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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 2:13:08 GMT -5
Post by vonFrenchie on Oct 19, 2009 2:13:08 GMT -5
To avoid the comments about it... yes I'm pretty sure I'm crazy and I'm fine with that. Now onto the subject. I went to see Mastodon tonight, it was one of the most entertaining, thought provoking and completely BAD*** concerts I've ever been to. I'm a huge Mastodon fan and they played their new album in its entirety with a really freaky/trippy Rasputin inspired... I can't really explain it. My jaw dropped so hard that it could have easily broken. But my entire point of this post is (yes I have a point unlike usual), Brent Hinds played, what looked like, an acrylic V in the beginning of the set. It was a really really awesome looking guitar and I was thinking about buying myself one. Now, due to the properties of acrylic... all acrylic guitars are the same body wise. No worries about plywood level acrylics vs Gibson mahogany level acrylics. Theyre all the same. So I found this company, Galveston, that sells almost every popular guitar in an acrylic version. They make LP's, Strats, Teles, SG's, V's, Explorers, even my personal favorite, the Randy Rhoads V. So here is my plan: I'm going to purchase one of these crappy guitars (yes they are crappy, the necks are total junk, the wiring is bad and the pickups are terrible) Replace the pickups with some EMG's that my friend gave to me (two 81's) Rewire the entire guitar. A very very very simple set up, two tones a pickup switch and an EMG Afterburner (its a boost circuit for some extra kick... for those of you who don't know) Route out some of the top half of the guitar. Acrylics are very heavy, I've read of 15 to 20 pound acrylic guitars. So on the Randy Rhoads I'd route out the red areas and the green areas are already routed out (except the controls, i would expand that cavity) Yes I would leave some cross members, just to maintain structural integrity. Then I would place some thin acrylic covers over the cavities I'd then sand down the finish on the guitar a bit to give it a frosted look. It looks really good on acrylic and I did it with my friend's computer case. Then I'd slap on a good neck Install the hardware (the stock hardware is fine, they use Gotoh tune-o-matic) then bam, done Whatcha think?
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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 5:35:27 GMT -5
Post by newey on Oct 19, 2009 5:35:27 GMT -5
According to this ad: cgi.ebay.com/Galveston-CLEAR-V-Style-body-6Str-Electric-Guitar-NEW_W0QQitemZ130262502590QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar?hash=item1e54400cbethe weight is 10 pounds. Beefy, yes, but not outrageously so. I might rethink doing all that extra routing. Consider that the extra routing may make it neck heavy and may affect the sustain as well. I haven't weighed one, but I'd guess the last LP I played was at least 10 pounds, so I don't see the weight here as being "out of line". As far as frosting the finish, that's a matter of taste, I suppose. I always thought the cool thing about these (dating back to the Dan Armstrong) was the fact that it was clear. I have seen these where the inside of the cavity is frosted so as to disguise the electronics, which I think looks better than the Galveston does- it seems to have a black cover plate. I'd just sand the inside of the cavity and use a clear plate, that would clean up the looks a bit.
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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 14:02:38 GMT -5
Post by vonFrenchie on Oct 19, 2009 14:02:38 GMT -5
I still might route out a bit. Just for the sake of my back (I play a Randy Rhoads and hollowbodies for a reason, I'm not exactly a big guy) Definitely not as much as I showed initially.
As for frosting, I really like the look but then again I might decide not to when I actually get the guitar. I'll just have to see. Hopefully other GuitarNuts give me the go-ahead vote.
And yes, LP standards are 9-11 pounds. Both of my roommates have Wine Red LP studios and they sit just below 10 pounds. Maybe I should just start working out, haha.
But thanks for the input, I never thought of just frosting the electronics cavity. I'm not sure how that would look and I might just run the wires on the edge and keep them short.
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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 14:43:02 GMT -5
Post by newey on Oct 19, 2009 14:43:02 GMT -5
Frosting the cavity looks like this:
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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 15:25:45 GMT -5
Post by vonFrenchie on Oct 19, 2009 15:25:45 GMT -5
Yeah, it just sticks out too much. I might slap a V pick guard on it. They come with gold hardware and I'll have black pickups so either a cream guard or a white one would look cool and it would hide all the wiring and the routing for the pickups
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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 16:30:23 GMT -5
Post by cynical1 on Oct 19, 2009 16:30:23 GMT -5
...of course, you could route out chambers to install blacklights into the lucite body...might be kinda trippy in a dark club...
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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 17:26:48 GMT -5
Post by vonFrenchie on Oct 19, 2009 17:26:48 GMT -5
Yeah I could do that, but I don't want it to turn into a gimmick. It starts out with backlights then everyone who sees me play it thinks of it as a toy instead of a guitar. a friend of mine had a guitar with pickups that had leds behind them and people would only ever talk about the lights
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Acrylic
Oct 19, 2009 19:33:15 GMT -5
Post by ijustwannastrat on Oct 19, 2009 19:33:15 GMT -5
When you guys were first talking about frosting it, I didn't think I would like it, but I really like how that looks. Very sharp, IMO
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Acrylic
Oct 20, 2009 0:35:03 GMT -5
Post by vonFrenchie on Oct 20, 2009 0:35:03 GMT -5
Yeah, its an all or nothing thing in my opinion though. It'll look great either way, so long as its completely frosted or not at all.
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Acrylic
Jun 17, 2010 13:39:30 GMT -5
Post by chuck on Jun 17, 2010 13:39:30 GMT -5
i have a Dillion Crystal SG ( with the acrylic headstock ) and i love it.
it IS a heavy monster , but not unbearable .
i have thought about picking up a Galveston and adding a quality neck and pickups ... just never got around to it ( yet ? )
keep us posted on your project
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