Plywood Charvette

[Nightbat]

all of my guitars with EMGs sound the same, whether its alder, maple, etc.

Time for a better amp then

[toejam]

I had a plywood kramer once that actually sounded good.

So did I. It was a 600ST. I put a real Floyd on it, instead of the crappy single-locking Floyd II, and a DiMarzio X2N, and I used that thing for many years until the Floyd posts started to tilt forward.

[ginsambo]

So did I. It was a 600ST. I put a real Floyd on it, instead of the crappy single-locking Floyd II, and a DiMarzio X2N, and I used that thing for many years until the Floyd posts started to tilt forward.

They do that in Basswood too. My Stealth LT posts are two times wider than they should be, complete write off.

I think the thing with the plywood sound is to do with the grain and density of the wood. When you get a guitar you hope that the body pieces are of similar density and grain and that their grain is all parallel. That way you hope to get an equal reasonance throughout the body. Problem with plywood is that the grain is switching every few mm's, with a load of higher density glue in between the varying density of the ply sheets. By nature ply usually has a lot of crappy bits in it anyway, like knots etc. Unless we are talking premium quality Swedish Wisa board. So the prospects for decent reasonance don't seem good.

Plywood is kind of like a cast bell that has been cooled too quickly, the structure of the metal is all over the place, meaning that when you ring it, it just sounds tone dead. Whereas one that has been cooled more slowly has a uniform metal structure and sings like an angel.

However like said, if the glue is put on thick enough and it penetrates the ply, and the ply is half decent, the reasonance could sound be a lot better and could even be good. I wuld stick with it, you can always swap out the body in the future if it's shite.

Anyway all this is irrelevant if you are using a recessed floyd and light strings in the first place.

BTW, I have a big knot in my USA san dimas slime green body. You can see it when you hold it up to the light.

[Axegrinder87]

Anyway all this is irrelevant if you are using a recessed floyd and light strings in the first place.

Why is that?

[moku]

Time for a better amp then

maybe...

[toejam]

They do that in Basswood too. My Stealth LT posts are two times wider than they should be, complete write off.

The posts can tilt forward after time in just about any wood... it's mainly due to the old-school Floyd posts that screwed straight into the body instead of having the inserts.

[84sups]

Yeah mine tilted forward so I got the insert style. Happened on my Ibenhad ex series too. Fun stuff when the guitar wont intonate or get good action.

[ginsambo]

Why is that?

Just trolling. Personally, I find light strings and three springs on a recessed floyd kind of knocks the energy out of the sustain though. Mind I haven't tryed a brass block, so I'm not the most qualified to say. Best sustain I have is on a hardtail, but I think that is more down to the body wood than the bridge.

Why not just get a KNE SD body or a Musikraft one and start with that? You can get an Alder body for $110 and an ash one for $120 or so. Yeah it will need paint, but why not practice on your Charvette? Bare in mind these bodies are better than mid range procduction guitars and equal custom quality. Of course you start building a guitar and pay ten times over the odds in installments of a production guitar you soon learn why. The production guitars have a budget to stick to. You can always seal it, prime it to perfection and then get a bodyshop to run an acrylic base coat over it and laquer it with 2k poly with an HVLP gun. Although you can get pre cat 2k in a can now. Just very hard to get decent coverage.

Even $500 for a painted bloodspatter San Dimas style is only $500 by Musikrafts' affiliate co. That's only $1.36 a day.

All in all, I think when you weigh it up, all I'm probably trying say is that you can't polish a turd and its probably wise to get another body as a starting point unless you are confident that the body is OK. But if its only a question of hardware, build it and swap out another body in the future. Hardware, paint and a decent neck are the where the money is at.

[Axegrinder87]

Well I can say, as I just installed a brass L block in my RR5FR, along with 5 springs and 10-60 strings, there's plenty of energy and sustain

As far as the body goes, now that I know it's a short scale, it'll never get built. Think I'll just keep my eye out for a DK2 body in the future.

[RacerX]

Make a wall clock out of it!

[Twitch]

Because no one is laughing at your jokes anymore?? Well here, Ron said the funniest thing the other day, he said the OP should turn his old Charvette body into a wall clock, I lol'd.

[mikamee14]

If you want to part with it I might have some use for it.