mr dave

am i just getting crazy deja vu or didn't we have this exact discussion a few weeks ago?

quite frankly if you want to replace every part of the guitar besides the body you might as well just get a new guitar. in the long run it'll be WAY less hassle and likely a lot cheaper.

THAT KIT IS 45 POUNDS?!?!?! for a plate of metal and 4 screws and washers? FORTY FIVE POUNDS???!?!?!?!!!!! WHAT. THE. ****? you're looking at the better part of $100 to get that stateside. for a chunk of metal smaller than a credit card.

really though, if you want an ES-335 suck it up and save up for an actual ES-335. some homemade custom job isn't going to compare and will never satisfy (plus the longer you tinker with it the longer it'll take you to save up for a 335). if you want to make it into some sort of project frankenstein guitar then great, do it up. just stop comparing it to a 335 or a telecaster. if you want one of those get one those, a project guitar will never live up and continuously comparing your project guitar to those higher end models will always make the slight differences and deficiencies even more glaring.

even putting a telecaster neck on the guitar isn't going to change the tone that much (if at all) as you'd still be slapping in a 22 fret neck. a 24 fret neck would be longer and would in turn increase the scale length (which in turn brightens your tone). otherwise if you stick with a 22 you'd need to change the actual location of the bridge in order to give it a hint of the fender style brightness. that means routing new holes for the bridge and filling the ones that are already there.

no matter how much work you put into it you're not going to make a $300 guitar sound like a $3000 guitar. sorry if i sound harsh with this post but it's what it is. the RL-1 doesn't seem like a bad guitar, but no matter how much you polish it, it's always going to be an entry level guitar.

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