Relic Guitar, The DIY Art of Aging

Relic Guitar is an itch for guitar lovers. Guitar relicing idea is always contagious. Sometimes we just love to see an old guitar with fully working parts, decent actions and playability which are difficult to find. Or the vintage image on guitar is so sexy, so we feel good when we play it. The senses and vibrations from old wood are just irresistible and I fell for those reasons.

 

I bought an old-cheap guitar for this. It’s a strat branded “vantage” on its headstock.From what i’ve learned when i got it on my hands, this guitar actually has a decent neck profile, while its body is plywood. Yes, it’s a plywood body guitar. It came so dirty with motor oil smell on it.

I read some articles on the internet, saying this guitar is korean made  while it was on matsumoku (japan?) era. the headstock is similar to other matsumoku guitars product.

well, I’m not good at conclusions, here’s the pics when i first got it:

Vantage Stratocaster vie 10

My best guess for this guitar series is Vantage stratocaster vie 10. the body and neck were good, but not for the other parts. so i change them with new ones and did relicing the guitar. basically i just messed up with it 😀 so here the results:

relic guitar Vantage Stratocaster vie 10 before after
relic guitar Vantage Stratocaster vie 10, before and after

 

does it look good? well, for me it’s just an amateur job done by me for the sake of curiosity. The pickups were default and I’m so happy with the way this DIY relic guitar sounds.

I’m not interested explaining about how i done this project, but I DO have something to say after doing this.

here’s some thoughts on relic guitar :

 

  • The Art of Aging Guitars is NOT that easy. To make guitar looks old and worn is one thing which is different from destroying things. We need to research on how it’s made; the materials, the finishing types, then we do research on how make them look aged, not destroyed.
  • Guitar parts are NOT CHEAP. surely we can find cheap parts anywhere on the net, but the durability and low quality cheap parts are just making thing worse. Arrange your budget for DIY relic guitar project.
  • Do this project with proper amount of time. rushing it will make us loosing the learning moments. take some espresso and begin reading relic’d guitar stuff. it will help us to get exact image for the guitar.
  • Know our limits. if we just don’t get it about things, ask to a luthier and get educated. This is the real purpose of this project. knowing deeper and understand the closest real value of a guitar and compare it to the way it sounds and played. If we don’t get it, let other people educate us.

well, this relic guitar project is the most intensively fun, entertaining project I’ve done so far. I remembered when i wanted this project result would look like Steve Ray Vaughn relic SRV stratocaster guitar, but I’m glad i didn’t. this relic guitar design looks much lovely with my sweat on it

Guitar Riffs Intro to Boost Your Self-Esteem

sometimes it’s hard to get some confidence in our playing. there are others with better licks, arpeggios, or even their own awesome songs those make us feel “not that good”. When you pick a guitar on your friend’s house or stages then begin playing it, you feel nervous. yes, it happens to me too many times. We all need some sparks to get the heat started. One way I do for most of the time is, doing some cool guitar riffs i like to get a grip into the situation (we could say it when we do check-sounds). Surely with early preparation. So i made a list, short one, of five guitar riffs to bring myself into confidence.

Enter-Sandman-Metallicafirst on my list, well of course, the intro of “enter sandman” metallica. It’s very popular intro, even some people would say it’s a cliche, i wouldn’t say that. The first clean riff section will make sure your clean tone is set. the next section presents our overdrive and distortion sounds whether it’s ready or not, so you can do some adjustments onstage. the important thing is, this guitar riffs is so hot so by doing it you can feel the hype and forget your nervous.

 

cant stop rhcpthe second, “can’t stop” – RHCP‘s intro. hot sweet punches to the strings with funky rhythm tempo wake your both right and left hands instantly without making them shaky. a slight overdrive and bright light bridge pickups’ sound will drive you fast into the confidence. Red Hot Chili Peppers makes everyone hopping their hips better than any hip-hop.

 

 

humans-being-van-halenthird intro is “Humans Being” – Van Halen. I like this because it’s van halen and it’s the easy one. I’m not doing “eruption” to impress anyone, i know that doesn’t work for boosting self-esteem. actually i chose this intro because i like the reverb and modulation effects created by van halen in this intro. Somehow by doing this on checksound, i will know how my modulation effects setup works on different stages. the point is, if our preparation is set and the output sounds just like we want to, there will be no more reason of getting lack of confidence.

 

 

this-aint-a-love-song-bon-jovithe fourth is “this ain’t a love song” intro by bon jovi. a fine touch by richie sambora’s taste. Sometimes all i need is one clean tone sound and all will be set and ready. i use this many times, especially when i get my analog pedals on stage. a rich clean tone will be overdriven nicely and stay clear in distortion. at least that’s what i think and it goes smoothly in most of my performances.

 

the last Guitar Riffs is important

the last one, our own songs’ intro! surely as guitarist we have our own riffs or licks and i like to play my own riffs on stage, just to get myself comfortable while I’m checking my own sound style exactly. this one is the most important. making our own licks and riffs is the great and fun part of guitar learning. because, YOU WILL NEVER GO WRONG about it. It’s the reflection of our hard works. so be proud and get more confident about our own playing.

surely we can do some riffs created by famous instrumental guitarists, or some hyper crazy licks exercises. it’s all up to you. now I’ve shared my list. Where’s yours?

actually we can exchange our guitar riffs list and get better in our guitar playing, right?

two men exchanging 1 coin, both of them get 1 coin
two men exchanging 1 list of 5 guitar riffs intro, both of them have 10 guitar riffs intro