Oddball Lefty

Agreed. Being a niche market, build 7 of 'em and send three to the big guitar magazines for free. I worked at Flowmaster exhaust for a long time. I was in charge of their Marketing. Magazine ads I wrote copy for and took pics for ran on the back cover of HOT ROD Magazine. 8 million a month circulation worldwide! Ray, the founder of Flowmaster had rubber feet and a plastic handle on the cutaway mufflers when he was promoting at the racetrack. Took a few decades, but suddenly he was KING of the performance muffler world! Have an exceptional product and know who to sell it to! In the mean time, branch out to other markets! Look at that freaky thing Tony DeLacugo sells! Not my style at all! I wouldn't pay $200 for one! I WOULD pay 3X that for a tele body with one of his flake-flame jobs! People like me pay his bills while his other creations can idle for the right buyer. Someone who DOES like the guitar I posted above!

Hey all, Been a while since I posted. Does anyone know of a drop-in 2 post trem with a steel block (Or a steel block that'd swap to this trem) I checked out the pinned tremolo thread and it looks like the measurements from the posts are taken from the center of the posts? Do manufacturers use this measuring point universally? Where on a trem do I measure string-spacing? At the bridge pickup? the saddle? the string ball-end holes? Sorry, I am used to TOM/STP or BADASS-type bridges and humbuckers (F-Spaced or non-F-spaced.) Just bought one of these: I am currently living in an apartment and am a several hour drive from my dad's hobby shop, so modding these days requires simple hand tools and drop-in parts right now. I bought this guitar for $129 on sale from $219. I saw it 3 years ago and thought it looked beautiful. Seems after 3 years the shop wanted some to buy it! The matte amber finish on the body matches the headstock. Basswood body. I am a lot less offended by basswood than I thought I'd be. Since the finish is transparent, the pieces of wood used are few and decent. The neck is great on this particular guitar (Believe me, I checked at the shop!) I like the color with the rosewood fretboard and tortoise pickguard. Plans for the guitar are switching the hardware over to gold, replacing the white plastic with cream plastic, locking tuners, new trem, graph-tech or roller saddles and graph-tech or roller nut. I bought it without plugging it in at the store, but once I got home and plugged it into my Music Man I was actually quite impressed with the pickups even (That or I've become tone-deaf overnight!) but I might add some GFS pickups to one of their "13 sound" tortoise pickguards. Quality control with the cheap guitars can be hit-or-miss but the guys in Indonesia who built this particular guitar somehow managed to do an amazing job of woodwork, assembly, finish and grab the good stuff out of the parts bin! What are the odds? This particular guitar was actually nicer than any of the $500-or-less guitars in the store! This is my new "player's guitar" or "beater guitar" since my 70's lefty aluminum-neck Kramer is in pieces again, still undetermined if it'll become righty or lefty...and my righty '91 Gibson '76 Explorer reissue is not allowed out of its case at parties!

Hi All. Just found out that while my '81 Kramer XR7 came with some crappy Schaller humbuckers, It was listed in the catalog as being equipped with DiMarzio Dualsounds and a stereo input. It has 4 jack and 3 switch holes, and I can see where the body was plugged with dowel in 2 places in the control cavity area. Currently I have 2 EMGs but I might yank 'em and use 'em in another guitar. So what I'm wondering is: 1. do the stereo inputs mean this thing came with an active pre-amp? 2. Where can I get a good active pre-amp suited for this guitar with coil-taps for dual passive humbuckers? 3. What sonic possibilities will open up for me with stereo input? What do I do with one? Plug it into 2 channels of an amp? Plug into 2 amps an once? (I've only owned single-input guitars All with passive pickups until I EMG'd the Kramer with standard volume and tone controls, nothing with a onboard preamp) Thanks, everyone!

Anyhow Here's a pic of one, for those who haven't seen 'em. Pic1 And here's my rendering, complete with a DiMarzio X2N, and revised control location.

Well, I was looking at all those chintzy Galveston clear guitars on eBay, and whining about how they didn't offer 'em for lefty. I immediately got to wondering where and how much for a proper lefty body... ...But spending real money and having other people do the dirty work is so much less satisfying. Anyhow, I read a bunch of reviews on these guitars online, which were all funny as hell, the quality of them is as poor as one would expect from a $130 guitar. Keeping that in mind, and the fact that I'm used to getting the oddest $150-$300 guitar I can find, reducing it to a pile of parts and starting from scratch (See explanation of my aluminum necked Kramer lefty elsewhere on this site) I thought "Why not just get the stupid thing in righty, slap on an inexpensive but decent (Esp. compared to what I read of the Galveston neck ) lefty neck, Order a righty pickguard in black milled for a single humbucker, and relocate the volume/tone knobs and coil tap up out of my left hand's way when I'm playing?" I was so excited about the idea I had to immediately break out my horrid "Paint" skills and render it.

Thanks, Guys. My '73 Duster is Primer Gray with Primered sharkteeth on the front fenders, and my '66 Dart Wagon is Primered Two-Tone Black & White, so I have plenty of grey, black and white Rustoleum, and several different grits of emery cloth from those projects. If the sandable gray goes onto the wood the best, I'm just wondering out loud if their flat black is safe as a topcoat over the gray. I'll test a few scraps before hitting the body so as to not screw myself up, here.

Hi All. About to order a unfinished body for one of my necks. I am going to primer this one to match one of my cars, and get that "Rat Rod" look. All of the CNC shops offer a choice of wood, which wood would take primer the best, what type of flat primer would work the best? (I have a TON of Rust-Oleum, but might try something lighter) What kind of prep work is needed? This will be my first time painting a guitar myself, and I'm used to prepping and primering rusty metal, not wood. Any tips appreciated.

COOL! Thanks for doing the legwork. I'm still set on using the Carburetor Jets on the Kramer, but I'll keep 'em in mind for future projects... ...There are ALWAYS future projects!

Don't they mean RIGHT hand motion? Anyhow, been considering a graphite-neck Strat when I finish the aluminum-neck (Aluminium, for any UK members of this board) Moses hasn't neglected us southpaws, so I'd like to support 'em. But I have a ? about 'em. Do they have a seperate part number for necks set up for Sperzels, or are they universal in that regard, i.e. has different mounting holes for bolting up the machines. Would LSR machines be a possibility on one of these necks?

No flamejob on this one. That'll go on a strat. I'll start on that one when I'm finished with this one. This is a Kramer aluminum neck that I drilled for Sperzels, had a graphite nut made for to replace the roller nut (It was missing a wheel) The Schaller humbuckers were tossed in favor of EMGs. Gonna be a "Warlock" body in gloss black. Hard to go wrong with gloss black and polished metal. What got me started on all this madness was thinking "Y'know, it'd be nice to have a battery box." Which eventually became "This'd be cool with a Warlock body." As for the carb jets, as a motorhead, There's something I find appealing about having to go back to the pits and "Re-Jet" my guitar to step up to heavier guage strings. Well, actually, I'd just use large enough diameter jets to provide clearance for any string, but it's a funny thought.

No wonder I couldn't find 'em anywhere. This board ROCKS! Great information about their lack of availibility, AND thanks for the great ideas. Since I'm on my own here for ferrules, I think I'll order 3 pairs of Holley carburetor jets and recess 'em into the body. But I do like the pop rivet idea as well. And if you find the pic of your guitar with the acoustic bridge as a tailpiece, send it my way. Always open for cool ideas.

I'm rebodying and aluminum-necked Kramer. Has the Schaller Bridge / Tailpiece combo right now. I'm planning on using a traditional Tune-O-Matic bridge, and having the strings route from the back of the body, through ferrules, and over the T-O-M Bridge, like a Flying V but without the V shaped tailpiece. I've found the Ferrules for the back of other string through bridges, such as the Fender hardtails, which mount directly under the bridge, but I cannot find any information on what ferrules to use to run the strings through the body BEHIND the bridge. I've been to WD, AllParts and StewMac so far.