Belated NGD: PRS SE Custom 24 Sapphire

[AdenM]

Sup all,

So after receiving my PRS SE Custom 24 after the Sweetwater Black Friday special, I was swamped with finals and the like; after a couple mods, I bring you pictures of her in all her beauty. I installed a GraphTech Black Tusq, Jin-Ho locking tuners (they already make all the tuners for the World Music factory, these are a drop in replacement for the stock PRS tuners), and I steel wooled the neck down to satin. After these mods, she holds tuning impeccably well, and I have her in Drop C with a D'addario 11-56 set, so you can definitely dig in and get your chug on, but you have enough give for leads. Fit and finish wise, it's better than my Schecter KM-7. Damn near impeccable. The Vintage Bass neck pickup is awesome for cleans and leads, but the bridge is nowhere near agressive or articulate enough for a decent high gain tone. Definitely having some trouble getting it to sit in a mix, but I figure I'll replace it eventually, probably with a nickel covered Titan or Nazgul, so I have an excuse to try potting and covering the Vintage Bass myself. I would definitely buy another one of these and do the exact same mods + a new bridge pickup. These play like guitars way more than they're worth.

Tone test below:

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/dailluminaughty/prs-se-custom-24-test[/SC]

 

[tdk24]

Nice! Just saw one at a local shop and I'm tempted to go back for it. Did you replace the nut yourself?

 

[Aranglol]

Blue guitar + PRS always gets me.

Nice guitar.

 

[AkiraSpectrum]

dat blue gets me every time.
congrats!

 

[spilla]

Congrats man, love the amethyst and sapphire SE's!

 

[AdenM]

Nice! Just saw one at a local shop and I'm tempted to go back for it. Did you replace the nut yourself?

They're awesome guitars for the price. I wouldn't pay the full $750 for one cause broke college student, but they're worth every penny of it; if you can get a 2012 and after one for under $500, they're very worth it.

I replaced the nut myself, you just score around it with an x-acto knife or razor, use a piece of wood to bump it off (should pop off easily), and then file the bottom of the Graphtech as needed, glue it on, clamp for 15 minutes, and then restring or retune. I used Elmer's Wood Glue at first, but it didn't set with the teflon nut properly so I re-did it with 3m Super Adhesive, which is hydroxyacetone based, you don't want to use ethylene based superglues cause they degrade teflon. But yeah, there's definitely an audible difference between the stock nut and the Black Tusq.

 

[noobstix]

Black hardware really 'fixes' the issues I have with the SE line, I think I've seen someone on here that put a hipshot on an SE 7 that looked amazing.
How easy was it to make the neck satin? Genuinely considering doing something similar and changing the pickups.

 

[JEngelking]

Nice, HNGD! I've been really liking the looks of these Sapphire SEs as of late.

 

[lewstherin006]

Congrats bro that top looks great!

 

[IdentityDevice]

Yeah man! HNGD! After acquiring 2 SE's myself I am a believer lol. These guitars are great!

 

[AdenM]

Thanks guys, SE's rock I'd love another bevel-top one in Tobacco or Spalted. If they make a non-floyd one in Trampas Green I will die.

Black hardware really 'fixes' the issues I have with the SE line, I think I've seen someone on here that put a hipshot on an SE 7 that looked amazing.
How easy was it to make the neck satin? Genuinely considering doing something similar and changing the pickups.

Yeah I really dig the black tuners, I had the black washers on the front of the headstock at first, but I changed back to the original silver cause it stands out more and looks classier, kinda like the brass and steel on the USA PRSs. As for making the neck satin, tape off the top, near the nut, and the joint, along with the sides of the fretboard, and steel wool it with 0000 grade for 10-15 minutes. Don't press too hard. You'll make microscratches and essentially make the neck satin.