A million questions about modifications. De-freting / stripping the paint - MODTASTIC

[jonajon91]

So after looking through these boards for a few months, I have been inspired to try some things out for myself.

So I found a crappy guitar for £10 that I should get some point after Thursday, my plan is to mod the living f*ck out of it without spending a ton and I have all these wonderful ideas, but no experience, planning or know-how.

I want to de-fret it and my only knowledge on that is pliers then wood filler then varnish. Help here would be useful. I also want to have a go at stripping the paintwork off and varnishing the natural wood. (I did think to paint it, but the only paint I have is acrylic art paint and creosote for the fence! XD). Really don't know what i'm doing here either.

I also want to know what you guys think I could do to it because I only have those two ideas. I saw someone on here put vinyl on their RG8, would that be something to consider? what about taking a saw to it and changing the body shape. This is where you can see your idea on the guitar. (monkey grip?)

All advice will be rewarded with pictures, but I warn that this will be a long process where I do one thing every week ish.

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I PLAN to update this with numerous picks as I do each mod and to say what is going well and what I regret ETC. Hopefully people can look through before modding to see if what they are doing is going to be too hard or too messy ETC.

Cheers

 

[CM_X5]

To pull the frets out you can read this tutorial, it explains it better than I could.

Guitar Fret Replacement: Fret Removal, Fingerboard Sanding, Slot Cleaning, Fret Installation

Don't just yank out the frets because a lot of the wood can chip off. Just ease then out slowly with a pair of end cutters if you can. Tried the pliers thing on some damaged frets that had to come out and wouldn't be re-used. Never again.

Also make damn sure you really want to spend the time and effort refinishing. It's a messy, time consuming, hard job but the end result *could* be worth it. A lot of people will tell you not to but I think you should try everything once. Just read up on it and really know what it is that you're getting yourself into. Lot's of tutorials for refinishing at Guitar ReRanch ~ Basic Refinishing make sure you read through as much as you can. After just going through a refinish on a relatively easy to work with body (RG321MH) I can really say that any step you skip or try to make quick work of will only make you have to go back and redo it. There's no such thing as a fast and easy refinish if you want to do a good job and have it last.

As for suggestions of what to do, I'd go for something practical personally. Make the guitar play better before you worry about aesthetics. Get better tuners/nut/bridge (or at least saddles) and a decent set of pickups. You could also try your hand at rewiring the whole guitar and shielding it too but it's really not that important. The monkey grip would be a cool idea if you're refinishing it anyway but changing the body shape may end in tears. Anyways I've gone on too long and it's your project in the end! Have fun with it and be sure to post pics, I'm looking forward to the end result.

 

[jonajon91]

Cheers for the fast response and the links!

This is not really a guitar that I will be playing often or live for that matter. I just wanted to stick on all the crazy mods I can think of, so things like replacing the tuners and pickups don't really do it for me, and this is not the kind of project that I can see having an end result, but rather always having another thing that I need to ad or change. The thing with changing the body shape was for if I ever got really reckless and decided to get shot of the lower horn completely and replace it with a nine inch nail or something (no reason). this really is a budget project, everything done with scraps

 

[CM_X5]

I have a guitar exactly like that, I just stick whatever old parts from other guitars I'm upgrading into that as well as trying new things on it. You could say from that it will never really be "done" but it has moments where I think it's about as far as it will go. Then I decided to try scalloped frets...

There's another thing you could try, even just a partial scallop on the higher frets is beneficial. I can't really guide you exactly on how to do it though because I literally just attacked it with a dremel, a round file and some assorted sandpaper grit until I liked the outcome. I did it from the 12th to 21st fret and only from in between the d/g strings to the edge of the high e side of the fretboard if that makes sense. On the low e side it's unscalloped but it gets deeper as you go across.

 

[jonajon91]

Yeah, I was either going to scallop the frets or remove them completely. I went with going fretless in the end to help me decide if my next bass will be fretless. I have played 'cello since I was eight, so intonation should not be too much of a challenge. Also, your scallops sounds amazing, I would never have the patience for that.