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green meanie

1575 Views 10 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  123ahull, 
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I was wondering which wood I should use for a green meanie replica, I want to use alder for tonal qualities but I want to stay faithful to the original? which is basswood, curious what you guys think.
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well denting is not a problem on this one, LOL.
I am torn because I want it to be as close as possible to the original, I have gone to some serious lengths to get all the stickers to make this the right way, (I am cloning the final sticker'd version), I now have a full set of the original stickers, so having gone that far I don't want to stray from the original, I am only going to get one shot, when we're done it should be a damn close copy. It's tough because I look at from two perspectives:

i) make it with the improvements I would have liked to have seen in it.
or
ii) make it a faithful clone of the original (I have a very good chance of pulling it off)
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Aaaaactually, I was able to locate a great picture of the back of the guitar with good resolution and there is a huge swath of paint missing on the back, probably a third or better is missing, so the wood will be clearly visible as it is worn right through the primer? As I agree if the paint were not worn through, this question would be irrelevant because no one but me would know, and I would just do what I want, but the wood will be very visible. Do you go the purists route, or go with the customized route?
It took a huge amount of time and money to locate these stickers, I can seriously understand why it has not been done before (if it has I couldn't find any reference to the project), but now that I have done it, I keep going back and forth about the body material, I can change the pickups or even the neck, but I don't think finding these stickers again can be done easily, at least I won't be doing it again, as it took almost 9 months to secure 1 complete set!
So it all comes down to the body it is the only decision left to be made. I appreciate the feedback and this is not a fool's errand, I have to make a decision soon as I have everything now and the body has to get started soon.

Thanks
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Yeah, we're going to strip the paint or maybe mask it and feather the edge later, although I don't think we are going to clear it, because I don't think the original was clear coated (not sure though), most likely we will just seal the raw wood after sanding? I understand how much work it is, it will be worth it though as I was able to find some great photos and have everything to make this almost a dead nutz copy. I even bought a period correct neck plate had the serial # milled off and the right one laser engraved on, I also a picked up a vintage floyd rose with age appropriate "wear" and dimarzio tracked down a vintage pink bobbin that was old stock for the neck pickup (their new pink is terrible IMO), not to mention tracking down all the 25 year old stickers.
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