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Post by ninworks on Oct 8, 2022 7:40:28 GMT -5
I have a cheap Johnson Telecaster copy. My wife bought it for my birthday many years ago. When I got it the neck was twisted and the pickups sounded awful. I decided that I was going to make it playable and in the process of doing that I replaced some things and changed out some hardware.
I took it to my stellar guitar tech in Phoenix Billy O'Reilly. He removed the frets, replaned the neck, installed jumbo frets, drilled some holes, put in ferrules, and made it a string-through. He put a better bridge on it as well. I got a different metal plate and pickguard, installed a Seymour Duncan Custom Custom humbucker at the bridge, and put my original 72 Stratocaster bridge pickup in the neck position because that's what I had. I got lucky and that turned out to be a good choice. I had to take the plastic cover off the pickup to make it fit into the slot. I didn't change the tuners because the ones that were on it seemed to work well enough and stay in tune. I changed out the toggle switch to a 5 position for future mods but only 1, 3 , and 5 actually change anything in the routing. 2 and 4 are the same as 3. Eventually I may wire in some split options for the humbucker. It has that capability.
This thing sounds and plays awesome. It's my secret weapon when recording guitar tracks. Plenty of meat as well as twangy when it needs to be. It's my sleeper. The looks of a BB gun but with the punch of a 1911 45 ACP.
What's your sleeper guitar?
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 8, 2022 8:09:35 GMT -5
I really don't have any that I think qualify. I mean, most of my guitars are Strats and Teles I pieced together with quality parts. They all perform as expected. My Tele Thinline build has been through many operations and one of the best surprises was when I put a Kent Armstrong Stealth 90 (noiseless P90) in the neck and a GFS Lil Puncher rail (Barden clone) in the bridge. Those two together worked really, really well. In an attempt to make the guitar more traditional I put a set of Bootstrap A3 pickups in. Meh...they sound decent Teleish, but I'm pondering going back to the Kent Armstrong/GFS config.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Oct 8, 2022 15:55:48 GMT -5
I have a classical that cost $500 from a maker no one has ever heard of that out performs stuff I've seen five times the cost. My Sigma acoustic punches above its weight, though only when you consider it on the sliding scale.
Played many sleepers, though. We semi-regularly get Squiers and Epiphones through the shop that you just don't want to put down. The parts teles that I've played that have been incredible have often been very light ones, sometimes with pine bodies. Maybe your Johnson is an extra light piece of wood? Pardon me... let me rephrase... maybe your tele copy has a particularly low weight body?
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Post by ninworks on Oct 8, 2022 16:34:42 GMT -5
 I think I'm going to rename my Tele John Thomas.
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sirWheat
Wholenote
For a better future, play Stevie Wonder for your children.
Posts: 319
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Post by sirWheat on Oct 8, 2022 17:25:46 GMT -5
I have a Blueridge BG-160 that I bought new in '07 or '08 for around $650. I had a hard time choosing between it and a Martin D-15 (which was around the same price as the BR). Took the Martin home for a week or two then took it back in favor of the BR. It was my first all wood guitar after 20 years with an Ovation as my only acoustic so it's not like I had much of an idea of what to look for.
I kinda wish I'd kept the Martin but I have a D-18 now so all's good.
Anyway, the BR is a great guitar (J-45 copy with rosewood back and sides) that has been a stalwart and sounds great. I gave it the Buzz Feiten treatment and added a pickup not long ago for the purpose of using the Tonewood amp with it. It has weathered all the dry winters and humid summers here in Michigan as well as a couple summers in Wyoming with very little concern for humidity levels or even keeping it in a case. Very little, if any, distortion of the top. The Martin, in comparison, has cost me five times as much (with the added shipping costs of sending it back twice for warranty repairs), and acts more like a balloon with humidity changes even though it's been babied.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 8, 2022 18:15:19 GMT -5
I kinda forgot about my Yamaha CSF1M. It was great out of the box and even better after replacing the nut, saddle and endpins.
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Post by Pinetree on Oct 9, 2022 10:50:13 GMT -5
A Galactic Purple Squier Strat with Lindy Fralin Blues Specials, Sperzel tuners, Hipshot D-dropper, and Graph Tech saddles.
Looks like a $200 guitar, sounds like a million bucks.
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Oct 11, 2022 15:34:28 GMT -5
An Esquire I built, with a Tele bridge pickup made like a P90. It has a volume and tone control, and is super versatile. It's basically a Les Paul Junior in Fender scale. I can cover just about anything with this one.   |
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Post by ninworks on Oct 11, 2022 20:08:41 GMT -5
I weighed John Thomas.......the guitar. 7.13 pounds. Not really light but not heavy. Somewhere in the middle.
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Oct 12, 2022 9:41:47 GMT -5
Seven and a half pounds is right about in the middle of the best weight for a guitar. Generally speaking.
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Post by Pinetree on Oct 12, 2022 10:34:09 GMT -5
I've been playing guitar since before people started weighing them.
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Post by ninworks on Oct 12, 2022 16:15:57 GMT -5
John Thomas needs to go on a diet. Maybe I should play less cheese and more beefy stuff.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 12, 2022 18:53:53 GMT -5
I've never weighed a guitar.
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Post by ninworks on Oct 13, 2022 2:34:39 GMT -5
The only reason I have weighed my guitars is becdause of the internet. I would have never even considered it unless I had read about it. All that aside my 62 SG Custom weighs in at 6.7 pounds and it is a monster but it has genuine PAF's in it as well. I only weighed it because I once played a reissue and it felt like an anvil compared to mine. My Custom Shop Gibson CS356 is 6.1 pounds. There may be something to the weight thing but I'm not 100% convinced it is as critical as everyone seems to think. Those 2 guitars are some of the best ones I have but my 72 Strat sounds great as well and it's 8.3 pounds with the Musikraft neck so there's that. My Les Paul 60's Tribute Gold Top is 8.6 pounds and my Japanese Fender Flame Ultra is 9.7 pounds and they both sound great as well. I think it has more to do with the electronics than anything. Don't even get me started on the weight of my 2 bass guitars.
I think it may have as much to do with the resonant pitches of the wood as anything else. I went through a bunch of my guitars and amps once and tapped on them to see what the resonant pitches of them were. Whenever I'm recording something and haven't decided which guitar to use I look at that chart to see which guitar may be more suited to the key of the song I'm playing. I don't know if it makes any actual difference or not but it's something to consider. I'm just as likely to choose one that's not even close to the key signature of the song. The same goes for speaker cabinets.
The SG Custom is a D
Strat is an F
John Thomas is an F
CS356 is a B
Fender Flame is an E
Les Paul is an Ab
Randall slant-front 4-12's cabinet is a C#
BFTRRI is a Bb
Old 1940's Leslie 46W is an F
Leslie 760 Combo is an Eb
AC15H1TV is an F
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Oct 13, 2022 10:49:53 GMT -5
I probably should weigh guitars more often, I almost never do because I don't have a nearby scale that I can get a guitar onto. I get my hands on so many guitars that it can be helpful to find patterns along the way. At this point I might be able to say "the strats that sound best to me weigh X.XX pounds", but I don't really know that. I can vaguely say that the Strats on the light side but not too light sound best to me, and Teles that are pretty darn light often sound great. These things are never absolute, but you don't look at statistics to find absolutes, you look for patterns.
Resonant pitches, also whether a body is resonant or acts like an inertia block. A boat anchor guitar sustains a lot, because it is so inert.
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Post by ninworks on Oct 13, 2022 12:39:53 GMT -5
I have a cheap digital fish scale that I use to weigh them. I think it has a 15 pound upper limit but that's plenty for guitars. It has a big hook so I just hook a strap to the guitar and hang it from one of the strap buttons.
Interesting about the inertia block. I'm not sold on using guitars that resonate to a particular pitch but it is an ongoing experiment to see what comes out at the end.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Oct 13, 2022 17:04:04 GMT -5
I once tried using my bathroom scale which works in decimals, but that was a fail. Tried by weighing myself with and without the guitar then doing the math, but it was not a reliable outcome.
When piecing together partscasters I've stuck to Strat bodies 4 lbs and under. I like the outcome. The lightest body is ash, 3 lbs 13 oz. My unscientific formula is lighter bodies with a chunky neck. Works for me.
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Post by Peegoo 🏁 on Oct 13, 2022 21:52:42 GMT -5
^^^That's how I roll these days too.
A lightweight guitar with a chunky neck...very comfy when standing or sitting.
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I think I'm going to rename my Tele John Thomas.
