Another hobby of mine: building guitars
Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 5:20 pm
I've been into electric guitars about as long as I've been into RC. I got my first guitar for Chistmas 1988, and have owned about 25 since then. I've always tinkered with them, upgrading pickups and hardware, refinishing bodies, etc, but in recent years I've started building them from kits. It seems like one guitar a year is my building pace.
My first attempt, a Telecaster from a Grizzly Industries kit:

Last year's creation, a P-Bass (now sold):

And my newest arrival:

I had a 1971 Strat in college that I got in pieces, and slapped back together with whatever hardware I could find. I worked on it a bit at a time over the years, then had to sell it to make rent. So now that I'm not broke anymore, I got the parts to re-create it, the way it should have been. Ash body, no-stripe maple neck, vintage-style Alnico pickups, mid-grade hardware (not the cheap stuff they give you in kits, but cheaper than real Fender parts). No, it won't be an original, but who cares? If you make something, it's way more "yours" than if you buy it anyway.
My first attempt, a Telecaster from a Grizzly Industries kit:
Last year's creation, a P-Bass (now sold):
And my newest arrival:

I had a 1971 Strat in college that I got in pieces, and slapped back together with whatever hardware I could find. I worked on it a bit at a time over the years, then had to sell it to make rent. So now that I'm not broke anymore, I got the parts to re-create it, the way it should have been. Ash body, no-stripe maple neck, vintage-style Alnico pickups, mid-grade hardware (not the cheap stuff they give you in kits, but cheaper than real Fender parts). No, it won't be an original, but who cares? If you make something, it's way more "yours" than if you buy it anyway.