You Put Your Guitar Porn Here

America Strat 550 series.

Harmony Bass, my 13th birthday present. The only reason it survived my 20's is because it was in a closet at my mom's house.

Vox Valvetronix, Totally badass. I also have a Sovtek stack at my friend's studio.

This is a Chinese Bullet Strat. Traded an old Yamaha RBX 550M for this and a Digitech RP255 effects unit. This guitar is doomed. It only exists so the neck can be stolen from it, reshaped into a Telecaster headstock and mounted on a hand-crafted body that someone very special is building for me. The pickups will be rewound and two of them will become a hot humbucker with phasing options for the bridge position and the third will become a neck position smoothie. The neck is absolutely phenomenal to play on and will grow old and worn in my sweaty hands. This will also get a real bone (hand cut by me) nut and some vintage Telecaster hardware from the Ebays. We'll be starting a build thread on this project eventually. This particular meeper is pretty stoked about it...

This is my Alvarez Regent cutaway. This guitar has been one of my best friends since, well, forever. It's probably 25 years old. It was the nicest sounding under $1,000.00 guitar in the store, back in the day. It's been through meep. It was dumped out of a canoe into Puget Sound once and filled with dirty saltwater. It's been chewed on my dogs, kicked over or dropped a million times and it even survived a house fire. It has had the living meep played out of it and it's still one of the nicest sounding guitars this strummer has ever played. Maybe the fire did something good to the wood?

Not my pic, but this is what I play. I'm planning on ordering a tortoise pickguard, replacing the knobs with either chicken heads, jazz bass knobs, or skirted knobs, and installing a bigsby tailpiece.

I need to take it in for an adjustment first, though. I keep trying to do it myself but I can't get it back to its sweet spot.

My 1978 Ibanez is heavy as meep but it sure is a joy to play, The feel of this thing just takes you over. And you can beat a mothermeeper ta death with it. I have meep tons of old stomp boxes but the RP350 I plug into just makes it so easy.

I know it's a big photo, you did say guitar porn. And who likes small porn pics?

CLAVOEDIT: To fix lolsizepic. Click the thumb for fullsize.

Also, your meep smells lovely. Is that Wella-Balsam?

_{On 2010-06-28 at 01:51:43, Clavis_Apocalypticae asked to smell your meep}

JohnLenin: I need to take it in for an adjustment first, though. I keep trying to do it myself but I can't get it back to its sweet spot.

Is the intonation out of wack?

If it's touchy and temperamental, try heavier strings.

Sweet guitar, though.

Wotak:

JohnLenin: I need to take it in for an adjustment first, though. I keep trying to do it myself but I can't get it back to its sweet spot.

Is the intonation out of wack?

If it's touchy and temperamental, try heavier strings.

Sweet guitar, though.

The intonation is fairly spot on throughout the neck except for the low E on the first several frets. But I also have issues with buzzing and various other noises that irk me. I've tried various gauges and encounter problems when they're too light or too heavy. I'm using Skinny Top - Heavy Bottom Ernie Ball strings now and they seem to be the best so far. I'm done messing with the truss rod and the action. I'll just pay a shop to do it for me in the near future. I may have to replace the neck with one that fits in my hand a little nicer, but that won't be as easy or cheap fix.

My stupid broken iPhone is taking pictures like a nigar, so I'll have to wait until I grab my camera from the office tomorrow so I can take purty pics of my gear.

Wotak, that 90' Strat is beautiful, especially that dark sunburst. I've had a couple of cheaper meep strats and while they have the most beautiful clean tone, I just could never deal with the strings losing their tune after any 1/4 bend on the G string. I have to play geetars with locking nuts.

dent: Wotak, that 90' Strat is beautiful, especially that dark sunburst. l've had a couple of cheaper meep strats and while they have the most beautiful clean tone, l just could never deal with the strings losing their tune after any 1/4 bend on the G string. l have to play geetars with locking nuts.

Thanks. Yeah l learned to pre-stretch the living meep out of new strings. It stays in tune great that way. l used to have a Washburn BT-10 with the Floyd Rose tremolo, tail tuners and locking nut but it never grew on me. l gave it to my brother-in-law a few years ago for a Christmas present because l hadn't played it in years.

l'm not a lead player, though. l throw in the odd Hendrix lick, but l'm mainly a rhythm player.

_{On 2010-06-27 at 23:53:51, Wotak asked to smell your meep}

heimer66: I know it's a big photo, you did say guitar porn. And who likes small porn pics?

meephead.

ghostrider:

heimer66: l know it's a big photo, you did say guitar porn. And who likes small porn pics?

meephead.

My thoughts exactly. Way to meep up the thread so everybody has to scroll sideways a half a mile to read anything, meepwad. l PM'd Clavis and asked him to fistrape heimer66.

I've been thinking for a few years about turning that old bass into a unique, homemade instrument, ala Les Claypool or Mark Sandman. I'm thinking a moveable cello-type bridge and making it a bowed instrument. Any more creative ideas out there?

This is my fairly cheap, but loved Ibanez SR300DX bass and Fender combo amp. I love the thin neck and action on this guy. The amp is marginal, but gets loud enough to fill a decent size room. And, plus, it came in SIZZLING, fruity blue.

Ibanez always has great, soft action.

Do I see an Digitech RP series processor under your axe? I just sold a Digitech RP50 on Craigslist, along with an Ibanez EX350 about a week ago.

Digitech Pedals have always been hit or miss for me, mostly miss. I use a Boss GT-10, which is pretty good if you tweak it the right way, but I'm planning on selling or trading it at some point to start collecting real pedals.

I'm partial to DOD pedals.

ghostrider: I'm partial to DOD pedals.

I had the DOD Grunge pedal for a while and I loved the meep out of it. For some reason Digitech makes them now.

l'm partial to the sound of my Fender Princeton amp. l use the lead channel as a crunchy fuzz channel and the clean channel with (or without) just a touch of slow chorus most of the time. That gives me 3 basic channels and when combined with the Strat's 5 position switch and twin tone knobs, l can get a ton of tone variation.

l have to admit, l'm impressed with the Wah models available in the Digitech RP255 l just picked up. l may be adding that to my gear bag... but other than that l'm not much of a pedal guy. The original MXR Phase 90 was/is pretty cool but l haven't used mine in years.

Over the last 20 years I've owned a ton of guitars and this is the first one I've ever owned that felt like the manufacturer specifically built for me. It's an Ibanez RG370DX, and it's probably middle of the road as far as pricing.

Here's another Ibanez I picked up a few years ago. It's an GIO GSA edition, and it's similar to what Fender did with the Squire. In other words, it's a pile of meep, yet still pretty.

Here's my Austin acoustic. It's beat but still sounds fantastic with new strings. I've been beating on this thing for about 10 years.

When I'm not playing through the 'puter or the processor, I'm plugged into my ol' Fender M80, 12" amp. This was an Xmas gift from my parents in 1989. It's by far the coolest amp I've ever owned and refuse to get rid of it, even though it's on it's last leg.

I just picked this up over the winter and really like it. It's a Boss ME20 processor and sounds identical to all the old Boss stomp pedals that were built like tanks all of us metal heads used back in the 80's and 90's.

Here's the mixer I've been using to connect to my Mac for recording or using Guitar Rig 2.0, which kicks major meep.

and my little toys!!!11

my first bass was a shiny blue-green washburn that weighed two tons. this is my second bass and is a whole lot lighter:

it's an ibanez edb690 with a synthetic luthite body that resonates like meep on an open e. pretty good condition except for wear on the tail of the neck because i play with a pick and tend to be a little abusive.

my practice amp's a 40w nemesis (eden). playing with the band i'm using an ampeg b3 solid state head with an old sunn 2x15 cab similar to this:

along with one of these:

i've been considering getting a musicman and another head, but i haven't been playing enough lately to warrant that kind of purchase. shrug

_{On 2010-06-29 at 03:51:51, mundhra asked to smell your meep}

Here's my Danelectro 56-U2 '91 reissue (background Martin Acoustic-Electric)

It's a 20 year old guitar that looks like it was made 30 years before I was born.

I replaced the bridge and tuning heads and it plays pretty nice. Plus I love the way it looks. Plus my name happens to be Dan IRL.

This guitar gets most of my love.

Nice Danny, Flake. A good friend of mine has a couple of these and he loves them.

@Mundh - l played one similar to this a few times. That thing was neck heavy as meep. lt was a workout to jam for a couple hours because my left arm would start to cramp up from holding the neck's weight. lt had a great tone though. +11 for the Ampeg.

@Dent - Metal much? :) l've never played the RG370 but every lbanez l've ever played had a great neck on it. When they're set up properly, the action on a good lbanez is comparable to any top-of-the-line classic axe, IMO.

Nice gear, gents.

And here's a bit of written guitar pr0n: Eric Clapton explains his love for the Fender Stratocaster. A good read, that.

Newest addition to the collection: [IMG]http://i767.photobucket.com/albums/xx318/flake_87/mm.jpg[/IMG]

Wotak: l played one similar to this a few times. That thing was neck heavy as meep. lt was a workout to jam for a couple hours because my left arm would start to cramp up from holding the neck's weight. lt had a great tone though. +11 for the Ampeg.

yeah, i guess it is a bit neck heavy because the body's almost not there and it's a bass. it hasn't really bothered me though. my other bass was seriously at least double the weight of this guy. agreed, the tone is great.

l have some 'guitar in progress' porn to share. After l stripped off the neck from the China Strat above, l decided to do something with the body rather than throw it away. l took an old 1977 Strat neck that l've been holding on to as a spare for my American Standard and cut the headstock down from the 70's style, fat head, to a typical Pre-CBS era headstock. l used an uneven sanding technique to roughly strip the old finish so it'll stain and darken as l play it, to look really old. l beat the meep out of the body in all the right spots and stripped some of the paint to give it that 'relic' look and feel. l think it's turned out pretty cool so far. l put a Pre-CBS era, custom serial number neck-plate on the back.

l also ordered a genuine 1967 Fender spaghetti style waterslide logo to add some disingenuous authenticity to this conversation piece. l ordered a vintage cream with black, three-ply pickguard and black pickup covers and knobs; all of it accurate to the '67 date l've picked as a guide for this little project. l have a camel bone nut on the way and l'm currently looking for a set of vintage Kluson Deluxe tuners that are accurate to the era and '67 style string trees.

Although CBS took over Fender in '64 or '65, they didn't completely run the company into the meepter until about '71. Any Fender made between '71 and '85 were pure garbage due to CBS cutting all the corners for quality in order to mass produce meep and exploit Leo Fenders name for maximum profit margins. It wasn't until FMlC (Fender Musical lnstrument Corporation) bought the company back from CBS in Jan '85 that the company recovered and started building quality guitars again.

l want this guitar to look and feel like a classic '67 Strat and since Spankie is going to be busy until winter on other projects, instead of my Telemeep project, l'm using this time to build something else that will be cool and fun to play.

Here's a quick pic of the first bass built by me. I will post more later. (tried using the LS uploader, but I think I might be retarded...

^ Awesome

And here are a couple of the Telecaster bass I'm currently working on:

I'm basically waiting on the bridge and then I will be able to finish it. I'm considering cutting the headstock to more of a Telecaster shape...

Looks very cool. l like the color choice.

_{On 2010-07-19 at 20:31:40, Wotak asked to smell your meep}

Wotak: Looks very cool. l like the color choice. _{On 2010-07-19 at 20:31:40, Wotak asked to smell your meep}

Thanks! I was going to go meeperscotch blonde with this one too, but decided against since I already did that color. I'm happy with the way this color turned out....

^ You're a lefty, I see.

flake: ^ You're a lefty, I see.

That I am. That's why I started building my own. Most of the mass produced lefty's out there are meep or if you want a halfway decent axe you have to pay out the ying yang. I've built both of these with quality electronics etc. for under a grand. And I'm loving the build process....

Here's another action shot of the '52, I'll get some detail pics when I pick up the bass from the rehearsal spot. I love everything about this bass:

Just in case any of you haven't seen it: It Might Get Loud.

This is required guitar porn.

I decided to reshape the headstock of the TeleBass. I'm very happy with the way it turned out using just a Dremel and a palm sander:

meepY

Thanks!

Now I wish the meep bridge would get here so I can finish the thing.

l know the feeling. l'm waiting on a nut and tuners to finish my relic Strat. It feels so good in my hands, l can't wait to be able to play it. l'll post an update on it's current condition later. Right now l'm shellacking the headstock to add an authentic yellowing before l apply the waterslide. Then l'm going to coat it with nitro and freeze/heat some meepy checking into it. It's coming along nice so far.

_{On 2010-07-20 at 21:59:25, Wotak asked to smell your meep}

I'm sure you know these tricks, but just in case here's a couple of good ones: After spraying the nitro and it's basically dry, hang it in bright sunlight for a few hours, checking it every half hour or so, it'll yellow it nicely without looking fake. And after you do the freeze/heat thing and you get the checking as meepy as you want it, take a little dirt, ashes or even a bit of brown shoe polish and rub it in, gives it that dirty look without being to overboard. You can even then lightly re coat the nitro to preserve the dirty...

Yeah, l've read about a bunch of different ways to discolor and check the finishes. l've opted for the minwax shellac method. Goldenrod is the color to use and depending on how much you thin it, a few coats will give you the ability to make it whatever shade you want.

l finished the final shaping and sanding on the neck today. Here are some comparison shots against the real deal. l think l got it pretty damned close in the shape department. Unless you literally overlay a Strat headstock on it, it looks legit even to me. It's not perfect but it's better than l expected it to be when l started.

It's sanded right down to 00 steel wool and ready for finish.

Here are some closeups showing the tougher details in the contour that were a bear to get right.

Here it is after the first coat of Goldenrod shellac. l'll sand that smooth between coats with 00 steel wool and keep repeating until l have the shade l'm looking for. This is almost exactly the shade of my '90 Strat right now. Probably one more coat will do the trick.

Then, l'll apply this vintage custom shop spaghetti waterslide logo (sans the bogus serial) and start coating it with nitro to finish it and prepare it for some checking.