DIY Steinberger?

[thetroy]

I just had a crazy thought and wonder if it might work. I'm thinking about getting a Carvin Neck-thru blank http://www.carvin.com/products/singl...=NT6&CID=GTR/K

and adding a Floyd Rose Speedloader, 1 Hum and some wiring.

As far as I can tell I would have to add a small bit of body wood then route out for the bridge and electronics, cut off the headstock, slap some tung oil on there and have a badass travel guitar for like $500.

Am I crazy?

[jgcable]

Yes. Your crazy.
You can buy a Steinberger Spirit for around $300.00 complete.

[thetroy]

So the import ones don't suck? I've never played one, read mixed reviews

[Jester700]

The pickups suck and the trem is only OK. But otherwise it's pretty good, especially for a travel axe.

[memphiskat]

Yes. Your crazy.
You can buy a Steinberger Spirit for around $300.00 complete.

In theory that's true. But check this link....

http://www.musicyo.com/product_specs.asp?pf_id=044

This is MusicYo's web site, they manufacture the Spirit from Steinberger line. Notice the OUT OF STOCK in red, and then the expected in stock date of 9-14-06. I've been watching this since it said they'd be in 3-?-05. Check back around 9-15-06 and you'll see it is now 12-30-06 You can sign up to have them email you when they are in. :ROTF:
I've been on that list for a year and a half.

They sell used on eBay for $300 because you can't get them new.
I've pondered making my own Spirit as well. Although my idea was to take an inexpensive Jackson and cut it down, and add a Floyd speedloader, and chop off the head stock. I spend a lot of time commuting on trains and could really use one (being an employee I'm usually in a closed car so it wouldn't bother others) I wouldn't hold my breath for ever getting a new
Spirit.

karl

[vondran]

I picked up a Spirit on ebay for $250. It included hard shell case and had nice dimarzio pickups installed (not the original pickups). I was totally surprised how nice the guitar was and actually use it now for gigs and not just as a travel guitar. Definitely recommend one.

I did two mods to it: (1) I wedged some nut blank bone material between the trem posts and the trem route. The trem posts on these are known to bend forward over time and screw up the float of the trem. This fixed it right up and now I get tremendous sustain from this thing. (2) It's H-S-H config and I took the grounded signal wire of the S and simply solder it to the coil tap lead on the bridge hum. This put it in series with the bridge inter-coil, making the middle S into a humbucker in the 2, 3, and 4 selector positions (the PRS trick) - positions 1 and 5 still being the bridge and neck humbucker. This gave all positions roughly the same output level and a nice range of sounds. Plus when I pull the tap switch on the vol pot (the previous owner installed this), it converts all pickups to singles. Really nice setup.