GNGD

G

GEC

New member
Girlfriend's New Guitar Day!

My girlfriend plays a bit of guitar, and we like to look through Craigslist and Ebay and comment on the guitars we see. We stumbled upon this ratty Dean for $40, she liked the look of it, so we picked it up as a project instrument!

It's dirty, missing a strap button, and smells heavily of cigarette smoke, but the neck is straight, no cracks anywhere, and all the electronics and hardware are functional if not ideal.

She really likes gold hardware and thinks it would look great on here. I don't normally like gold hardware but I think it could look good in this case. So probably a new bridge and ferrules (no experience replacing those, so I guess we'll figure it out), new knobs, new switch, strap buttons, and machine heads. Also needs a new nut, so we'll see if we want to try our hand at cutting one or pay someone to do it (no experience there either). Definitely a new pickup for the neck position (she's more into clean neck-pickup tones than anything else), and maybe a new bridge pickup later.

Any advice on brands for those parts or anything else would be welcome! I'll post pictures of steps in the process.
 

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Re: GNGD

Looks like the Vendetta XM. Personally, I'd stay generic or low cost on the parts. Look to GFS or similar for a gold tuneomatic. Same with the tuning machines. Maybe they have the ferrules too. Graphtech nuts are cheap enough so they wont hurt the wallet much if you screw up. They should have a pre-slotted that wont take a ton of work to fit. At 40 bucks for the whole thing, there is little chance you will not end up spending at least as much for just those parts as you paid for the guitar, and they probably wont be much of an upgrade, if any. Except for the nut. That's not counting the pickups. You could go with Grover machines and a Tonepros bridge (probably just a better finished Sung Il) but you gotta decide how much you really want to spend. It is the bottom of the line Vendetta. Not to say that it wont make a respectable budget guitar. But there is a point of diminishing returns that probably comes pretty quick with that guitar.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Re: GNGD

Darg1911 said:
Looks like the Vendetta XM. Personally, I'd stay generic or low cost on the parts. Look to GFS or similar for a gold tuneomatic. Same with the tuning machines. Maybe they have the ferrules too. Graphtech nuts are cheap enough so they wont hurt the wallet much if you screw up. They should have a pre-slotted that wont take a ton of work to fit. At 40 bucks for the whole thing, there is little chance you will not end up spending at least as much for just those parts as you paid for the guitar, and they probably wont be much of an upgrade, if any. Except for the nut. That's not counting the pickups. You could go with Grover machines and a Tonepros bridge (probably just a better finished Sung Il) but you gotta decide how much you really want to spend. It is the bottom of the line Vendetta. Not to say that it wont make a respectable budget guitar. But there is a point of diminishing returns that probably comes pretty quick with that guitar.

Just my 2 cents.
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+1

Changing the hardware to gold is going to throw a lot of unnecessary money at that guitar. If it were mine, I'd stop at electronics and maybe the nut unless the tuning machines have issues.
 
Re: GNGD

Yeah, we pretty much knew going into it that we'd be spending more money on parts than the guitar. We probably will go GFS for the bridge, thanks for the tip! Honestly I don't think gold hardware will be that much more expensive than what we'd spend on it anyway. It's missing a strap button so we'd get new buttons anyway, knobs are cheap, the tuners work but they aren't great, so I think the upgrades are worth it. Not sure what kind of tuners we'll go for though. Honestly it's a good guitar. Good weight and comfortable to play.
 
Re: GNGD

GEC said:
Yeah, we pretty much knew going into it that we'd be spending more money on parts than the guitar. We probably will go GFS for the bridge, thanks for the tip! Honestly I don't think gold hardware will be that much more expensive than what we'd spend on it anyway. It's missing a strap button so we'd get new buttons anyway, knobs are cheap, the tuners work but they aren't great, so I think the upgrades are worth it. Not sure what kind of tuners we'll go for though. Honestly it's a good guitar. Good weight and comfortable to play.
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I own several Dean guitars. I even have an EVO XM which I got for my kid, years ago. He stuck to playing bass. At any rate, be thoughtful with the tuning machine purchase. Cheap, sealed tuning machines may not be an upgrade at all. You may also be able to find drop in's that even align with the little screw holes on back of the headstock. A lot of the generics seem to be made to copy Grover or Gotoh including mounting specs. I've seen Grovers for under 40 bucks for a set, usually sold as bulk, supposedly as supplied to some manufacturer. Point being, it may be worth paying an extra few bucks for a know brand, than taking a chance on some generic machines. On the other hand, I've read that the Wilkinson branded machines are decent for the money. I think they are in the 30 dollar range. Beyon that, I really don't know anything specific that may be decent for real cheap.
 
Re: GNGD

Darg1911 said:
I own several Dean guitars. I even have an EVO XM which I got for my kid, years ago. He stuck to playing bass. At any rate, be thoughtful with the tuning machine purchase. Cheap, sealed tuning machines may not be an upgrade at all. You may also be able to find drop in's that even align with the little screw holes on back of the headstock. A lot of the generics seem to be made to copy Grover or Gotoh including mounting specs. I've seen Grovers for under 40 bucks for a set, usually sold as bulk, supposedly as supplied to some manufacturer. Point being, it may be worth paying an extra few bucks for a know brand, than taking a chance on some generic machines. On the other hand, I've read that the Wilkinson branded machines are decent for the money. I think they are in the 30 dollar range. Beyon that, I really don't know anything specific that may be decent for real cheap.
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+1

The GFS tuners probably won't be better than what's on there and may be exactly the same part sold under a different brand name. If you want quality sealed tuners, get a set of Gotoh SG38s. They're a little more expensive, but you can't do better without spending a lot more money. A few years ago I would've recommended Grovers, but the new ones made in China just aren't up to the quality that the name suggests.
 
Re: GNGD

Agreed, a friend of mine recently bought the Floyded model for about 200 euro NOS and I honestly couldn't find any fault to it other than the admittedly bland pickups. Definitely a great deal.

As for the upgrades, I don't know how much better gold would look to black but if you're absolutely set on upgrades I honestly wouldn't go too low, otherwise I'd feel like you'd be spending money with no return. On the other hand, you might not want to spend 500-600$ on a 40$ guitar either so my advise would be to take your time, look for deals, perhaps search for a used part where the savings would be substantial such as for the pickups and try to have fun!

CheerS and Happy New Guitar Day (to your girlfriend :))
 
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