u/Owedin

I bought this guitar with the intent on learning some luthier skills after a VERY bad experience with my local luthier. I've made some mistakes along the way, but with how great this guitar plays now, I don't regret a single bit of the journey.

Parts:

PRS Lampshade knobs

Black Pickguard from Silver sky mod shop

John mann Bridge replacement parts (block + Saddles)

Grover 3+3 Safety post tuners

Seymour Duncan Custom Shop Stra-Bro 90s made by MJ herself

CTS volume control

CTS pull pots x2 to control the Coil tap

CRL switch

Fret level and crown with proper fallaway

my next stage will include repainting the guitar orange in some nitrocellulose lacquer and fitting a genuine bone nut. I would also like to experiment with changing the fretboard radius and getting some bigger stainless frets installed.

Found this guy on Facebook marketplace for $100CAD. I immediately messaged the seller and procured yet another grail figure.

With this guy I only have a few left of a long list of transformers

Still searching for

Botcon/Timelines Bug-bite
legends Deadlock
Revenge of the fallen buster optimus prime
07 movie night watch Optimus prime
Alternators RX8 Shockwave
Botcon/timelines cannonball
Botcon/timelines thunderclash
Botcon/timelines classics Shattered glass Optimus prime
Botcon/timelines Shattered glass goldbug
Prime First edition Bulkhead
Prime first edition Arcee
Prime first edition Optimus Prime

Seeing as PRS and Fender are on topic right now, I wanted to show the progress on my 2026 Project guitar. I Bought this guitar in rough shape for pretty cheap with the intention of upgrading it into something more modern with a vintage touch. Love that neck profile and purposely chose this model over the core Silver sky because of that neck and thought I could upgrade to a better two point Trem pretty easily (it's not).

The frets ends were in terrible shape, I don't know if this was a cortek factory special or if it was done over time, but the fret ends were sharp and poorly dressed. I also had over 10 un-level frets. First I straightened the neck with the truss rod and my notched straight edge and used a feeler gage to check the space between the frets and fretboard. I tried to tamp the frets down with my Fretting hammer but didn't have any luck with it I suspect they were glued in that way from the Cortek factory. I was planning to do a re-fret at some point anyway so for the time being I just leveled the frets with proper fallaway, crowned them, dressed the fret ends and polished the frets for literal days testing different fret polishing products until I was happy with my results and got a genuine mirror finish.

The pickguard was warped and the volume knobs were cracked. Not a big deal, I like the blacked out look better and like the new PRS lampshade knobs better, although the day I bought the guitar I only had Gibson knobs which I don't think looked too bad with the white pick guard. I bought a new black pickguard from Reverb but the holes were just a bit off. I plugged the other holes with title-bond and toothpicks. The pickups I picked out didn't really fit the Pickup routes, so I enlarged them purposely trying to make it look rustic after I accidently but a chip in the paint by hitting my desk with it shortly after buying it and thought "Rat rod look would be cool" and then totally regretted that choice afterwards as it looks terrible. I had a CNC machine that would had the correct choice here, but I was gonna do a whole relic job but stopped after the pickguard incident. I can probably fix the pickguard I have now with my CNC machine but I am just going to buy a new black pickguard and use my CNC machine to properly inlarge the pickup holes.

I then loaded the pickguard with a Vintage wire cloth, Tone bleed, CRL switch and one CTS volume pot with two CTS push pull pots that controlled the Coil Tap for these dope Seymour Duncan Custom shop Stra-Bro P90s that are single coil sized and were made my MJ herself. Tone 1 Controls the coil tap in the Bridge and Neck together while Tone 2 Controls the coil tap for the middle bridge. These pickups are hot and sound perfect.

The bridge was the worst part of this whole build. It had many problems when I bought it. I couldn't use the Trem-arm as the nut holding the trem-bushing on the bridge was seemingly gone, The strings get stuck in the bridge, All the saddles had string dents so looking for another set of saddles that fit correctly was almost impossible, not even the core saddles fit correctly. Since PRS did a special spacing I looked at many bridge replacements for this guitar and got nowhere as nothing would fit without re-drilling. I originally thought I would put a Vega-Trem or a Floyd Rose Rail Tail on but the holes didn't line up at all and really didn't want to do any plugging and re-drilling bridge posts as if my life depended on it. I then took apart the trem and luckily found the Screw that holds the Trem-arm bushing in and got that tightened down so I could finally use the Trem-arm again without it being useless and fall out of the bridge. I have ordered the Johnn mann upgrade parts for the SE bridge, so I'm excited to test that all out.

This guitar honestly plays better than my $4500 Fender after all the work I've done. I still have some things I want to do to the guitar such as getting some dents out of the guitar neck and repainting the body and getting those ugly seam lines from the multipiece body and hopefully make it somewhat less noticeable.

Thanks for reading my Ted talk. Spent a lot of time and money to buy the proper tools, breaking the tools in on other cheaper guitars. Just very proud of my work and wanted to show it off a bit.

I think I’ve got a good toan here for my needs, but I’m always interested in other peoples experiences and suggestions to try and experiment with

Things for context;

I know the pedal board being right next to a Computer giving tons of interference isn’t ideal but I have zero space to move my board anywhere else. Honestly, I don’t even notice any noise. It’s a pretty quiet board.

All my pedals are on this little Temu Pedal board while my power supply is held on with Velcro on the leg of my Computer Desk. I plan to get a pedal train board at some point and combine my pedal board with my power supply to manage my cables better, but 200+ Canadian for a hunk of medal I could weld together myself is a hard swallow.

I also don’t think I am going to be keeping the Tube Screamer. I tried to use it as a very subtle pre-Gain stage but it still does that weird thing where it mutes or kinda’ loses some mid range? Got recommended this Belle Pedal and am pretty happy with it as it does my pre-gain/full-Gain stage very well and blends well with my other pedals.

I am looking for a good Wah pedal, loop pedal, chorus and will probably want an EQ pedal of some sort that isn’t a pre-amp gain thingy like the Colour Box is as I already tried that pedal and just didn’t get any good tone with it.

I’m running these into a Hughes and Kettner Grand-mister Deluxe 40 if that matters.