This week, I was digitally flipping through The Tone Report's online magazine, and found an article about buying or finding a junker guitar and turning it into a player. I love this idea. I have attempted to do this a number of times, to different degrees of success. The plan was always to work on the guitar until it was a top notch part of my collection. What often happened was amassing a large amount of replacement parts, spending almost as much as the initial investment, and ending up with a underwhelming result. This got me thinking about the process and the value of experience. What I found wasn't too pretty.
It's Expensive
You got into this because it was cheap, but now you see that it is adding up. $100 on a guitar, $50 on some pickups from ebay, $35 on some decent tuners, $25 on new pots and wires and jacks. You're out $200+ dollars on your junker, then you have to put it all together. If you are like me, you enjoy putting everything together. The process is the best part. Assembling and soldering, It is rewarding to put something together and having it work. I was working on a SG, installing new pickups, and for some reason the neck pickup would not work. I tried to find the problem. I scratched my head and traced wires, I rewire the pots and pickup... still nothing. I finally tested the pickup... it was dead. Which brings me to my second point.
Sometime the work is just work
I know that seems a little simple, but when you drool over the parts you are going to stick into your current project you seldom foresee the issues that you'll have. The job that take a couple of solder joints, take an hour and a half. You can add a half hour to a job by knocking you parts bin off the counter you're working on. Those screws can hide in surprising places. There are only so many times you can burn your fingers and still "enjoy" the work. Even at modest prices, replacing the common parts in a build like these would run you another $100. So we've breached $300. This brings up the conversation that...
You could have bought something new
There are some decent guitars under $300. There are some more than decent used guitars for that kind of money, and what you have made is only arguably better. Best case scenario is that you start with a body and neck you enjoy and change the sound of the guitar to match you liking while upgrading the hardware to make it reliable. Or you could forego this entire process and just find a guitar that has all of these attributes. I've found that a stock guitar is going to be more reliable and cleaner looking than one that I've modified. I've changed tuners and left holes from the stock ones. Tools slip while working and give the guitar "character marks". Some of the solder work might not be as pretty. The worst thing you can end up with after all that work is something you don't absolutely love. You have something you've put you time and money into, and yet you favor your 'tried and true' over your polished gem.
Conclusion
While the process can be cathartic, the outcome can also be underwhelming. I mention it being a safe investment. Sure, you can try to turn a dime on your guitar that you've worked on, but you are charged with convincing someone to buy your customized guitar. Forget trying to get paid for all that work. You'll be working upstream to convince them to pay more than the stock guitar that you bought. Sure, you can get your initial investment back, but you are more than likely going to be upside down in the end. Having said that, I enjoyed and haven't regretted working on any of the project that I have. I enjoyed the process. To me it was a way to learn more about the instrument that is, in some ways, a part of me.
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