Is this worth it?

[Ibateur]

Hi all,

I discovered that a copy guitar given to me is a Korean made plywood guitar. It must have 15 to 20 plies!

My plan is still to "restore" it to a playable level, and the neck is already done, cleaned and oiled.

The body I'm currently working on. I'll be repainting it.

My question is on pups. Should I splurge and get Dimarzios or should I start cheap with those "prewired strat kits" for 45 USD first to see what it actually sounds like? Obviously if it is a piece of sh|t then I don't want to have wasted too much....

Your advice... thanks in advance

[dex]

Go for good pickups - you can always pull them out later and either put them in another guitar or ebay them.
Buying cheap pickups is like throwing money away.

ilia

[whatshisname]

I agree- Go for the good pickups. And, just because it's plywood, it doesn't mean that it won't sound good. My Kramer Striker is ply, and it actually sound extremely good acoustically, and amplified with the Duncans I put in it. That's the exception, not the rule, but sometimes it just works.

[Ibateur]

OK guys I'm going for good stuff.

Thanks

[marianozz]

let us know how it went i have a plywood (i believe) Ibanez too that i wanna bring up a notch or two, but i cant get myself to do it lately

[Ibateur]

I will.

Right now, I've just sanded the neck down (removed the varnish) and oiled it down. Looks and feels great. New Tuners will be ordered. I compared the neck dimensions with my RG570 and found them to be almost exactly the same, which was strange because I felt like the strat neck was not comfortable.

The body, I had to do several things so far.
1) 2 trem holes (6-point trem) were not aligned, and I plugged them with pegs and glue and sanded flat.
2) All cavities are pretty badly finished, so I am sanding those flat.

Next step is to striip all the paint, prime and repaint. Don't know what color yet.

I might as well get a pre-wired pickguard, at least for the pots and stuff, and then replace later with DMZ or Lawrences, or SDs.

[babahi]

At least with good pickups, you can always use them somewhere else if this guitar sucks in the end!

[frankfalbo]

You should not sand all the finish away. Priming plywood is a terrible experience. Use their finish or at least their primer as a base and then paint from there.

[Ibateur]

Point taken. Muchas thanks for the warning.