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Tiger Strat, Rawr

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Gabe

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Just got this thing after two weeks of waiting  :headbang1:. Swamp ash body with flame maple top, gorgeous tiger's eye finish on front and brown dye on back with cool gold-ish binding. Routed for 2 P-90s and a humbucker and a floyd rose original (pictured). I cannot say enough good things about it, the pictures don't do it justice. Now comes the task of deciding what neck to put with it. Was thinking of a jackson neck made of either mahogany or flame maple with a rosewood fingerboard. And also the important decision of what color hardware am I gonna use  ???. I wasn't planning to buy a body this color, but when I saw it in the showcase I had to have it, but I don't know if silver tuning knobs and a silver tremolo go with it. I think the tuning knobs look pretty good and the abalone looks nice with the binding, but idk about the tremolo, I got it off ebay in good condition for $100 and it's an ORIGINAL floyd rose, so I don't feel like getting a new gold one for $250. For the neck I am getting 6-in-line gold grover locking rotomatics and I am gonna do some custom inlay on the headstock, for the PUs I was gonna go with two seymour duncan P-90s, and a P-rail, and drilling another hole for another tone knob, as well as another hole for a 3 way switch to switch between pickup settings on the p-rail.

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By epictheepicest at 2010-12-06
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By epictheepicest at 2010-12-06
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By epictheepicest at 2010-12-06
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By epictheepicest at 2010-12-06
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By epictheepicest at 2010-12-06

So, if anyone has any comments or thinks I should get different color hardware, let me know lol. More pics coming soon.

 
Hey Gabe - your pics don't show up.  They point to local files on your PC.  Try uploading them using the "Additional Options" and put them out on a image hosting website like ImageShack or Photbucket.
 
they should work now, edited. Excuse the crappy pictures, I'm not very good with lighting and/or photography, and they were kinda a hassle to take after having to argue with my dad for 5 minutes about how the trem is supposed to wobble because there is no tension placed on it yet.
 
That thing looks awesome!

Just remember that mahogany and maple necks is like day and night.
Maple deliveres spanking highs while mahogany is warme and cuddly.
 
I am definitely more inclined to go with mahogany since this will be my main guitar from now on and I am more of a 60s/70s blues/jazz guitarist than a metal guitarist. I'll probably go to my local shop though and try out the differences to see for myself what I would like best.
 
I think the chrome hardware will look great.  Gold always has a short term appeal, but you will regret it in about 5 years when it starts changing colors or corroding.  Chrome will always look nice. :kewlpics:
 
Firebird said:
I think the chrome hardware will look great.  Gold always has a short term appeal, but you will regret it in about 5 years when it starts changing colors or corroding.  Chrome will always look nice. :kewlpics:
Click to expand...
+1
 
That would look great with black hardware, but chrome isn't bad if that's what you want to go with. Gold wouldn't look right against that color anyway.
 
Great looking body! Two things that come to mind: Grover tuners are now "sourced" (meaning Asian) and they're good ones and bad ones - I don't know which is which, but people who restore old, valuable stuff like $50,000 Martins are going crazy, because they don't want to put Chinese tuners on a pre-war Martin.... the Schallers (which Warmoth sells) are hands down the best locking tuner I've used, including Planet Waves, Sperzels and Gotoh. Though I'm not sure you need locking tuners for most applications, they don't even put them on pedal steel guitars that cost $5,000 and pull up 1 1/2 steps and drop 2 whole steps.

#2, maple neck. There are a lot of ways to make an initially-bright tone mellow, but no good way to brighten up a fundamentally dull tone. If you make a list of all the great-sounding guitarists who use a bolted-on maple neck and compare it to the list of great-sounding guitarists who use a bolted-on mahogany neck... it's like two thousand to zero, or so.
 
+1 on the maple neck stubhead.  I forgot that you said that you wanted to put a mahogany neck.  You could accomplish warming the tone better with, for example, a rosewood fretboard.  If you look at the wood materials that big guitar manufactures use as an example you wouldn't see an ash body paired with a mahogany neck.  Check how Fender pairs their ash guitars as a good point of reference.
 
All black hardware, flame or birdseye maple neck with Ebony fingerboard...  :guitarplayer2:

ORC
 
Ebony fretboard is cool, but I prefer rosewood imo, I can always stain it black if it looks better like that anyway. Thanks for tips on the black hardware, I'll see if I can find somewhere where I could trade in the silver floyd for a black one, if not I'll buy one after I get everything else :). I'll keep in mind that stuff about the tuners and see if I can return the ones I got at stewmac for black ones. I like the knobs too much so I'm still gonna keep them :p, gonna get abalone inlay on the fingerboard so they would at least match that and the inlay I am doing will also be abalone/pearl. Money is tight right now so I'll basically order the neck and 1 or 2 pickups soon and then everything else I will have to wait. Will definitely keep everyone posted and show the finished product when it is finished.

P.S. I don't have bad taste in color or anything, but I originally set out to buy a purple guitar that would go well with the chrome, but like I said this just stared out at me from the showcase and I bought it :).
 
Gabe said:
Ebony fretboard is cool, but I prefer rosewood imo, I can always stain it black if it looks better like that anyway. Thanks for tips on the black hardware, I'll see if I can find somewhere where I could trade in the silver floyd for a black one, if not I'll buy one after I get everything else :). I'll keep in mind that stuff about the tuners and see if I can return the ones I got at stewmac for black ones. I like the knobs too much so I'm still gonna keep them :p, gonna get abalone inlay on the fingerboard so they would at least match that and the inlay I am doing will also be abalone/pearl. Money is tight right now so I'll basically order the neck and 1 or 2 pickups soon and then everything else I will have to wait. Will definitely keep everyone posted and show the finished product when it is finished.

P.S. I don't have bad taste in color or anything, but I originally set out to buy a purple guitar that would go well with the chrome, but like I said this just stared out at me from the showcase and I bought it :).
Click to expand...

We all know how you feel!
 
I have a similar body/finish that I thought the gold worked well on...

img_0636_Sm.jpg

The switches have since been changed to gold as well - there was a long wait on those and I wanted to play the thing. Those are also gold frets - highly recommended. Like playing on glass - super smooth, like stainless steel.
 
Thanks. Totally unplanned, like Gabe's experience. Saw it on The Showcase one day, and simply had to have it.
 
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