New GLownig light fret inlays

Dew_Riffic · #1 02-18-2004, 09:30 PM

Hey i was wondering if anyone knows a company that does this mod to guitars? I was watching the MTV tribute to metallica and limp bizkit's bass player had a bass with green LED's on his fret board.

Anyone have any experience with this? or know where this mod can be done?

Thanks for your time

Dew

vaijem777 · #2 02-18-2004, 09:47 PM

This has been discussed a few times in other threads. The company that does most of the LED markers is SIMS . I believe that they're based in the UK.

http://www.simscustom.com/

SteveW · #3 02-23-2004, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vaijem777

This has been discussed a few times in other threads. The company that does most of the LED markers is SIMS . I believe that they're based in the UK.

http://www.simscustom.com/

They did my guitar:
http://www.simscustom.com/prexgallery.asp
(3rd guitar on 1st page)
They seem to have done a good job as far as I can see...

dex · #4 02-23-2004, 12:36 PM

What I find unbelievable is that they claim to be able to do that without detaching and reataching the fretboard.
I want to know how is that possible, esp on back routed neck-through guitars???

Also they claim it's easily serviceable should anything go wrong with it.

ilia

snorkthesick · #5 02-23-2004, 07:13 PM

sims is retarded. anyone with a half brain and some luthierie skills can install basic leds in a guitar. no way it is worth 600 dollars. i'm currently doing a completly lit inlay job and writing a guide on how to do it. please dont spend 600 bucks on sims. or 300 or whatever it is its not worth it. you can do it with about 30 bucks a soldering iron regular iron a drill sand paper and a chisel. yes you will have to remove fretboard. for a tutorial on that check out PG guides. peace.

frankfalbo · #6 02-23-2004, 09:15 PM

Um, okay, so how much would you charge? Are you currently taking on work? Do you have to support a family and plan for retirement solely on your guitar customizing?

If the work is good, whatever he wants to charge is fair, until the free market rejects it, and he has to lower the price or go out of business. If someone has $600 and the last thing they feel like doing is pulling a fretboard, etc.......

If it's not worth $600 to you, you might want to consider trying to compete with him and put him out of business. All you'd have to do is charge $500, right? Then you'd get all his business.

littlegreenman · #7 02-23-2004, 11:19 PM

Well, I've played with it, how they do it without removing the board is beyond me as well, but one thing I can say, I sure wouldn't do it for any less than $600, it's far to much work.
Snork, you have to remember, what takes you 20 hours and you don't care because it's not what you're doing for a living isn't fair to say that somebody else is ripping people off. If I didn't want to do custom work for a career, but could still do it for myself, I would say that $400 for a vine inlay is a rip off too, but that's only if I was doing it for myself and wasn't counting my time. Doing it for a living I have to charge for my time, same way a mechanic charges to work on your car at $60 an hour.
$30 won't buy you the LED's if you're getting good ones, and I sure as hell wouldn't build a wiring harness, inlay LED's, remove and reglue a fretboard and then check all the frets for level etc etc etc for what Sim's is charging. The LED's and a proper wiring harness will cost you around $75 in materials alone with circuitry etc. Something most people forget is that in order to have the LED's last as long as possible, and have all colors burn at the same candle power, you are in need of resistors etc, plus a proper circuit to power them all, you can't just plug LED's into a 9 volt and expect them to last. Then you have to actually wire it all up, test it, etc etc etc. $600 for what they are doing isn't out of line IMO.

As for half a brain and some luthierie skills, I charge $30 just to change a set of strings (why? because I feel if you're not smart enough to change your own strings you shouldn't be playing in the first place) which just proves that not many people out there want to remove the fretboard on their favorite guitar.

Rich · #8 02-23-2004, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by littlegreenman

As for half a brain and some luthierie skills, I charge $30 just to change a set of strings (why? because I feel if you're not smart enough to change your own strings you shouldn't be playing in the first place) which just proves that not many people out there want to remove the fretboard on their favorite guitar.

Is that USD or CD? ;0

Petie · #9 02-23-2004, 11:57 PM

And does that include the cost of the strings? I have eight guitars that need restringing. Can I ship them to you from Australia and get a five per cent discount for buying in bulk?

littlegreenman · #10 02-24-2004, 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petie

And does that include the cost of the strings? I have eight guitars that need restringing. Can I ship them to you from Australia and get a five per cent discount for buying in bulk?

LOL, yes, but you have to pay the return shipping, and you don't wanna know what that is! LMAO!!!!

dot-dot-dot · #11 02-24-2004, 05:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snorkthesick

sims is *****.

How many SimS equipped guitars have you owned or inspected in person to be able to say this with any authority?

Quote:

yes you will have to remove fretboard.

Ah. So you're not even doing a fair, straight comparison. Bit like saying "A JEM is ****e because you can buy a Cort X-Series for £150".

dex · #12 02-24-2004, 06:56 AM

You know I was thinking about it last night and maybe if they don't need to remove the fretboard, they don't actually use LEDs at all.

I have a sneaky suspission that he uses 1 or 2 very high quality and ultra bright leds somewhere serviceable and that everything else is good quality fiber optic cables to cary the light through to the markers.
I still have no idea how he fits the fiber optic cables inside the neck without pulling the fretboard but there must be a way.

For people with a lot of free time who want to have a go at this, Maplin have a LED Xmas Tree kit with 134 LEDs going for £5.99.
All you need is a lot of spare time, cheap neck and a soldering iron.
Read tutorials on how to remove the fretboard on projectguitar.com

ilia

dot-dot-dot · #13 02-24-2004, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dex

You know I was thinking about it last night and maybe if they don't need to remove the fretboard, they don't actually use LEDs at all.

I have a sneaky suspission that he uses 1 or 2 very high quality and ultra bright leds somewhere serviceable and that everything else is good quality fiber optic cables to cary the light through to the markers.
I still have no idea how he fits the fiber optic cables inside the neck without pulling the fretboard but there must be a way.

This is what I've been thinking too. Any way you look at it, though, it's very impressive that it's done without removing the fretboard.

littlegreenman · #14 02-24-2004, 11:00 AM

The biggest problem I found, was that you can buy inexpensive LED's, but getting the right size proved very expensive. Due to the thickness of a fret board (and you can't route into the neck itself due to the truss rod being right there) you have to buy a very low profile LED. The ones I found were between $4 and $11 each depending on color. I looked at fiber optics too, but the cost for materials was even more. You can see the full LED lense in the SIMS stuff though, I'm sure they're not using fiber optics.

frankfalbo · #15 02-24-2004, 12:27 PM

If it were me, and I had to leave the fretboard on, I'd make a channel on each side of the neck, say right about where the fb meets the neck. Instead of wire I'd run more of a solid rod along there, maybe brass from a hobby shop or whatever. Then you drill out your dots, probably going through to the truss rod channel out of necessity. Then inside the side channel, drill holes (precisely) across the board to that inlay hole. Your rod assembly would look like half a ladder on each side. One side would be + the other -, wired at the neck joint area. Then when they came together in the middle you'd have drilled the horizontal holes in the board offset so you'd see one rod towards the top and one toward the bottom of the inlay hole. Then drill tiny receptacle holes in the rods so you can press fit the LED wires into them. You could make simple contact but I'd think that would be shaky under wood movement. I am currently offering this service for $600. Oops! I'm sorry that was a mistake. It's $6000.00. I don't imagine I'll get many takers, but it's what I feel is fair for that amount of aggravation.