anyone know where I can get cheap files capable of filing this down? Harborfreight ones are too big, and I refuse to pay 15-30 per file at stewmac.

Because it requires even more tools! Im getting tired of buying one use tools. My micro files arent fine enough for this, they're ok for the thicker 3 strings, but the high ones are a no go. Only reason I'm replacing it is because the previous owner strung it up as a lefty, with heavy strings. This ruined the plastic nut. Luthier wants $125 for a new nut install (includes setup) Guess im off to buy some feeler guages. Will see what happens.

So heres the thing. I'm refinishing a guitar and I decided to pop the old plastic nut off and replace with a graphite nut. So I went to Guitar center and bought the only graphite nut they had, an allparts graphite. It's pre slotted but not by very much. Part number is BN 0823-00G Found here http://www.allparts.com/store/nuts-saddles...00g,Product.asp Should I bother installing it or should I order a graphtech one? Does it absolutely need to be filed properly for each string? I have a set of micro files but they're NOT fret files. This is not something I've ever done before and quite frankly I dont want do as I have no measuring tools for this. I dont know if my micro files are even small enough. The high E and B strings have almost no indent. A set of .10-46 strings would likely pop right out. Whats worse is I want to use .12-56 in Drop C!

PRS Doublecut. A good mix of a les paul and a Strat. Super Strats Strats Cant stand how the Telecaster looks. Nor the explorer Havent held a flying V but they dont really appeal to me. I like horns. Les pauls dont really appeal to me but I do want to build one. And I hate the SG.

I think I used just about anything short of a thermonuclear device. A heat gun also works wonders. I don't know what it is they use to 'seal' those Saga bodies, but it's hard as a rock. Pretty darn thick too. They must dip the bodies in that stuff. It can come off, just don't expect it to be easy. The wood underneath was okay. Not fantastic, but okay. Im guessing its a poly resin like was on the ibanez I stripped. The damn thing was bullet proof. After 6 hours with a orbital sander and 60 grit paper I finally made it through the top. The back? I attacked with a heatgun and the stuff came off like popcorn. Hot scalding popcorn of death! Did burn the wood in several places but oh well. The refinish is exceeding my expectations. I'm freaking Dying of SAGA Gas right now. I want the PRS!

how about a cheap vacuum bag system? http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?famil...de=details#tabs

First map out how much you want to spend on upgrading it. (New neck? Min $100-200, Tuners? $26-100, Pickups? $150, Refinishing supplies? $100-200, Consider a new Nut since the squier is plastic, $10-50) At this point we're looking at putting $400+ on a Squier. No one recommends this. But I say go for it if you have it. www.guitarfetish.com is the best place for cheap but quality upgrades. For the price you could get a much better made guitar used. Then plan on upgrading that instead. Course theres a big difference between buying parts slowly and buying something all at once. As for selling and building a custom for $100ish... Not going to happen unless you go Saga kit. And it would probably compare alot to the Squier. My tips : 1: Don't throw away any parts, even if they're rubbish. Just because you put in new expensive pickups doesn't mean that they have to live in that guitar forever. What if you get a better axe down the road and want to move the pickups over? You could de-mod the squier and upgrade the new axe for no extra money. I know alot of people that put emg's on everything, they have 15 yr old guitars that they never play anymore but sure enough it has EMG's on it. Each time they get a new guitar they buy a new set of EMG's. Talk about wastefull 2: Buy from Guitarfetish to save cash. Don't go for the top of the line stuff. You don't need 200 dollar tuners on a $100 dollar guitar. It's just silly. 3: Start off slow. If you get frustrated doing something, put it down and walk away. Come back to it later. Trying to finish it quickly will cause more harm than good. 4: Read, read, read, read, Take notes. Then when you get to work understand that all the reading in the world doesn't compare to actual hands on practice. 5: Don't be afraid to fail. You only truly fail when you give up and never go back to it. 6: Don't let other people talk you into more expensive routes. Wan't to upgrade your Squier? Go ahead. It'll never be a True Fender but who cares. When it comes down to it theres not much difference. If you were to upgrade all electronics and hardware on a Squier, and on a Fender. Then cut the headstock to be the same and re decal the squier. No one will be able to tell the difference. Hell upgrade the Squier to Fender parts and cut the headstock. Some can tell by playing on the neck. But the difference in the body will be minimal. Better wood grade(Which doesn't matter if it's a solid color) and tighter tolerances in routing. I actually like my Squier's neck more than any fender I've picked up. 7: Have fun. Here's my modded Squier. It originally had a cream pickguard/tone knobs/pickups. All upgrades are from GuitarFetish. I've added roller saddles. Black Pickguard, 17 combonation switch setup. killswitch, GFS Lil killer Rail pickups, Dunlop Straplock, and a Tremol-no. My next mods for it are locking tuners($28), wilkonson Tremolo($50), Black hardware, Roller Trees, Graphtech nut, Push\Pull Tone knobs, Overdrive Circuitry. And i'm going to convert it into a fat strat.

Glue is easy, use a rubber roller to apply glue as thin as possible. If I do get the Saga I'll probably attempt the steam method. If that doesn't work, well I'm sure I can find a vacuum system somewhere locally.

Quick introduction. I'm a newb and an idiot so bare with me I've been reading up on the Saga kits for awhile now. Had like 90 seperate pages open, and I've come up with one question. Why doesn't everyone that wants clear finish just sand all the way through and apply a new veneer? It's not like their expensive.The tutorial on PG made it look simply(Course there is the curved top issue but meh) If I get that kit I'll prob attack the damn thing with 600 grit paper on my Random Orbital! If I screw up? No big deal. Highly considering buying a HT-10 from Brian in a few months time(Have to convince the wife of this little "project") Currently I'm refinishing a Ibanez EX160 with comical results, my first attempt at anything like this. And yes, Carvin kits are better, Grizzly kits are better, Warmoth body + neck is better. They're also not $100-160 for a playable instrument. Another option is this PRS body + Neck. Around $200. But I havent heard much about them anywhere. Mahogany body(Solid?) With a nice top. http://byoguitar.com/Guitars/PRS-Body-and-...-PRSBUNDLE.aspx