Your guitar gear

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Dr. Pain
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by Dr. Pain »

Something has really caught my eye of late and it's a Gibson SGJ. USA made SG junior that's really cheap, under $800! :vibes:
I like it and I am thinking about it. Looks good in chocolate and it sounds good too with 490 humbuckers. Better get my tax done and really think hard about buying one.

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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

they're really good bang for your buck. I've played a couple and they are a very simple stripped back guitar. The only thing i'm not keen on is the chunky 50's neck. Also in the flesh some of them look like they had the stain rubbed on by an apprentice, while others look nice and even.
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by Dr. Pain »

How chunky would you say the neck is? There's no where up here where I could play one and the only guitars that I have chunky necks are the Les Paul which is a D shape and my Strat.
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

It's not huge of the 50's neck but it's a decent handful. I am a fan of slimmer necks and I really love the Gibson 60's profile and the Fender Modern C which is probably what you have on your Strat. It would probably be a tad thicker than your Epi but only by a couple of mm. It probably wouldn't be a deal breaker for me but it's something to be aware of. It seems more pronounced on the SG because the body is so slim you expect it to have a skinny neck. But it's a decent handful.

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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

my Dean Zelinsky Private Label StrettaVita(that's a mouthful) showed up today. Because my mum died 2 months ago i decided to get her name and birth date on the back of the neck, and because she was a car nut i got it in white with chrome to match her favorite car that she owned.

It's very pretty and sounds and feels great. The neck profile is a soft V and is on the thin side. It's also quite light for this style of guitar, most likely due to being chambered. Pickups are probably medium to high output and give a typical Les Paul style sound.


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but, it has a few small issues which i'm trying not to let bug me. The neck pocket isn't a tight fit like on every other bolt on neck i have. It's solid but looks shoddy. And the underside gap increases to about 1-2mm.

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i also noticed some bits of black paint showing around the cavities at the back. So i took the covers off and saw it was a rather sloppy paint job in there. Luckily i was able to lightly scrape it off with a pocket knife. But when i took the toggle switch cover off a bit of wood came away with it. And as you can see from the pics, whoever screwed it on had a couple of goes at getting the holes in the right spot. It's not a deal breaker but it dampens the mood a bit when you think an apprentice put it together.

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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by Cutter »

Jas, Sorry about your Mum. Condolences.
The name on the guitar is a sweet touch. Respect and a big brotherly punch on the arm.

And I agree about the details in the workmanship. Those are the bits we notice.

But, bugger that, its looks seriously good.
If someone had described bringing the upper bout binding over to the face I'd have laughed, but that is really striking.
But the tailpiece look like it should have been on a diet.
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

i was also a bit cautious about the split binding on the top but it actually looks quite good. I agree about the tailpiece too, it's big but it doesn't stand out.

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Dr. Pain
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by Dr. Pain »

It's pretty and nicely finished besides some of that paint getting out of the control cavities. I think the only way to avoid gaps around the neck is set neck. Congrats on a nice buy. :yes:

Sorry to hear about your mum.
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

i sent them an email as a bit of a heads up for other customers and also to let them know i wasn't 100% happy.
hey guys, i got my guitar today and for the most part it's excellent. It's setup beautifully and looks and sounds great. But there are a couple of small things i noticed that may be worth you knowing about to keep an eye on for the future. The top gap where the neck and the body meets is quite a bit bigger than i have on any of my other guitars. It's not quite enough to get a credit card into but it's close. Also the lower gap angles out to become a bigger gap than it should be.

The other thing is the black control cavity paint in both the switch and knob cavities was a bit sloppy and showed around the edge even when the cover was on. I managed to remove most of it by lightly scraping it with a pocket knife. Now it's looks nicer when the covers are on but it's still a bit messy with the covers off. Also when i took the toggle switch cover off a small chunk of wood broke off and i saw extra holes where someone had had a couple of goes at getting it right. Obviously this isn't a super high end guitar so i'm not too fussed but even low end guitars have good quality workmanship these days so i thought it was maybe a bit sub par compared to other guitars in this price range.

Apart from that it's a great guitar and the z-glide neck is brilliant. I've attached pics to show the issues i mentioned.

Many thanks, Jason




then i got a response i didn't expect.
Hi Jason,

Thank you again for your order, I'd be happy to help.

We apologize for the issues with your guitar. I spoke with Dean and he wants you to be 100% happy with your guitar. Once we have more models in stock, we would like to send you a replacement guitar, free of charge. This may take 2-3 months as we get those ready. In the meantime hang onto your guitar, that will be yours to keep.

Please feel free to email back if you have any questions or how else I can be of assistance. Thank you again for supporting Dean's new Signature line of guitars.

Regards,
Drew

in all honesty i'm not sure i can accept a whole guitar for the issues that are there, especially given i get keep this one. I'm feeling a bit guilty now for mentioning it. I'm not normally a complaining customer, it was merely a heads up for them. I'll talk it over with them though and sort something out.
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

Dr. Pain wrote:I think the only way to avoid gaps around the neck is set neck. Congrats on a nice buy. :yes:

i have a few bolt ons and they are super tight. The theory is guitar should be able to be held up by the neck without the bolts holding it together. It's done that way to connect the neck and body to help sustain, usually.
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by Crowella »

Exactly Woodsy. The gaps in your case look a bit too big but that doesn't take away the fact that the guitar looks really nice. That binding over the upper bout is wonderful and I've always liked instruments that have that touch.

You have to hand it to them though, that's some amazing customer service. Hopefully you can work something out with them.

Also, Sorry to hear about your mum. :(
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by Dr. Pain »

Here's a pic of the gap in my Strat. It doesn't seem to affect it in anyway. My cheapie BC Rich is super tight but it's the only one that is. It's pretty sweet that Dean Zelinsky is concerned about your happiness with your guitar and you'll get another.

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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

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i forgot to update my post regarding the issues surrounding my guitar. After they offered to send me a new guitar i sent them an email saying it's really not worth the expense to send one from the US as i could live with the issues and it didn't detract from the playing. So i suggested maybe they should keep the replacement guitar and donate the cost of the the delivery money to a cancer charity. They said it was a nice gesture and asked if i had a charity in mind, i said nope, as long as it's a cancer charity then it's all good. In the end they donated it to Childrens Cancer Institute Australia(and sent me a copy of the receipt), which was cool because i would have been just as happy for them to donate it to an American charity. So all in all the guitars are nice, but their customer service is excellent. They were brilliant guys and gals to deal with.

As for the guitar i don't think i've picked up my Les Paul since i got it, which says something because i love my LP. But this thing is light and comfortable to play.
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Re: Your guitar gear

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That's good of them to donate. I can understand about the Les Paul though as since I got my Strat I don't play my Les Paul that much. It's awesome but the Strat through my vypyr amp is really good and the Strat is more comfortable to play.

There's a legend setting in the vypyr which is 6505 and the 60 watt version uses a 12ax tube to create analog tones and there'a P-90 phaser. It screams Eddie Van Halen. Pity the muppet playing it can't make it sound good. All the effects which use the tube sound so good.
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by Dr. Pain »

With all the crap I've posted in here about wanting this guitar and that amp... Today proved I don't need much else. I found a setting online for my Blackstar HT-5 which was called Dave Murray (Iron Maiden) and it has the amp sounding like a Marshall. International Shape Feature is a tone control that swings the amp from sounding something like a Peavey 5150 to a Marshall JCM 800. Anyway I boosted it with a Boss SD-1, used my Les Paul and got that classic British heavy metal tone from the 80's. Damn happy about that! :)
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

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i sold my Les Paul to my cousin because i just don't play it anymore. I love the look and sound of LP's but 9 times out of 10 i tend to pick up something a little more comfortable and easier to play. So i'm going to use the money i got from that to build a custom Warmoth guitar. It'll be a plain finished soloist body, 2 wood mounted humbuckers, wilkinson trem, strat style neck with a slightly wider 1 3/4" nut width and wizard profile. More than likely rosewood board but i'm still deciding on that, it may be ebony. Also it'll have a tronical tuning system because most of the songs i tend to jam along too are in different tunings, standard E, Eb, dropped D, dropped Db, and lower. The tronical system is what Gibson use but they call it Min-etune.

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Re: Your guitar gear

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I tend to play my Ltd H-351 more than my Les Paul because it is more manageable and it's got the features I like about a Les Paul, set neck, arch top, fixed bridge and humbuckers. The Hetfield EMG's in it do sound very similar to the pick up's in my Les Paul but there's more power to them. I do like that tuner idea though. I would like something like that on my Ltd as I'd move between E and D a lot. I think guitars tuned to D sound friggin awesome.
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

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it looks like they don't support ESP/LTD at the moment. But it sounds like they are adding more and more designs to it. Their templates for what versions fit what model guitars are here http://www.tronical.com/wp-content/uplo ... mplate.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

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all the bits for my Warmoth build have been ordered. It's been a few years in the planning so i hope i like it, given it's essentially custom made to what i like. But it'll be a good 6 weeks until the body and neck arrive. The Tronical tuning system should only take a week or two, and the pickups i ordered from Mick Brierley are about a 3 week wait.


some specs:

Strat shape heastock
1 3/4" nut width, which is wider than normal to make it easier for my chubby fingers to chord without hitting strings.
maple neck with rosewood fretboard
stanless steel frets, i've never tried them but for an extra $20 i figured it'll save the frets ever wearing out in the future.
think wizard profile neck
alder soloist warmoth body with contoured heel
2 Brierley humbuckers, neck is an alnico 2 magnet wound to about 7.4k, and the bridge is a ceramic magnet alnico 5 wound to about 12k. I asked him for something that was like the 500T that was in my Les Paul.
Wilkonson VR-100 trem.
tronical tuners
controls are a 3 way blade switch and a volume and tone knob, nothing fancy. It'll be neck-neck & bridge - bridge.



i found a pic of a similar warmoth guitar but with different pickups and neck so i did a quick mockup of what mine will be like.

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Re: Your guitar gear

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Cool, you should take photos as the build progress goes on
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

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I plan to.
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

oh i forgot, it will also have a custom neck plate. A bloke on the unofficial warmoth forums does them so i gave him a pic that Hz did of me a few years back. It won't be as detailed but it'll be better than a plain neck plate.

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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

neck plate is done


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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by matticooper »

very cool...
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w00dsy
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Re: Your guitar gear

Post by w00dsy »

the first part has arrived.

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