In my experience for the vast majority of people most of the “popular misguided assumptions “ regarding what you should and shouldn’t do or what materials you should and shouldn’t use is not much more than cork sniffing. Jazz players and people who play mostly clean and low gain can find benefit in having more expensive gear, both in terms of reliability and performance. Unless you’re a successful gigging musician it’s easy to find decent gear for a fraction of what they would spend.
A simple example, I built a Telecaster from a Harley Benton kit, did a few mods to make it more reliable and am using it through a Bugera 5W tube amp and an Orange 1x8” cab or a homemade 1x10 cab which I had the speaker left over from a project and I have a Sonicake Matribox multi fx, total cost - approx £500!
This is an example of what I can do with it, My Bass is a Cort Artist 4 string, it’s played through a Harley Benton Bass amp that cost me £150, the Bass was £350 (ex display), drums are part through the Sonicake and tidied up in GarageBand.
Edit: not using that guitar for this!
3 Likes
nice recording , I enjoyed it a lot 
1 Like
Sweet little jam there dude
1 Like
Lots of bits arrived yesterday.
Just the pickup to come. That arrives in two weeks
but tonight’s effort will be to get the bridge back in with the extra springs etc.
1 Like
I recommende messing around with a project guitar if the mindset is to actually play it.
Building a punk machine is probably the best route you can take because you’re less worried about complex wiring of making sure you keep it unscratched etc 
I wouldn’t worry about nut and tuners for now. first get your MVP (minimum viable product) going.
What’s necessary to make it a functioning guitar? some parts, wiring that works, a neck that sits well at a decent angle, strings and a basic setup. With basic setup I mean: mind the string height (action), itune, intonate, tune, intonate… and give it some good test runs!
Don’t worry about expensive parts, tonewoods, gimmicks… just try to make it work and make it fun to play. If that works, your project will keep momentum a lot easier
oi oi oi!
4 Likes
This you do by putting shims in the neck pocket…
Progress update:
I’ve added the extra springs to lock the trem down. No movement in it now.
Test fitting the new pick guard, needed some
minor shaving around some of the cut outs for the neck and bridge to fit. Easy enough and it’s nice and snug.
Realised I bough pots that are physically too big, but that’s $12 fix and the other pots can be used on my next build.
I have some fret finishing blocks arriving tomorrow so I’ll give the frets a polish, while I’m waiting on the pickup to arrive.
2 Likes
I have an cig burned, beer spilled on, gacked up body in need of a project. I can’t think of a better one for it, than a HSH punk project like you described, I think. I am going to take a look Lieven, thanks.
Thank you OP cool project and Nice discussion thread.
1 Like
Sure, go nuts, the cheaper the parts, the lower the resitance and fear factor to do something wrong!
Here I put a special pickup in a strat body. since it’s strance construction and me not wanting to mod a scratchplate, I fixed it with tape.
Later on I changed the position of the pickup and tried to fit a Jackson neck and put on some stickers.
2 Likes
Straight up Frankenstein that thing.
1 Like
Haha that skeleton guitar is giving me a boner…get it 
.
A guitar like the middle photo would be really cool just by itself or with crime scene tape would even be way sick.
I would rock that all night long in a punk band if it sounded right. I guess tape would not last long but what a great idea to decide if you like a sound without commitment.
