Disco Scottie
Hero Member
- Messages
- 651
It's funny how you think you know what you want, but then things change.
When I started hanging out here, I had every intention of creating a guitar completely from scratch... the body, the neck, everything would be custom ordered. I was always thinking quilt maple top, PRS style stoptail, Standard Thin neck, exotic wood to keep unfinished and 22 frets among other specifics. So there was no way I would buy one of those pre-done things from the Showcase. I mean, come on, how could any of those compare to what I was planning?
The first big decision I made was to go with a 7/8 body/neck combo. I've been playing PRS for many years, and I prefer the shorter scale. This meant I would have to go with a 24 fret neck, which was not a huge deal. I started looking around the Showcase just to get an idea of what they stocked there. I certainly wasn't going to buy one. Heaven's no! But from the very first look, I had a problem. There was this S body:
It was all wrong - Zebrawood? What is that? And I don't want a tune-o-matic. Obviously not for me.
And so every day for weeks now, I'd keep coming back to this body. Little by little my internal argument machines worked their magic, the power of convincing becoming stronger and stronger. It wasn't long before my bizarre questioning of zebrawood turned to insatiable lust. The whole look, even the TOM became cooler and cooler with each viewing. But what about my "built from the ground up" custom I was planning? Well... I suppose I could always do that later on... in another build... (aw crap, now I'm addicted)
Finally I accepted this was "the one". And if that was the case, I might as well see if there's a neck that will work for me too. One of the nice things about shopping for 7/8 stuff in the Showcase is, you have a lot less pages to go through, and you only have one headstock choice. It didn't take long before a certain fretboard caught my eye:
Here we go again. It's all wrong - 59 roundback? That's gonna be big! And birdseye maple sure isn't one of those unfinished exotics.
But that damn fretboard wouldn't leave me alone. It got worse when I mocked the two up together:
All I could think was
Which brings us to today. I called the big W and Spike got me all set up. I'm still trying to decide on fret size, so I have a 24 hour hold to make up my mind. I know they'll be stainless, but I'm torn between the frets on my PRS Custom 22 and my Suhr Pro. If anyone here has experience with both, and would like to offer size suggestions, I'm all ears.
I'm only ordering the body and neck right now, no hardware yet. I wasn't really ready to jump in this soon, but I knew I would hate myself forever if I didn't get these two... they just look too perfect together. One thing I still have to figure out is, if can I add a zebrawood laminate to the headstock - Spike says I can't because Showcase neck are already "dipped", but I don't know what that means. With that in mind, I've played around with a potential paint scheme. I might decide to keep it natural once I see it in person, but there are so many zebras like that. And I've always loved the original classic PRS color combo of vintage yellow with a trans red back:
I didn't begin to try and make the colors perfect, but here's a rough idea of it (with natural masked binding):
You can see on this one, I added the zebrawood laminate. So all this is subject to whatever happens. One thing is certain, however - she's gonna be my first. Wish me luck!
When I started hanging out here, I had every intention of creating a guitar completely from scratch... the body, the neck, everything would be custom ordered. I was always thinking quilt maple top, PRS style stoptail, Standard Thin neck, exotic wood to keep unfinished and 22 frets among other specifics. So there was no way I would buy one of those pre-done things from the Showcase. I mean, come on, how could any of those compare to what I was planning?
The first big decision I made was to go with a 7/8 body/neck combo. I've been playing PRS for many years, and I prefer the shorter scale. This meant I would have to go with a 24 fret neck, which was not a huge deal. I started looking around the Showcase just to get an idea of what they stocked there. I certainly wasn't going to buy one. Heaven's no! But from the very first look, I had a problem. There was this S body:
It was all wrong - Zebrawood? What is that? And I don't want a tune-o-matic. Obviously not for me.
And so every day for weeks now, I'd keep coming back to this body. Little by little my internal argument machines worked their magic, the power of convincing becoming stronger and stronger. It wasn't long before my bizarre questioning of zebrawood turned to insatiable lust. The whole look, even the TOM became cooler and cooler with each viewing. But what about my "built from the ground up" custom I was planning? Well... I suppose I could always do that later on... in another build... (aw crap, now I'm addicted)
Finally I accepted this was "the one". And if that was the case, I might as well see if there's a neck that will work for me too. One of the nice things about shopping for 7/8 stuff in the Showcase is, you have a lot less pages to go through, and you only have one headstock choice. It didn't take long before a certain fretboard caught my eye:
Here we go again. It's all wrong - 59 roundback? That's gonna be big! And birdseye maple sure isn't one of those unfinished exotics.
But that damn fretboard wouldn't leave me alone. It got worse when I mocked the two up together:
All I could think was
Which brings us to today. I called the big W and Spike got me all set up. I'm still trying to decide on fret size, so I have a 24 hour hold to make up my mind. I know they'll be stainless, but I'm torn between the frets on my PRS Custom 22 and my Suhr Pro. If anyone here has experience with both, and would like to offer size suggestions, I'm all ears.
I'm only ordering the body and neck right now, no hardware yet. I wasn't really ready to jump in this soon, but I knew I would hate myself forever if I didn't get these two... they just look too perfect together. One thing I still have to figure out is, if can I add a zebrawood laminate to the headstock - Spike says I can't because Showcase neck are already "dipped", but I don't know what that means. With that in mind, I've played around with a potential paint scheme. I might decide to keep it natural once I see it in person, but there are so many zebras like that. And I've always loved the original classic PRS color combo of vintage yellow with a trans red back:
I didn't begin to try and make the colors perfect, but here's a rough idea of it (with natural masked binding):
You can see on this one, I added the zebrawood laminate. So all this is subject to whatever happens. One thing is certain, however - she's gonna be my first. Wish me luck!
