coldbrightsunlight wrote:Looks very cool! What mods did you do and how was it right off the bat unmodded?
I bought it used, so I don't know how they play/sound stock. Mine had already had a Fender "tele bass" pickup installed, which had weak output and sounded terrible. It also has a flat-black paint job, which doesn't seem to be original. Looks cool though. Other than that, I think it was stock.
The stock nut was plastic and had been worn pretty bad because the original owner was using long-scale roundwound strings, and moving that much course string over the nut wore it down. The very first thing I did was get a new nut (found a brass one on eBay) and put La Bella short-scale flats on it. The original wiring was super gross too, so I got a GFS "Lil's Killer" blade humbucker and rewired it with new pots and jack (with a pull-switch jack for coil-split). The stock bridge wasn't terrible, but it only had two saddles and getting the E and A to intonate properly was impossible, so I installed a Hipshot 4-saddle replacement. Lastly, purely for aesthetics, I replaced the white pickguard with a black one (also from eBay). All-in-all, I probably have around $400 into it, and it plays and sounds as nice as my buddy's Fender Player Mustang.
The main thing is that the neck is solid, the frets were level, and it has a good neck/body balance. Everything else can be fixed. I might replace the tuners one day, but honestly, they seem totally fine.
Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2021 8:19 pm
