Racer X

While I HAVE used a dremel for pickup routing MODS, like opening up a single coil route for a hum, I wouldn't recommend doing a full route with one. Like someone said, you have to take MANY shallow passes. I have never broken a bit, but I could certainly understand how that's possible. I learned a while back that the bit that I was using had a 5/16" o.d., and that I could stack a bunch of washers over the shaft, that happened to not only be 5/16" o.d., but the holes were exact to the shaft size. That way, I made several templates, that the washers could act as glides, and cut pretty much a perfect route of the templates. I've modded the above pickup holes, as well a routed a full recessed Floyd routing with that setup, however, a full-fledged router would've been more appropriate, as it takes WAY too much time and patience, of both I seem to have little of.

Eastwood Co. used to make a home-powdercoating kit, and it wasn't too expensive. This, of course, was made for car parts, so I'm not certain how thick the coating went on, cause tolerences are definitely and issue, here.

I grabbed a can of that stuff, once, to re-fin a headstock. Had nothing but problems with it, and it seemed real soft, even after days, so I quickly dropped it like a hot potato, and switched to something else. It wasn't till after that, that a fellow forum member warned me about that stuff. Still have the original can, downstairs, collecting dust.

use the associated hardware as a way of marking the hole locations, first. That's what you are trying to mount, you it to your advantage. It's not rocket science.

I've seen Deft at my local Wallymart. I'd have to imagine our fellow Canadians have something similar (assuming they DON'T have Wallys). Sometimes the things we are looking for, are right under our noses. Might be the same case, for you. Good luck. Tell us what you find.

Seriously, you may be onto something. Having your fingerprint hidden somewhere on a guitar might be a nice way of identifying your baby.

Excellent job. I've been waiting to see the finished product. You are right, I think, though. Matching headstock. Normally, I like natural-looking strat headstocks, but THIS one calls for a match. Great work, mate!

Yikes! Talk about polishing a turd. I'm gonna make a killing, then, with my toilet kickdrum!

Man, I woulda gone with black to go with the black pearloid pickguard. Had that combo, before, and really loved it. Nice neck. Where'd ya get it?

VERY nice! Oh.......to have a pinrouter.............(sniff)

you know, Jimmy, to be honest, I had never even thought of THAT, so thanks. I MAY have to look into that. Thanks.

Yeah, it Is quite expensive, especially with 3 rugrats, slowly eating you out of house and home. I really try to do ALL my musical ventures on a shoestring budget, anymore, because of the family obligations. Bread on the table, first, ya know? Still, on such a tight budget and all, my last project came out quite nicely, and am very proud of it. Alreayd working on the next, when time and money allows. This freezing weather has really put a hold on any painting I had planned. Now, I sit, wait, and salivate over the great things YOU guys are doing.

Looking forward to the pics, cause you KNOW I'm living, vicariously through ya! hehe.

Hmm.....somehow in Paul's hands it doesn't look metal. It just looks gay..............

Yeah, really. Please post pics when you get it fired up. I love that kinda stuff. I gotta check out the other vid you mentioned, too. Thanks for telling us about them. I agree when you say it looks like a safer way. It really does. I'd love to make custom-made guitars on the side. The problem is the overhead costs, in tools, just to get started. Maybe, someday.

What model Squier is it? That would definitely help. The cheaper ones are made of plywood, from what I've seen around, but once you get into the Standard series, you get real wood. My Standard is made of Alder, and I love the tone out of it, and it is a brown burst finish, from the factory. But I think it definitely matters as to what series it is.

Sounds like you may have been checking out Wayne Charvel's vids. If you haven't you really should. Some REALLY cool stuff to watch. Made me wish I had a pin router.

Thanks. The whole project was kinda based off of Warren Demartini's French guitar. Obviously, I went a different route, in the graphics department. As Randy, Simon, and Paula would say: "I made it my own". hehe.

Hey, thanks for the kind words, guys. It was fun, but it IS addictive! I'm already working on my next one, and driving the wife crazy! hehe.

Never occured to me to submit this, till now (Guitar's been finished for about 6 months or more, now. Oops!), so here it goes:

The body is actually an 80 Chandler body that I was lucky enough to snag, on Ebay. When I got it, it was kinda rough. The previous owner started prepping it, but hadn't removed all the original paint, there were extra holes for both the strap knobs and jackplate (apparently, instead of FIXING the holes, he chose to just make new ones), so time was spent properly wood-filling these holes, and reshaping the mangled jack access hole.

The entire body was removed of it's original taxi-yellow paint, and finessed, so that all flat surfaces were actually flat, and all edges were even and smoothe. Extra attention was paid to the front and back surfaces, by sanding them over a sheet of plateglass, with several full pages of sandpaper adhered to it. Any low spots were filled with Evercoat poly glazing fill, and resanded, till absolutely flat. The front face of the neck pocket was reworked to accomodate a standard strat-style neck (front face was originally a flat, tele-style face). You can still make out the Chandler info, slightly, in the neck pocket.

The graphics were actually designed, within Photoshop, and printed out on waterslide decal paper. About 6 copies were done till they were to my liking. (A computer prototype was created to make sure the sizes and placements were just so).

A local body shop was hired for the paint work: I handed them the body, prepped. They applied the primer, and snow-white basecoats, and handed it back to me, for decal placement. After, they got the body back, for the cleacoat stages. Initially, we agreed to 3 coats of clear, so the body wouldn't be deadened, but after not being quite satisfied at the flatness over the decals, paid for an additional 3 coats. This is a shot right after the graphics were applied, prior to clearcoating:

I wasn't happy with the first neck, so I bought a new one. The new neck was a blank headstock design, and headstock was shaped, using an online picture found of a Strathead Charvel, printed to scale. Neck was finished in a wipe-on satin poly, but was glossed up a bit, when I realized the nice flame within the maple. Shelf routed for the Floyd nut. Neck is a nice width, but was considering having it shaved, to thin it out a little.

All hardware on the guitar was bought new from Mighty Mite, including the Floyd licensed JT-580 trem, except for the pickup ring, which I had lying around, and I temporarily dropped in a high output Epiphone pickup, until funds would allow, and I could decide on what to put in (Extra painting and body work sucked up the rest of my funds at the time. Actually, it doesn't sound too bad.). Body was modified to eliminate the original woodscrew-type trem posts, and inserts were installed. I wasn't sure the control route was exactly like that of a San Dimas Charvel, so I had a control cover made, using the actual body-route as a template.

To ensure that I could drop-d detune, quickly, using the fine tuner, I had the trem blocked for dive-only. All in all, I am thrilled at how well this came out. Better than I had hoped. Body has a nice resonance, plays nicely, and stays in tune wonderfully.

You could run some masking tape around the top edges of the route, and using an Xacto knife, trim off any overhanging areas, so as to create a smoothe edge. Make sure to mask off the rest of the immediate surrounding area, on top, to, to avoid overspray. A paintbomb should be just fine for this job. Doesn't see alot of action, and is pretty well hidden, too.

Yeah, you bought insurance, then use it. The pieces were more than likely stressed, before you even got it. Let THEM worry about it.

Wow, this is really coming along, nicely. You are a FAR better man than I, P. Curious as to why you didn't consider a top veneer to get away from a solid color, AND to hide the hole fill.

Man, I'd love to have that Grizzly. Sweet.

Had Kahlers on both my Charvel Model 4 and Model 6, and I loved them. Stayed in tune real well for me. Some say they are more maintenance, but I hardly ever did anything to them, and they were fine. You DO have to ensure the rollers don't get gunked up, though.

As far as feel, I feel the Floyds are more touchy, and responsive than the Kahlers, but I felt I got better sustain on the Kahlers, maybe due to the design, and mass. Never had a problem with the Kahlers matching my Floyds, in the pullup department, either, like someone mentioned. Only ones I never liked were the Kahler Flyers, that were on some of the lower-priced guitars. Never held tune.

We use the RTXs at work, cause they have more power than a Dremel, and don't burn out as frequent. Pretty nice tool. I reccomend it.

I don't find Floyds cumbersome at all. If you have a good system, and you set it up, properly, you shouldn't have many issues. Notice I said a good system, as I've also had licensed systems that were crap, like the Ibanez LO TRS II, which is known for it's faults. Hell, I installed a Mighty Mite licensed Floyd on my latest project, and love it. Hasn't gone out of tune, once, so I bought one for my next project, too.