adamg67

I'm setting up Harley Benton Tele for a mate at the moment and the nut was way out, everything near the nut was a quarter tone out of tune. That's easy enough to deal with if you have the files but it all adds to the cost if you don't. The neck isn't great either, too much relief even at the end of the truss rod adjustment.

I'm working on a Harley Benton Tele at the mo, for a guitarist I play bass with. He had noticed a few issues, even after someone else he knows smoothed off the fret ends for him and tried to set it up. He reckoned the intonation was out at the nut end, couldn't get the action down where he needed it and thought the sound was a bit muddy. I haven't spent ages on it but the string height at the nut was much too high, at the first fret it was half a semitone out - sounded horrible. The neck won't go straight even with the truss rod slackened right off, so it will always have a bit too much relief in it, and there are definitely a few high spots on the frets. I'm going to do what I can with it for him for nothing but if you had to pay to get it sorted it's suddenly not such a cheap guitar. Nicest guitar I have at the mo was also built from bits, some leftovers I had plus ebay bits. Made a slight boo-boo going for a hard tail Ibanez as bridges are hard to get, but it did mean I started with a £50 neck that plays like a dream (I actually bought 3, picked the nicest and returned what I didn't use, including a mint Gio neck that was going to take too much work on the frets). Definitely a good way to get value for money if you enjoy doing it and don't count the time spent as a cost. I'm almost certainly going to sell my USA PRS S2 in favour of the bits guitar.

Pariah Poundcake Guitar Humbucker, Neck Position Hand wound medium / high output Alnico 5, it's great for EVH style high gain rock but is not a one trick pony, it's good for any overdriven rock style and a lot more besides. 4 wire, so good for coil tapping as well as finger tapping. This is one of the pickups that made me realise the neck pickup could sound great after sticking to bridge humbuckers for years. See the full description on the Pariah site: https://www.pariahpickups.com/product-page/poundcake A couple of Youtube Reviews, both the same guitar I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXmDW-djpm8&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex_A3pF0AUA The wires had been cut short so I've soldered and heatshrunk them individually and then added heatshrink on top of that. The screw holes were bigger than the standard imperial ones and smaller than M3 so I've tapped them to M3 which are easy to get hold of. Screws and springs aren't included. £45 Posted within the UK (RM 2nd class)

Fender Bridge Humbucker I bought this second hand and I'm not sure what it originally came from but it's a nice Fendery humbucker, nice and bright without being harsh, good for lots of things but would obviously work really nicely in a H-S-S strat. 4 wire so can be coil tapped, and the 3 screw holes on each side for flexible mounting is a nice touch. No screws or springs. £45 Posted within the UK (RM second class)

Now Sold

NOW SOLD Upgraded 2016 Fender Mexican Standard Telecaster plus extras. I believe the colour is Arctic White, it’s quite a creamy white. The full length photo of the back of the guitar and the one taken outside are maybe closest to the colour. It’s in very good condition, I would go as far as to say it’s mint. I can’t see a mark or scratch on it anywhere, there isn’t even any buckle rash on the back. Lovely maple neck and board, and it plays really well. The action is just excellent, nice and low with no buzz at all. Currently has some Thomastik-Infeld Power Bright strings on, 10-45. I would put the neck up against any American Tele for the way it plays, and probably as good as my Paul Reed Smith. The pickups are a brand new set of Fender Custom Shop Texas Specials and it's been completely rewired with quality components. It has IMO the two best Tele mods, direct out (tone and volume circuits bypassed) on a push/pull volume knob for that last bit of extra bite, and a 4 way pickup selector (Oak Grigsby IIRC) with both pickups in series on the extra position, which gives a whole new extra tone. The tone cap was chosen by trying the likely ones so the tone control is spot on for the pickups. The control cavity is shielded with copper tape and it's all properly soldered up, guaranteed no crackles or issues. The white scratchplate it came with didn't sit flat, so I bought a pearl and a black one to try, the screw holes didn’t seem to line up for those either so I’ve filled and redrilled a couple so the scratchplates sit nice and flat. The original one has flattened out again as well, and looks to me like it would now go back on and sit flat, so there are three scratchplates with the guitar: Pearl (fitted), black and white. I’ve done a couple of photos with the black and white ones sitting in place to give an idea. It currently has chrome Schaller strap lock buttons fitted but there is a set of Fender standard ones with it as well. I’m also throwing in a Fender tweed strap which I think suits it nicely. I started with a lovely playing Tele and put some effort into making it sound great as well, and it will be a bit of a wrench to sell it. But, needs must and the least used thing has to go. Obviously the current situation will make a difference to potential collection or delivery, which is always the best way to do try before you buy. Things are relaxing a little bit and as of writing this I think it's technically okay to meet so long as no one else is there and we're in a park It would be a bit like a deal in a gangster film - walk forward, leave the case on the ground and retreat while it's collected. I do have an old, battered but solid case it can be shipped in though, so it can go properly insured. To be worked out. Trades... unlikely, it would have to be a bass really, and it would need to be something that would bump one of my existing ones.

Yeah, they are good. I didn't even mention the reason for swapping them, which was that they were too much like my favourite guitar and there was no point having two sounding the same.

NOW SOLD Pair of DiMarzio Telecaster pups: Chopper T Bridge Humbucker DP384BK Twang King Neck pickup DP127C They came out of a 2016 Tele that had been modded, and it looks like the Chopper T is dated 02/17. Both fully working and in good nick, the neck pickup has a bit of tarnish on the chrome, I havn't tried any chrome cleaner on it though. I've done a pic to show that. As fitted to Fender's Richie Kotzen signature model (they got the model number of the Twang King wrong on the Fender page, it is as above and the on their page is wrongly for the bridge version), which means plenty of reviews out there on the internet. A bit different to the standard Tele pups, a coil tap is a good move for the bridge one - I've got used 250k and 500k push/pull pots and can throw one in for doing the coil tap. I wasn't planning on advertising them on here, then I saw the "show use your geetars" topic and it seems the guitar of choice for bass players is a Tele!

I'd go for these two for Billy Gibbons:

Been feeling stressed AF for a couple of days, too busy to play guitar, too much to do and sort out... Just had 20 minutes with my Tele thrashing out cheesy blues rock lead and I feel 200% better. They should prescribe this stuff on the NHS.

I've also use a Bass VI as a (slightly low) baritone, I had 2 Ibanez SRC-6s before I got the RGIB6, one strung E to E with LaBella Bass VI flatwounds (sounds absolutely ****ing awesome) and one strung A to A, can't remember what strings I used to do that though, I think the bottom 5 were the top 5 Bass VI strings and I figured out a single string for the highest one. The pickups on the SRC6 worked fine for that but they are EMG again (EMG 30Hz). From reading up before I got the SRC6 there are much better Bass VI style guitars around than the Fenders, so I can see why someone would advise against using a Fender Bass VI as a baritone.

It's a while since I had a one of these but I was into them a bit back in the day, and had 3 or 4 guitars in a row with them on. It's worth checking that the bridge is moving smoothly against the two studs, any small nicks and imperfections where the two meet and the bridge won't move smoothly. If that's happening you can try and smooth it off but it would be for the bin if it was mine - if it's the studs you might be able to replace them and keep the bridge. If it hinges smoothly, there's just the strings one side and the springs the other, for how much they cost you could try some new springs but I'd make sure it's moving properly first. The Schaller one gets 5 stars on Thomann and should be a safe bet, but I've never had one.

Sounds like a pretty good question to me. The RGIB6 has EMG 60 and 81 active pups, which are a fairly classic guitar pairing I believe, so "regular" guitar pickups on this one.

So, this is the final mock up, I've dropped the binding now that it has the scratchplate and that means it can have the "comfort carve" back as well. For me, it's a good bit nicer than the one with the binding and no scratchplate. It has a sort of vintage-but-modern look.

I'm the same. The way I do it for instruments is to have one that's different enough to be worth having, but close enough to manage with in an emergency. I've got two basses anyway, a Jazz with flats and a P with rounds, and two guitars, a PRS humbuckerer and a Tele. Using the opposite number in either case would be fine but not perfect. Leads, I just have spares. Amps, I've always made sure that in an emergency I have something that will let me DI straight into the PA, for the bass that doesn't matter now as both will go straight into a PA and sound good, for guitar... well, I don't gig guitar at the mo but I would probably just get DI pedal with a nice enough amp model. Even if I never use the spare bits, I'm a lot more relaxed knowing they are there.

Dropped this off with Jim this morning - top bloke, knows his stuff - after tweaking the shape around the neck pocket to fit the existing neck and pocket. It will have a slab body with the white binding, and the final big change is the addition of a Fireman shaped scratchplate, which will sort out the problem of lack of pickup height adjustment as well as looking cool as. I might do a mockup with the scratchplate on just to help keep me going while it's done, but it will be like this one but with white on black: Google Image Link

I had a quick look and yeah, they’re not cheap. For just trying them out it seems steep, but if I’m assuming they’re like the bas versions and last for ever? not sure about the plain strings in a set though, do plain steel strings go off? I’ve never noticed a huge difference between how the plain and round wound strings age in a “normal” set.

Same here, but I need another guitar I've got the PRS and a Tele all set up how I like them, I do have my old Washburn Wing waiting for a new pot (I broke one trying to push a reluctant knob onto it after carefully rewiring the whole thing, d'oh!), so maybe that will be the test bed for flats - I was planning to sell it but I'm thinking that is handy to have a guitar that can be messed about with. The pups are some old DiMarzios that sound great, but the frets have had their last dressing I think, still fairly flat though. Hmmm, I think I need to get that pot fixed and start hunting for some flats.

This place has given me GAS... I mentioned this in the Your Signature Model topic but it's turned from a silly idea into a real project! I've been looking at Ibanez Iceman & Fireman guitars for a while now, wanting one but knowing it wouldn't get used much, and anyway I'm meant to be trying to keep the total number of guitars down, for space reasons as well as money. But, I do have an Ibanez RGIB6 which I like and use every now and then, it's different enough to keep hold of with the longer scale, the low B string and the EMG pickups (which are surprisingly good for a clean sound). It's just got an RG body, nice enough but nothing special, so the idea came to me to get an Iceman or Firman body made for it. It'll have to be custom made because although you can get the bodies everything is in the wrong place for the 28" scale. I've found (via Basschat's recommended Luthiers page) a good luthier who's up for doing it, and liked the sound of it as a "bit of fun" project: http://jimfleetingguitars.com/ so the guitar is going over there next week! It's a crazy project really, the guitar cost about £300 on ebay and I doubt it will be worth much more when all the money is spent, but I'll have something unique that I really like. This is what I'm starting out with: and this is what the finished article will look like: It probably will have the scalloped edge (and back). That pic was done with the actual body shape that I've put together - I scaled the picture of the neck up to it's actual size (ins software) so I could do the body shape exactly right, and I'll do a trial paper fit to make sure. It's just slightly scaled up from the standard Fireman to suit the wider neck and longer scale. The finished guitar will be a bit longer than the original but that's fine. The look I'm going for is as if it was factory made like that, which might seem an odd thing to do with a custom body but it will suit that guitar. It'll be a while before it's done but it's not something I use every day anyway. Not everyone's cup of tea I know, but I can't wait.

I do, but then I don't and wouldn't have a Gibson, and my main guitar is usually a double humbucker.

Oh, and I do play a lot of bluesy stuff on the guitar that's getting converted, not likely to be doing it in a band any time soon though. Maybe it will appear on YouTube one day doing some dirty Baritone boogie

It's exactly that, they changed the shape slightly so it still has the cutaway on the lower side for access to the silly frets, but originally they called it the reverse iceman, until a Paul Gilbert fan (it's his signature model) suggested that the reverse of an Iceman should be called a Fireman. I like the Iceman as well, but I think the Fireman edges it for me, and puts the neck end strap button in a better place.

I'm just talking to a guy about making mine, an Ibanez RGIB6 Baritone (yes, they are good for metal, but also for lots of other things ) with a Fireman body, so that's this: But with the body from this (but in black, with the binding like on the RGIB6): Tastless? Me? I might do a photoshop mockup sometime. Basically I'm hoping that will stop me wanting a Fireman as well as the Baritone, it won't save money but it will save space.

I've had a few I've missed, from when I was younger and always had to sell one to fund another mainly. My first "proper" guitar was an Ibanez lawsuit Les Paul, set neck and everything, I remember that being very nice - but, am I remembering how it really was? Same for the Ibanez Destroyer I had for a while. I sort of miss my Orange valve head but I don't miss lugging it around.

I wrote up a little bit in the repairs and technical section about some new pickups I fitted to me Tele, and realised that now it has a sound clip it's a bit like a mini review: