Let's see your GUITAR!

[MechaGodzilla]

that's fuckin sick mate

[KingNed]

Looks great! Tell me about these pickups—do they have the mega baseplates on them?

They have steel baseplates, but arent as big as you'd get on a Tele. Output is similar, though. 8.8k at the bridge, 6.4k at the neck. Alnico V, neck 'pup is RWRP.

My brief was to make some Strat sized pickups with a Tele-esque output, and characteristics inspired by the TB500s. That seems to be what I've got. Quite aggressive, with a wide requency range, but very clear.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Just put this together...



(Sorry if this pic comes out massive. I've resized it but preview is still showing it as being huge...)

3-piece Walnut Body
Aluminium neck by Alef Guitars
Custom wound TB500 inspired pickups by Fletcher Pickups in the UK.
G&L PTB wiring (passive treble and bass cut pots)
Custom NYXL set so I get equal tension across all the strings in my weird custom tuning

It clangs.

Wow this looks killer!

[Dowi]

Just put this together...



(Sorry if this pic comes out massive. I've resized it but preview is still showing it as being huge...)

3-piece Walnut Body
Aluminium neck by Alef Guitars
Custom wound TB500 inspired pickups by Fletcher Pickups in the UK.
G&L PTB wiring (passive treble and bass cut pots)
Custom NYXL set so I get equal tension across all the strings in my weird custom tuning

It clangs.

heavy drooling.

Love the walnut body...and everything else too.
I should try those pickups on my strat, never been satisfied with the bridge pickup.

[niftyprose]

It's amazing how stuff finds you. I used to sing in a vocal harmony group. One of the tenors worked at the city dump, and he brought music stuff to sessions. This is one of his finds. Like it says on the headstock, it's a Vintage Zip, model #VZ-99, and it could have been designed for me.

I favour lightweight one-pickup guitars, don't usually like humbuckers and prefer Gibson scale length. But the wrecked SG-Jr I bought at college didn't work for me because the P-90 was too close to the bridge. (The same arrangement works fine on the Les Paul-Jr., likely because of the heavier body.)

The Zip's single lipstick humbucker is mellowed by its mid-front position. The guitar is bright and largely hum-free, and it adds a lightweight chambered body, a sensible bolt-on neck and Strat-style volume control placement to the Gibson mix. The construction quality is between OK and magnifique -- the neck is no shit one of the best I ever played, and Trev Wilkinson must have been having a particularly good day when he chose that gold sparkle.

The Zip was fairly common in the noughties, at least in Europe, and I've seen a few on Gumtree in the sub-100 bucks range. (There's presently one on Reverb for several times that.) There is a caveat, which is that my axe got itself junked because shallow, low-end stud drillings had allowed its bridge to go out of whack. I enlisted the help of a friend with a drill press and installed 1 1/4" Klusons, which are fine. I also replaced most of the electrics, added shielding, and mounted 150g of lead in the pickup cavity to eliminate a mild case of neck dive.

PS If the Klusons go, I will install expensive locking studs from https://www.schroederguitarhardware.com/

[Chankgeez]

[coldbrightsunlight]

Woooowwww gorgeous guitar, and fun story too. What luck!

[Achtane]

Extremely rad guitar.

[Dandolin]

It's amazing how stuff finds you. I used to sing in a vocal harmony group. One of the tenors worked at the city dump, and he brought music stuff to sessions. This is one of his finds. Like it says on the headstock, it's a Vintage Zip, model #VZ-99, and it could have been designed for me.

I favour lightweight one-pickup guitars, don't usually like humbuckers and prefer Gibson scale length. But the wrecked SG-Jr I bought at college didn't work for me because the P-90 was too close to the bridge. (The same arrangement works fine on the Les Paul-Jr., likely because of the heavier body.)

The Zip's single lipstick humbucker is mellowed by its mid-front position. The guitar is bright and largely hum-free, and it adds a lightweight chambered body, a sensible bolt-on neck and Strat-style volume control placement to the Gibson mix. The construction quality is between OK and magnifique -- the neck is no shit one of the best I ever played, and Trev Wilkinson must have been having a particularly good day when he chose that gold sparkle.

The Zip was fairly common in the noughties, at least in Europe, and I've seen a few on Gumtree in the sub-100 bucks range. (There's presently one on Reverb for several times that.) There is a caveat, which is that my axe got itself junked because shallow, low-end stud drillings had allowed its bridge to go out of whack. I enlisted the help of a friend with a drill press and installed 1 1/4" Klusons, which are fine. I also replaced most of the electrics, added shielding, and mounted 150g of lead in the pickup cavity to eliminate a mild case of neck dive.

PS If the Klusons go, I will install expensive locking studs from https://www.schroederguitarhardware.com/

Guitar twins your story is waaaay cooler than mine. Fully agree that this thing is a sleeper - very unique, solid, dirt cheap even if you bought one....

[niftyprose]

Aww, thanks, guys! It's weirdly touching to have people write in and say they like my guitar. All tingly.

If anyone else reading this is having trouble with the stud bridge on their VZ-99 -- or indeed, any cheap instrument -- here's the blog I posted on DIY repairs:

https://608device.com/blog/2019/12/19/a ... stud-lean/

[backwardsvoyager]

NGD on the right

[Dowi]

NGD on the right

SEXY super-sonic!
I'm curious to hear more about those new ones of the "paranormal" line, they're quite cheap too, if they aren't built with major defects i might grab one in the near-future.

[backwardsvoyager]

^ I'm not sure about the other models, but the Super Sonic would not stay in tune at all out of the box. The hardware is pretty bad and it ships with 9-42s, so you play for a few mins and the whole thing goes like a semitone out of tune
I locked down the trem, lubed the nut, changed the string trees and spent a while setting it up with heavier strings and now it's totally fine.

I'm really happy though, just because the neck is on point. Fretwork is flawless, glossy but not in a gross way, super fast. I'm gonna mod it beyond recognition over the next few months

[mathias]

^ I'm not sure about the other models, but the Super Sonic would not stay in tune at all out of the box. The hardware is pretty bad and it ships with 9-42s,

Every review said this, and it made me sad. Yes, it’s only a $350 guitar. But I don’t know that I want to drop more cash on a bridge replacement and new tuners and maybe a new nut, just to enjoy it. And then the pickups might be a little too high output for me, but swapping those is even more..

[backwardsvoyager]

^ For sure. I don't think the series will be in production for very long tbh, which is why I grabbed one early.
The neck pickup is actually pretty nice, but the bridge pickup is very high output and not very nice sounding. I'm looking out for deals on some p90s or lace sensors to put in it.