G'day all, I'm Pete from Australia. I'm 38 and newly back into guitar playing. I originally started playing guitar on a Conora strat copy back in 1988. I loved that guitar but moved onto bass to join a band in 1990 and the Conora got pinch by a girl I was seeing at the time. As I was a much better bass player than guitarist, I never really played guitar again. Marriage, kids, house and marriage break up saw most of my dreams of becoming the next Les Claypool take a back burner but I have kept bass up as a hobby, jamming with friends when I could.A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend's 20yo neighbour asked if I wanted his old guitar before he threw it in the garbage pile. Well, it's a strat copy of unknown origin, had the entire (and I mean ENTIRE) guitar spray painted black and red even the fingerboard and back of neck! Some of the wiring was missing but I figured I could give it a quick spruce up and make it a hack around guitar for my kids who are now entering their teens. The neck sanded back easily, managed to gently clean off the fingerboard, gave the body a light sand (it's ply so I wasnt going to go crazy with a good paint job until I knew how it played) and got to work with the soldering iron and some schematics then a decent set up and plugged her into my bass rig. I left the headstock & pickguard with a bit of a rustic/worn look for now until I decide what to do with the body. The neck feels really good and the body, although heavy for a guitar, has nothing on the weight of my '78 Yamaha bass! I'm really happy with how she plays and have been slugging away re-learning chords and basic scales. I have always been more into blues/rock and funk and love the strat sound for that. Am hoping the kids will get started playing on this and enjoy it as much as I do, although I'm not telling them that guitar is my new secret passion!
Good on ya mate you know once you start tinkering, you never stop Welcome to this site Hide your wallet
Welcome to the forums! I have found them to be both interesting and useful and I am sure you will too!
Thanks guy. I am in Adelaide, South Oz Corona, starting to warm up nicely here ready for another blistering summer! I have found lots of help by reading thru the older posts so I didnt annoy you guys too much with the same old questions. So far, trem is screwed down with 5 springs to keep it tight against the body. The next stage will be a basic respray, maybe jungle themed to match my bass. I was toying of the idea of a Gary Moore (my hero in the 80's) single humbucker but with a fixed bridge but think I will keep it as is. So far, just with an el-cheapo Digitech bass effects pedal thru the Ashdown bass amp she sounds pretty good!
Hi Pete and welcome. I know what you mean about South Australian summers, spent the 80's and 90's in Whyalla and I remember those summers well. It was always a couple of degrees hotter than Adelaide up there, though when it's in the mid 40's celsious an extra couple of degrees doesn't matter much. Welcome back to the guitar mate.