Guitar thread

[Josephvman]

I was just on the Warmouth guitar parts site and thinking about building my first parts guitar. I'm leaning toward a Tele Thinline, Surf Green or transparent Sunset Orange, satin finish nitro maple neck with rosewood board, pearl binding and pickguard, TV Jones p/u's and a Bigsby! I haven't added up the parts but I'm guessing around $1200-1300. Any of you guys gone down this road, and how did it turn out?

[cjbiker]

Originally Posted by Josephvman

I was just on the Warmouth guitar parts site and thinking about building my first parts guitar. I'm leaning toward a Tele Thinline, Surf Green or transparent Sunset Orange, satin finish nitro maple neck with rosewood board, pearl binding and pickguard, TV Jones p/u's and a Bigsby! I haven't added up the parts but I'm guessing around $1200-1300. Any of you guys gone down this road, and how did it turn out?

I built a partscaster from a Fender 69 Reissue thinline body and an Allparts neck. I put humbuckers in it and used Fender parts for all the hardware. The result was "meh". Not really good or bad. The nice thing about off-the-shelf guitars is that you can pick one up and play it, and if it doesn't make you grin when you strum that first chord, you can put it back and move on. There's no way to know that a parts guitar has that "something" that makes a great guitar, even if you use all the best parts. If you ever decide to sell it, that $1200 pile of parts is worth nothing. I had about $850 into mine, and ended up trading it for even for a MIM Jazzmaster worth about $400 because I never played it.

[The_Commander]

Originally Posted by Josephvman

I was just on the Warmouth guitar parts site and thinking about building my first parts guitar. I'm leaning toward a Tele Thinline, Surf Green or transparent Sunset Orange, satin finish nitro maple neck with rosewood board, pearl binding and pickguard, TV Jones p/u's and a Bigsby! I haven't added up the parts but I'm guessing around $1200-1300. Any of you guys gone down this road, and how did it turn out?

If you can manage a screwdriver and a soldering iron it will turn out just like an off-the-shelf guitar.

But, make sure to get the correct neck pocket for the neck. Unless you want to spend a few tense moments with a chisel and a hammer.

[biggziff]

It's not a guitar, but pretty important to one. Just finished it tonight and played through it for the first time. Sounds fantastic and that's before the suggested 40 hours of break in!

Still missing the trim on the top for the chassis mounts.

[The_Commander]

A moment of silence for Alvin Lee

http://youtu.be/kdltHgMMrqc

[assquatch20]

Originally Posted by The_Commander

A moment of silence for Alvin Lee

http://youtu.be/kdltHgMMrqc

Oh, oh no.

Watching four hours of Woodstock on TV made me play harder. Only now can I even attempt "I'm Going Home" like he did it.

[Dismount]

Originally Posted by biggziff

It's not a guitar, but pretty important to one. Just finished it tonight and played through it for the first time. Sounds fantastic and that's before the suggested 40 hours of break in!

Still missing the trim on the top for the chassis mounts.

I've been slowly planning to build a tube amp myself. If nothing else the soldering practice will come in handy.

Mind giving us the specs?

random parts? Specific kit?

[chopped58]

Originally Posted by Hayduke

Originally Posted by cjbiker

I picked up my new Baja Telecaster today. 7lbs, 4oz of sweet Tele goodness!

Nice guitars you guys!

[The_Commander]

Made this one in 86 or 87. My cousin was working at the Gibson plant and gave mucho tips and help.

[biggziff]

Originally Posted by Dismount

I've been slowly planning to build a tube amp myself. If nothing else the soldering practice will come in handy.

Mind giving us the specs?

random parts? Specific kit?

It's a kit, sort of. A good friend became friends with Dan at FYD Amps in VT. Dan is a tube amp God and when Keith asked about building a more flexible Champ they decided to create a Marshall JCM800/Champ hybrid. The MarCh was soon a reality.

Over the last few years they've tweaked it to what I built, but you can build it using lots of different spec parts. We used high end stuff (NOS Russian caps, Spragues, carbon resistors Mercury Magnetics Iron, etc) I can point you in the right directions to get the chassis (we used Stainless, but you can get less expensive steel) and cabinets (another hook up if you need it) I wanted a true vintage sound so everything was spec'd that way, but honestly there probably isn't a huge difference to most people's ears if you used current production caps, resistors, etc.

I chose the Celestion Greenback as a starter speaker, but I'll probably try a few others just because I do that...

I built it as a combo, but they've built a lot more as separates including some beautiful table top amp units that look like art.

Power is 12-15 watts, but it sounds more like 25-35 as it's so clean. It's incredibly quiet...silent actually on the Champ stack and has great distortion on the Marshall side. I had them include an effects loop and a Tweed push/pull pot.

If you need more than that you should contact Dan at www.fydamps.com and discuss what you want with him. I can't give out the layout, etc as it's Dan's intellectual property, but I'll tell you that it's a pretty easy build. All point to point wiring and I'm sure between Dan and Keith you can get as much or as little of it done for you as you'd like.

PM me if you have more specific questions.

It really impresses...a buddy who is a real musician (not a hobbyist like me) played thru it and commented that he could get rid of 3 amps if he had this one.

[SRanger331]

[FPGT72]

Originally Posted by cjbiker

and ended up trading it for even for a MIM Jazzmaster worth about $400 because I never played it.

How do you like the Jazzmaster....I picked up one a few months or so and really like it.

[cjbiker]

Originally Posted by FPGT72

How do you like the Jazzmaster....I picked up one a few months or so and really like it.

It's ok. I recently shimmed the neck and that improved the playability quite a bit. It's a heavy guitar, and I really prefer a good lightweight, resonant guitar, so it doesn't get a lot of play time.

[Dismount]

Originally Posted by biggziff

It's a kit, sort of. A good friend became friends with Dan at FYD Amps in VT. Dan is a tube amp God and when Keith asked about building a more flexible Champ they decided to create a Marshall JCM800/Champ hybrid. The MarCh was soon a reality.

Over the last few years they've tweaked it to what I built, but you can build it using lots of different spec parts. We used high end stuff (NOS Russian caps, Spragues, carbon resistors Mercury Magnetics Iron, etc) I can point you in the right directions to get the chassis (we used Stainless, but you can get less expensive steel) and cabinets (another hook up if you need it) I wanted a true vintage sound so everything was spec'd that way, but honestly there probably isn't a huge difference to most people's ears if you used current production caps, resistors, etc.

I chose the Celestion Greenback as a starter speaker, but I'll probably try a few others just because I do that...

I built it as a combo, but they've built a lot more as separates including some beautiful table top amp units that look like art.

Power is 12-15 watts, but it sounds more like 25-35 as it's so clean. It's incredibly quiet...silent actually on the Champ stack and has great distortion on the Marshall side. I had them include an effects loop and a Tweed push/pull pot.

If you need more than that you should contact Dan at www.fydamps.com and discuss what you want with him. I can't give out the layout, etc as it's Dan's intellectual property, but I'll tell you that it's a pretty easy build. All point to point wiring and I'm sure between Dan and Keith you can get as much or as little of it done for you as you'd like.

PM me if you have more specific questions.

It really impresses...a buddy who is a real musician (not a hobbyist like me) played thru it and commented that he could get rid of 3 amps if he had this one.

I don't have the ears to really appreciate anything acoustically high end unfortunately.

Mostly I'm just curious and want to unlimber the soldering iron and see what kind of trouble I can get into.

http://www.modkitsdiy.com/kit/mod_102_guitar_amp_kit

It looks like if source the parts myself from various places it comes to about $250 for the whole thing (i think), and will give my old man something to do building an enclosure. I haven't even looked at speakers yet.

[Dismount]

And.... now that I am looking.....what is the advrider of the amp world?

holy hell what a lot of choices.