Guitar Modifications and Tricks.

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    Mike Edwin
    Mike Edwin
    Member

    If any, what kind of modifications have you done to your guitars??

    I have a few ideas share, they aren’t really anything new or interesting but worth mentioning.

    Firstly, a while ago I was experimenting with two handed tapping techniques like Stanley Jordan and Adam Fulara to name a couple. Its not a technique I use often but it can be fun. I got this idea from watching an Adam Fulara video. Basically you stick a few light sheets of news paper or tissue under your first frets. Just enough to dampen the strings so they wont ring out. This helped a bit with the two handed fretting for me since my technique is rather sloppy, not to mention my guitar is hardly set up for it. If you ever try playing this style and find your nipping strings and or getting sympathetic vibrations, give it a whirl.

    Also, one of my axes has a Floyd Rose bridge which has old tatty springs and goes out of tune way too often. To remedy this I stuck an old wine cork under it and more or less jammed it in place. Its no longer a Floyd Rose but it stays in tune šŸ™‚ I have heard of people actually cutting a piece of wood out to fit behind it and actually glue it in place. Thats a bit extreme for me though, sometimes the old whammy stick is still fun to use.

    Lastly, when playing my hollow body live and being forced to use amps I’m not familiar with. Or positioned too close to the amp, I get horrible feedback. You can buy sound hole plugs i know, but thats a whole $15 I’m not willing to fork out. So two strips of masking tape over the F holes usually does the trick just as well.

    Don’t restrict your answers to actual useful ones. Maybe you added an extra fret to your guitar and now have an F# and a half note ?? or put a bass guitar string on your fender and welded a piece of 6mm mild steel to your truss rod so the neck wouldn’t snap :p Bring em on!!

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    Alex
    Member

    I ripped the electronics out of my squier and replaced them with Lace Sensor Red/Silver/Blue, an onboard 4 mode distortion replacing the middle tone pot, a 2 level mid boost/freq. expander just infont of the knobs, and a Fender TBX tone pot wired as master. Some routing* was required.

    The FR thing? Yeah I’ve heard of alot of playing doing it, including me. Except I used 1 pence pieces, gaffa taped into rolls, + bits of card, all gaffa’d into position. I like the snappy sound I get from the Floyd and the metal nut for leads, but hate the set up, so blocking it was perfect.

    I once put a ridiculously thick string in place of the low E on my Washburn so I could tune to AADGBE. Citizen Erased much?

    *Routing may or may not have been accomplished with a powerdrill and 2 chisels.

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    Lit1219
    Member

    I just completely rebuilt my Strat a couple of weeks ago. I will try to get pics up soon.

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    Owen
    Member

    I sanded down my horrible ‘puke’ orange squier telecaster to a natural finish. It looks nicer now but the pickups are still rubbish šŸ˜€

    Ive rewired almost all my guitars, changed pickups for some better lead tone. Im currently working on my washburn, and stripping it down, replacing everything i can. I have my Dean set up for specifically Drop A Tuning, string size is a hefty .13 gauge and i have had to modify all my effects settings on my POD to make the sound clear and not muffled.

    Many more to be done, in about a month, Im scalloping (Well, Im not, a professional is) the last 5 frets on my Ibanez. I played a JEM awhile back and i loved that feature (although i think it was the last 4 frets, Pavel can clear this up) And it was just a nice characteristic, Which isnt that expensive.

    Mike Edwin
    Mike Edwin
    Member

    scalloping… thats a new one for me. What exactly does it do for the frets?

    It basically scoops out the wood on the frets so the strings never touch the fretboard, neither do your fingers, this also in turn reduced friction. You can (well to me at least) play faster, smoother, and bends are more easily controlled once you get used to it. Also less force is required when doing legato runs to produce a nice audible note.

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    SIRIUSB
    Member

    Strat: put in Fender Noiseless & a Lil’ ’59 in the bridge, highpass filter, replaced the tremblock with a Callaham titanium block
    Tele: highpass filter, put in hot rewound pups from Jay Monterose at Vintique
    Ibanez: ripped the frets out
    National: installed a McIntyre feather pup

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    Goliath
    Member

    Ready for these hardcore mods?

    I changed 2 pickups on my S470 for DiMarzio Evolutions and put a Dimarzio Clip-lock strap on my RG550XX. Put dunlop strap locks on my strap for my DV8-R.

    Yeah. I know it takes a brave man to do such serious modifications šŸ˜›

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    Alex
    Member

    @SIRIUSB 1933 wrote:

    Strat: put in Fender Noiseless & a Lil’ ’59 in the bridge, highpass filter, replaced the tremblock with a Callaham titanium block
    Tele: highpass filter, put in hot rewound pups from Jay Monterose at Vintique
    Ibanez: ripped the frets out
    National: installed a McIntyre feather pup

    Why the filters?

    I haven’t changed anything but my pick ups. The old ones came with the guitar…some Duncan Design ones. I put in an Air Norton 7 and D-sonic 7.

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