Any guitar players on TW?

I'll check them out.

 

I dig that, they feel like a healthy mix of Fu Manchu and Monolord

 

I like it when the youth brings the old school flavor. Warms my heart.

 

I’ve been having a bunch of fun messing around with my guitars. I’m still a poor player, but I’m having some fun nonetheless.


This was my first guitar. I wanted to build it as a Tom Delonge Strat but messed up a bit. The Invader I told my Mom to get was black instead of white and finding custom pickguards online was challenging so this was the best I could do.

Fast forward to last month, I decided to do a tribute to Tom’s orange / red guitar with a black Invader but instead of doing the black Invader I did his early pickup and did a DiMarzio X2N.



When I was messing around under the pickguard I found a nasty crack in the body. This guitar is super sentimental to me so I’ll never chuck it, but my gut says it’s borked.


When I bought the TD Strat I wasn’t sure if I wanted blue or green. I like Daphne Blue more than Surf Green objectively but green was the essential color. Decided to have a little fun with a Squier Deluxe and a cheap Affinity neck.



I also finally got an actual pedalboard to work with for my setup. I wish I could have fit the power supply underneath but it just wouldn’t work how I wanted it to. It’s nice to have everything contained and cleaned though.


This is my current project that I’m working on.

This will use my leftover black Invader and I had a final spare neck so it made sense to slam it together.


In final frustrating news the neck shrunk just enough on the Fender to cause the finish to lift on the frets. Sweetwater sent me a replacement but I honestly liked how the original played and kept that. Trying not to let this bug me too much. I just added some Humidipaks to the case to try and keep the neck stable moving forward.

 

They make those pickups not too far from where I live.

 

Nice guitars.

You can probably fix that crack on the red on. It look like it's pretty small, so may be able to get some thin wood glue in there and then clamp the body to hold the crack together as much as possible without ruining the body. A suction cup is pretty handy at pushing glue into cracks.

It's hard for me to tell what you mean about the fender neck. It sounds like you had fret sprout. You can fix that with a small needle file (a fret end file it best if you have the cash). Your goal is to round the sharp ends without damaging your fretboard. I have had to do it a few times now. It's not hard, just a little technique and some patience.

All your guitars looks great though. I am actually doing a bit of research on building a strat for my next project, but I may just finish a body and sell it.

I am running out of space, but I have never spent a lot of time on a strat and I love to finish guitars.

 

It’s 100% fret sprout. Fender clears over the whole neck so when the frets sprout it lifts the clear up around the fret. So annoying, but doesn’t impact how the guitar plays.

Edit: I do have (and love) my StewMac fret file so if it becomes an issue I can easily fix it. I just hate that it damaged the finish.

I rarely play the red one anymore anyways. I had a luthier do a setup and they claimed my truss rod had no adjustment left and now it’s just a buzzy mess. Whomever routed the body for the original humbucker punctured into the tremolo cavity on the backside.

My late cousin gave it to me when I was a kid so it’s sentimental, but it’s not really a “good” guitar anymore.

 

I got the SM one too, it's worth every penny.

Yeah, fret sprout annoying. I keep my guitars in cases now too with hydro packs. I usually play acoustics in the summer outside and electrics in the winter when I am stuck inside.

It's sweet you still got your first guitar. Wish I still had mine. Was some kinda Harmony strat copy. I traded it for a skateboard or something when I was a teenager.

 

It's sweet you still got your first guitar. Wish I still had mine. Was some kinda Harmony strat copy. I traded it for a skateboard or something when I was a teenager.[/QUOTE]

Same here. Sunburst Harmony "strat", $129 incl a free "amp". haha. I loathed that guitar.... no regrets for parting with it....although it was likely far better than I ever gave it credit for. I equated my inability to play to the guitar and not myself. Greenhorn ignorance

 

Been getting to play with my Green Machine Mod Collection Les Paul 50s standard. I love this thing. Between two other 50s standards I'm ready for something a little lighter weight lol.

 

I also had a Harmony for my first guitar, I think i got it at Sears or someplace like that back in 1990.
it had 6 inch action and doubled as a recurve bow hahaha

 

Mine from Sears as well, maybe '87. I wanted the Cort, it was more edgy and cool, but at $249 was way out of the realm of possibility for my Christmas back then...
Then came the Dean Playmate Z I bought from a friend. Then I financed my '93 LP Std from the LGS at 2 years $60/mo and never looked back. my first finance and credit history start.

 

that’s cool.

I’ve dropped the guitar off. the guy who owns/runs the shop was super cool, really nice guy.
He’s going to install the pickup, clean my fretboard for me, set intonation, check the action and install new strings.

Hope to hear back from him soon.
Can’t wait to plug the guitar in and hear that new pickup!

 

Same here. Sunburst Harmony "strat", $129 incl a free "amp". haha. I loathed that guitar.... no regrets for parting with it....although it was likely far better than I ever gave it credit for. I equated my inability to play to the guitar and not myself. Greenhorn ignorance [/QUOTE]
That's awesome. I wonder if they were any good. I never see them used. I also had a teal Peavey Rage 158. Those where some good times though.

 

Invaders huh??
I put one in my Ibanez RG 7-string years ago. They sound killer.
Excuse the dirty/grimy looking guitar. The 7 is next to visit the guitar shop for a thorough cleaning.



This was my first really nice guitar that I paid for, myself. I bought this guitar in 1998 while I was in High School working as a cook at a Chinese restaurant.


this guitar still sounds great - the Invader just pushes the sound to the extreme.

 

It was basically my main / only guitar for awhile. I ended up grabbing an Agile LP Double Cut clone off a friend for like $100 in college because it was pretty. Plays well (I suck) and I jammed a Duncan JB in the bridge since I was playing on the neck to get any tone out of it.

The red one is a Tokai which I guess isn’t an awful guitar (I’ve seen them change hands upwards of $800). I just don’t love the neck profile. My cousin gave it to me when I was in 5th grade. He passed about 14 years ago so I can’t in good conscience get rid of it. His brother passed almost three years ago so the Park amp he gave me to match the Tokai stays even if I never use it.

I have an Invader problem, I guess. In high school I was taking lessons and my teacher mentioned the humbucker I had in the guitar when it was given to me was weak. When I looked at it before I recently sold it it was a SD DD-J which I guess were quite the pickup, but mine was busted.

Blink-182 were huge at the time and my favorite band. When I learned about the TD Strat having an Invader it was a natural choice to go with. I just didn’t realize that I ordered black until I got it. Oops, but pleasant surprise as it’s going into the Sadocaster.

I need to learn to actually play. I’m objectively bad.

 

Well, the Invaders do sound great!
The one pictured above is in my first 7-string(the black one). I used to have a second one that was a Gunmetal Grey and I installed an Invader in that one as well. But, I’m no longer touring or playing in bands so I sold about 4 guitars, 2 Peavey cabinets/etc.. tons of gear.
Anyway, I’ve kept my Les Pauls, and my black 7(the first one).

And I need a ton of practice myself.
As I mentioned, I used to play so much.
I haven’t been able to play & keep up my chops as much as I’d like in more than 10 years.

I sound terrible on my acoustic, lols.
Thankfully, I can still play along with Motörhead and it covers up a lot of my mistakes.

 

Tru-oil finally cured. Polished up nicely.

 

Ready for neck and setup. Trying a TV Jones on the neck this time. Had a Bareknuckle before. Nock sure about the pickguard, it's all I have at the moment other than white pearl. Will have to find something else I think.

 

And Done!