marksound

Contact Curtis Novak. He's pretty much always up for a challenge. Nice guy, easy to deal with, zero ego. He'll tell you up front if he can do it or not.

Here's a few projects he's done in the past.

Seen it happen, and seen it fixed. I guess it depends on if you are a LUTHIER, or a TECH (or, maybe a HACK). NEXT!

Interesting...so, you mean, there's a difference between a true luthier and a beginning guitar tech?

Obviously there's a difference. I'm none of the above (hopefully not the HACK part ) but I can fix a lot of stuff. The guy more than likely is confident enough in his ability that the inevitability of warranty work is a no-brainer.

Thoughts and prayers, bud.

It looks like a thin hardwood top and back are laminated to the core under pressure.

Back home we call that plywood.

+1. Dye is fun and it's not as hard as you'd think.

My eye wants to see black dots on maple.

(On a dark board I like real MOP. Abalone is pretty and makes for some nice flash under stage lights, but up close I don't much care for it.)

it's not about money really, i'm placing an order on thomann.de on monday and i'm limited to their stock. These looked as the most interesting options for me.

thanks for the replies.

If you can wait a bit, I know a guy who can repair/rewind those pickups and make them better than new. Check out Curtis Novak, especially the 63 Strat Repair. Tell him I sent you.

Also, what are you replacing? What's the minimum/maximum you're willing to spend? Again, what sound are you looking for?

I've found a great bang:buck ratio in Tonerider. I have one set already and another on order.

+1 to Hydro. I'm pretty much a traditionalist when it comes to guitars, so for me there were only two choices.

If you're using a spray rig, I think McFadden's is what you're looking for. If you want rattlecans, try Reranch.

Pretty sure Ed's original tone was with an old PAF through a script Phase 90 and a dimed plexi Marshall. The tone on records is going to be hard to duplicate because of all the EQ and other signal processing. Changing to a hotter pickup most likely isn't the way to go.

BTW, moving from DiMarzio to GFS is a huge step down, IMO.

I have a hard time believing that people would keep making acoustic guitars out of tonally dead wood.

I want to remove the paint from myold strat copy, what's the cheapest method?

Russ, try Reranch Mary Kaye White. (It's not on the order page, but just pick any color and enter Mary Kaye White in the comment box.) As always, if the store is closed keep checking back.

That looks great.

If all of this is about chasing tone, it's pointless. People have been doing this for at least half the last century and it all comes back to basically the same 3 things: LP vs Strat vs Tele. Every "holy grail" tone has been done on one of those three, and usually one from the mid 50s to mid 60s. Of course, this is all just my opinion so take from it what you will, but I think anything else is pretty much just a bunch of marketing (spelled H-O-O-E-Y).

Now I'm done.

Maybe this is all over my head, but I don't see the point of this thread. Is it about changing the molecular structure of hardware, and for what purpose? Doesn't using harder metal for hardware generally brighten (some would say "harshen") tone? Is the point of this thread to end up generating orders for a new pickup? Is it about prematurely aging parts? (Curtis Novak says, "Buddy Holly's guitar sounded great brand new, Blackie, and Brownie sounded awesome when they were only 10 years old. If it is true that an "aged magnet" has any real effect on tone, then these same models from the 80's should be sounding pretty good by now.")

I'm so confused. I'm going to bed.

I'd call you Schroeder if I could spell it.

Yeah, just remember that acetone is a solvent for superglue.

Looks much better, but that logo looks kinda like a Fender F from a bit of a distance.

Ayup.

http://www.mykaguitars.com/instruments/051/default.htm

+1 on repairs. There a guy in town who retired after 35 years as an electrical engineer and opened up a repair shop to have something to do. He's been so busy since the day he opened 4 years ago that he's gonna have to retire again to be able to slow down.

On my blue mongrel I signed one of the pickup cavities with a Sharpie on top of the paint and then cleared over it. Start with mist coats so it doesn't run, then once it's locked in proceed as usual.

David Myka is partial to the Stetsbar.

http://www.stetsbar.com/stop.tail.html

Nitrocellulose lacquer creates a chemical bond; it melts into itself with each successive coat. You can wait as long as you want between coats without adhesion problems.