This was the first of my makeover projects. I'd always liked the Mockingbird shape and fancied a neck-thru model so I bought this unseen on eBay. However when I got hold of it I found it was in worse condition than I'd expected.
The photos don't really show them very well, but it has a variety of finish chips, the electrics were a bit dodgy and the threads in the neck pickup were stripped. It was badly setup, filthy and played like total crap. I also decided it didn't look very nice with the black hardware.
So I waded in and made lots of changes to it. I've rewired it with a Kent Armstrong humbucker sized P90 at the neck and an Epiphone humbucker I had lurking at the bridge.
I also replaced all the black hardware with gold. As I wasn't sure what it would look like I bought very cheap tremolo and have never been very happy with it. It's one of those 'speedloader' ones currently widely sold where the string passes through a tube at the back and over the saddle. So it's not double locking. I had no idea it was one of these when I bought it and I really need to get a better one.
It doesn't matter how many times I've gone back and tweaked this guitar it never seems to sound great or play very nicely. It is just generally disappointing. Maybe one day I'll get it sorted out. The temptation to 'throw good money after bad' and buy a premium tremolo and bridge pickup is high.
Updates
Your mission, should you accept it...
Some progress with the Mockingbird
No comments:
Post a Comment