Guitar Bodies And Amps

Hey everyone, I'm am kinda unhappy with my gear situation at the moment and by virtue of being poor there isn't much I can do about it. However, I am interested in finding ways of getting cool **** without paying as much.

Pt.1

This particular question is about Guitars, and if It's possible to buy just guitar bodies, without pickups or any electronics, but preferably with stuff like a bridge and tuners and such, and that would allow me to put in the electronic stuff in myself. I am not sure how, but I have connections so getting everything together would be the easy part. Also it would be great if you could buy them unpainted, cause I like to paint and I think it would be alot of fun to paint my own guitar. any way, I'm sure I can get my answer by doing a search on google for guitar bodies, but I wanted to ask you guys if you have any suggestions, things to look out for. What type of wood to go for, necks, body types, tuners, bridges.

Also If I did end up with just a blank body and neck, what type of bridges and necks do you guys suggest, and would it even be possible for someone with no experience to get them in the guitar without ****ing something up. However, even if its not I'd like to know, Im sure I can find someone to help me out.

I can't see how this wouldn't save me money but anything is possible I guess. I need it to be a great metal guitar (long sustain, low action, good for metal rhythm in particular), so I know that would make a differnece in what I go for, and I would most likely put Dimarzio pickups in it.


Pt.2

I need a good flexible amp, that gets great distorted metal tone. I keep looking at the Line 6 Flextone just cause it is really flexible and would be real easy to record with. I dont need absolutley amazing world class tone, just good tone. I've played the flextone a few times and it seems alright, I didn't spend alot of tie dialing in tones so that probably has something to do with it, I know a guy who has a Flextone 1 and it sounds pretty good to me, and he puts up with it and is much much... much better than me so. Any way I'd love to be able to afford a Boogie or Nice Peavey like 5150 or 6560 or whatever the new one is, but I can't and wont be able to fr some time.

So any help in either area, preferable the first one would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

What guitar are you playing now?

For amp, I'd reccomend a marshall mg50 or mg30 or mg15. There very cheap and have all the overdrive you need.

I play an ESP LTD Mh400, I've had it for about a year, the Floyd Rose is starting to get on my nerves and atm its not in working condition, my A string keeps popping out of the locking bolt and it randomly drops a half a step or so while Im playing. The rest of the guitar I love it looks great and sounds pretty good considering the price, I looked at some gibsons in the same price range when I bought this but they weren't as nice. So Im kinda back in the market...

Alright... here we go... this is probably going to be a long post so get out a pad and a pen... take notes....

Just to let you know... This route seems a lot cheaper... in the end, after you buy each of the parts seperately from a parts distributor... it's going to cost just as much as a new guitar...
but to enlighten you...

First, guitar bodies. You can get blank guitar bodies from either Warmoth.com or find them on Ebay. The disadvantages of Ebay is you're never quit sure what you're going to be getting... and since you're not super experienced with selecting woods you don't really know what the difference between poplar, basswood, and mahogany is... Nor do you probably know what to look for as 2 piece vs. one piece bodies, tub vs. specific routed bodies, carved vs flat top bodies, laminated vs. non laminated bodies.... etc. etc..... The advantage of Ebay is that it's going to be a lot less expensive than Warmoth... which is pretty much Warmoths only disadvantage... You can get a whole bunch of different bodie designs on Warmoth where as... on Ebay you may not find that many different quality body blanks of any type besides Strat bodies.... As far as wood selection goes... I won't get much into all the different types of woods... but the wood that you would most likely want as your tone wood... since you're looking for sustain... You're going to want a mahogany body... As far as hardware goes... you're looking at some more expenses there as well... if you're not a fan of the floyd rose I would definitely recommend that you use a hard tail bridge... this improves sustain as well as your guitars ability to stay in tune. That coupled with a mahogany body... you should get Zakk Wylde worth sustain... The thing about Warmoth is... you can get your body blank routed in a ton of different ways. You can get it routed specifically for a certain configuration... such as single-single-single... or dual humbuckers... or whatever really. Or you can get it tubbed... where they leave a big open space where the pickups are so that you can install any type of configuration you'd like... the bad thing about this is you HAVE to use a pickguard... you can get the other configurations in a laminated top that doesn't require a pickguard.... The bodies are probably... off the top of my head...... around 200-300 bucks without a finish. I would recommend using warmoth.com if you're looking at doing a project guitar... Its' pricy but their work is superb and they have almost endless options... It's the way to go... Necks are even harder to find... and equally as expensive... once again... warmoth.com is the place to go. They're pricy but they're the best out there. You can get it done in all kinds of different woods as well... If you're looking for something for shred and something with sustain... I woudl recommend a 24 fret ebony rosewood fretboard... That would work the best for what you want... You can also get all the tuners, bridge, and other hardware at warmoth.com as well... If I were you I'd go with a reversed gibson style bridge ... I personally like the all in one versions that have the reversed style hardtail with the compensated string saddles... that way you don't have to have the bridge and the hard tail piece... it's all in one... For tuners... you're going to want to look at anything with a ratio higher than 15:1 or so... It depends on your personal preference whether you like locking tuners or not... i personally don't like them at all... But if oyu wanted to go all out and get them... go for it...

That's the basics... All together... after you buy all the pieces for this guitar... I would say you should look to spend upwards of 800 dollars.... So... like I said... it's not any cheaper.

wow, thanks man.

So, are the blank bodies just solid blocks of wood (two pieces glued to togethe, right) and you route the shape out yourself? They aren't hollow right.

I have access to a huge, very expensive wood and pretty much anything shop. There may actually be something back there that routes **** for you (there is a fabricator thing that can make a scale model of a car, pretty quickly too), not that routing out a perimeter would really be that difficult, but hey. yeah but that looks like a mahogany body is only about 125 bucks after they route in the hardware spots for you. Anyway, I dont really care that much about price anymore, as long as its not excessive, but yeah defiently thanks for giving me the name of that company.

Anybody know anything about the POD XT? Live or pro? I dont particularly like Line 6 its just that for me (mainly recording and practicing) I can;t find anything that has near the flexabilty and easy recording setup that they have, dont have money or time to buy a mic to record so anything without a direct out is pretty much out of the question and Line 6 as tons of stuff for that, I just dont know if its really any good, ecspecailly if your going straight to your soundcard. SO yeah any help with this stuff would be very much apprecaited.

Well,as for what the bodies are, they are usually shaped and routed for you. and you can ideed get hollow ones. You can also get one-piece, two-piece and three piece bodies (you can get them with a whole lot more pieces as well).

I think it would be really expensive to do things that way, if you have access to some nice woodsand tools,maybe try it yourself, shaping and building your own body, but I promise it'll be hard work and you'll most likely mess it up atleast once or twice.

If you are happy with your guitar in general, from what you said, it sounds like your guitar just needs a good set-up and it will be back on track (however it'll still have the floyd rose).