These are two guitars that I recently slightly modified: first an Epiphone Dot Studio (I have generally a very limited use for tone and volume on a guitar - I relay more on pedals to sculpt my tone - so the two knobs Dot Studio fits me better) to which I added a rosewood pickguard (bought more than one year ago), chrome pickup covers and rings, chrome bridge, stoptail and big knobs. I like the discreet bizarreness of the result! I'm considering changing the pickups later for humbucker size P90s.
The one on the left is a First Act Westerberg signature for which I made an aluminium pickguard (another one, but this time I'm getting better at polishing, not perfect yet but it's getting better each time!) It's a cheapo but sounds terrific as soon as I put some overdrive... Also I'm so used to humbuckers that I'm baffled but the brightness of its sound... I also plan to upgrade the pickup though, and ordered a Dream 90 from GFS - it's on its way.
Still have to make alu trussrod covers for both guitars, and file the frets of the First Act - its only but big flaw...
Indent between lower edge and pickguard on solidbody is too large for my taste, straightening near the bridge also looks far from harmonious.
ReplyDeleteI'm GFS fan and simply don't understand the pricing of SD and Dimarzio after trying GFS pu. Unfortunately some cool pickups are out of stock :(
I had to stick to the shape of the original pickguard to re-use the screw holes - I guess that its tartan pattern was so ugly that you had to look away and couldn't notice this before!
ReplyDeleteI've use some GFS pickups and so far I'm quite happy with them - I consider their P90s for the dot... It's a pity though that I have to pay for the shipping from the USA each time, I wish they have a branch in Europe now...
what tools to you use to work the aluminum?
ReplyDeleteroughly, I use cutting pliers and and files, but you know what, I will make a post about the tools tomorrow, OK?
ReplyDelete