PRS Hot Rodded Project!

I have been fascinated by PRS guitars for quite some time. Probably since the early 90's when they really exploded. I mean didn't it seem like every pro player had a PRS (and a SLO100! lol) in their arsenal?! It always seemed to me like Paul, the man, took the Gibson Les Paul concept and made improvements, to the point that it was then a completely unique guitar. Basically the PRS' are Les Paul in structure; set in mahogany neck, mahogany body, with a maple arched top. It doesn't get much more LP than that. However, Paul made 24 fret necks, used more ergonomic neck shapes, like the wide-thin and of course, the stunning book matched 10 tops! Not to mention the stainless steel vintage trems, and locking tuners w/proprietary nut that actually stayed in tune!! Lastly, the body shape, which is also more ergonomic, easy to play and just plain sexier and slinkier, than a 12 lb. LP! Paul really took the best features of the LP and the strat, and made his own love child! lol

Anyway, I digress. Fast forward to 2002 or so, and I saw a Journey concert and Neal Schon was using PRS guitars. Only, as usual, Neal's looked nothing like the production models! His had Floyd Rose bridges on them, Grover Tuners and sustainers built in! To be clear, I am not a huge Neal Schon fan-boy. I am a real fan of Neals vision of a cool guitar. It should have a Floyd, it should have a set neck, the best hardware available, and it should have two humbuckers. I share the same vision. So for the past 15 years I have been very passively searching for the right PRS guitar to meet my needs. No way was I going to spend $3-4K on a new PRS 24. I thought about a bolt-on, but decided that cheaping out was not the way to go. My father recently started playing guitar and he had a decent MIM Fender Strat. Well, he is a huge Santana fan and just a few weeks ago he blew my mind and bought himself a brand new (leftover) Santana model. He brought it over and let me put it throught its paces. Needless to say, I was hooked. The guitar played great, and sounded even better. The trem also impressed, and stayed in tune. This was just the push I needed, and I amped up my search.

I decided that I wanted the traditional PRS shape and headstock, not the Santana's more symmetrical shape and (honestly) blob shaped headstock. It didn't take long before I found the perfect candidate, on eBay. There is a huge reseller on eBay, who essentially parts out guitars. Selling necks, bodies, and parts, presumably for a profit. Recently even parting out and selling higher end guitars, like real USA Les Pauls and PRS's. He has one of the new S2 PRS guitars for sale, and it matches all my specs. Meaning it is the 24 fret tremelo model, finished in a nice McCarty tobacco burst. Even better, it is brand new, and selling for roughly half the price of a completed guitar. So I pulled the trigger. I mean, this is a perfect USA PRS, no hardware, which I would have junked anyway and no case, nothing else to jack up the price.

I don't want to get too in depth, but I feel an explanation of the S2 series is in order, here. The S2 series is PRS recent foray into less expensive, US built guitars. It falls nicely in between the Korean made SE line, and their top of the line or 'Core' models. The interesting thing is how PRS is building these guitars, and then selling them for 1/2 price or less of their Core models. For starters, they use smaller pieces of wood for the necks. A Core PRS neck is made from a huge 12/4 (roughly 4x4) single piece of mahogany. The S2 uses a much thinner piece of wood, roughly a third of the size, with a traditional glued on headstock, with a scarf joint. Funny thing here is, we all know how much stronger and more stable a glued on scarf joint is, compared to a one-piece neck?! Next, the bodies are the same, mahogany, with a maple cap. Of course, you do not get a 10 top on the S2, more like a 5 top! lol.  In addition, the arch top carve on the S2 is completely CNC shaped. The Core models are shaped largely by hand, with the little divots for the controls etc. Curiously, the cavity covers, which are identical, are not recessed on the S2 line. The paint processes are also different. On the Core line they use the latest technology water based paints. On the S2 line, they reverted to the less expensive poly finishes, used by PRS into the late 90's. Curiously again, a lot of purists prefer the old finishes and the sound of the previous generation PRS, to the new ones?! Lastly, and here is the killer, is the hardware. PRS really cheaped out on the S2 lines hardware. They use the trem unit off of the Korean SE models. They use locking tuners, that look the same, but are Asian made, with no screw tabs on the back. The pickups are also 'PRS Designed' units, which are supposed to be Asian made exact reproductions of their Core model pickups, Oh yeah, it goes without saying the S2's don't come with a case, just a good quality gig bag. So those are the big money differences in the guitars. However the S2's are built in Maryland, use the same woods, fingerboards, frets, all the structure and bones, where it counts they are all the same.

So what I got is a real, American Made PRS carcass, with no substandard Asian hardware, that I am going to replace, anyway. Seriously, my only criticisms of PRS, in general are that they fall into the 'overbuilt' category, to me. The insane tops, wood bindings, abalone inlays, all those extraneous appointments, -- I can do without. The S2 line strips all of that away. You do get the PRS signature birds, but they are plain white ivoroid, not abalone. Here are a couple of pics of my newest project guitar:

Dig the cool sunburst finish and the attractive '5' top!
Of course, if you know me, you know what I have in mind! I am going to Floyd this guitar, with a top mounted, non-recessed Floyd. In addition, I am going to put in Duncan pickups a DeMartini RTM and a Jazz model. I will also use top of the line, gold hardware, throughout. Here is a very quick mock up:

The trem is going to have to be ever so slightly recessed, due to the shallow neck angle. Likewise, the locking clamp will have to be mounted on a shim, or a shelf. Other than that, this should be a very straightforward and rockin' guitar!

Here are a couple of bonus picks of one of Neal's guitars, for sale on eBay:

My Floyded Les Paul

 OK, so here is the story of my Les Paul with added Floyd (LPF):

 Neal Schon had just come out with his Gibson LP signature guitar. I have always thought that Neal's old Floyded LP was as cool as shit, and the new ones were even better, save for the recessed Floyd. However, I did not like the $8K price tag, and I also did not like how the back of his guitars are cut up like swiss cheese, for the sustainer, battery etc. So I set out to build my own!

 1st order of business is to find a guitar, of course! I searched for almost a year, mostly eBay. I found a couple of the super lights with Floyds, and a few Epiphones that were available, but nothing really did it for me. So I resigned myself, that I was just going to have to build it, rather than buy it, that is a good thing! Builders know what I am talking about, here. One night, around 2:00am, I am surfing eBay, and I find a 'well-used' 1970 Les Paul Custom. This thing was beat to hell, major belt buckle rash, paint worn off of the neck, the entire guitar had been cleared over at some point, horrid Grover Imperial tuners, you get the picture. I email my good buddy, Mike Hickey, and ask him to check it out. He looks it over, and agrees with me, that at that price (I think it was around $1600) it was a good deal. So I hit the 'buy it now'.

 The seller is very cool, and emails me a couple of times, and actually wants to speak on the phone, so I send him my number. When we talk, I get the feeling that I am being 'interviewed' as to whether or not I am suitable to take custody of 'his' guitar. I do NOT let on to my plans for the guitar, to spare the owners feelings. He gave me some backstory on the guitar. He lives in Ohio, and he bought the guitar used, in 1971. The story is that a local player, and heroin junkie bought the guitar new, then pawned it. The owner checked it out at the pawn shop, and wanted it but did not have the cash on him. The pawnshop owner said he had somebody coming in to buy the guitar. Further that the buyer was a well known player and collector, so my guy had better act fast. He gets the cash together, and buys the guitar right out from under the collector, who turns out to be Gary Ricrath of REO Speedwagon fame. According to the guy I bought it from, Ricrath was always scouring the guitar stores and pawnshops, and buying up all of the Les Pauls he could get his hands on, and we all know what kind of collection he has, even to this day!

 Anyway, my guy gets the guitar, and keeps it for over 30 years, before selling it to me. He played in a band called 'Arndt' I think that they may have been a Christian type band, maybe? This guitar definitely saw the inside of smoky bars, more than the inside of its case, judging by the yellowing of the binding -- awesome!! He said that he just didn't play it anymore, and he could use the money. I must have passed his interview, because he felt that the guitar was going to a good home! (which it did, I love this guitar and will never sell her!)

 When I receive the package, it is the best packed guitar I have ever seen or received. The seller literally carved out a LP case shaped cavity, from a huge block of styrofoam!! Needless to say, the guitar arrived in as good a condition as it shipped out in. The previous owner had been going for a Jeff Beck 'Blow by Blow' look, so he had swapped out the pickup rings for creme ones, and there were later Dirty Fingers pickups in her, the whole deal. Mike Hickey helps me sell off all of the lightweight Gibson tunamatic parts, and the Dirty Fingers etc. and I end up making a few hundred back, which is cool.

 Next step is; I gotta get this thing routed for a Floyd! So I ship the guitar off to a local luthier, Tucker Barrett. He is the man. This guy build violins and acoustic guitars and his luthier skills I would put up against anyone in the country. He honed his skills in NYC in the 70's and 80's I think. So he routes the guitar out for the Floyd Rose and re-frets it. The guitar was on at least its second set of frets, when I got her, and they were almost non-existent! Tucker put on some huge Dunlop 6100 frets, which were the biggest I could get, lol!! The routing job is superb, and he actually uses a unique rout on the face of the guitar, which is only big enough for the spring block, and then a small 'hole' for the backside of the trems bar assembly, it is a separate route. Sorry, no pic of this. I don't remember what Tucker charged me, but Mike and I agree, I got about $800 worth of luthier work for less than a third of that!! As I said before, Tucker is the man!

 Last step is the final assembly, which was done by me. I had previously picked up the Sustainiac Stealth system for a LP. I had a hard time with the guy at Sustainiac, because he kept pushing the system that uses the sustainer as a passive pickup, and I wanted the single coil sized system, that allows for my choice of a single coil sized neck pickup. The system he was pushing used a lame dummy pickup for humbucking applications. Luckily, I get the system I want, that the builder/owner of Sustainiac says they are phasing out. I took a tip from Stew Mac, and make a LP control cavity template, so that I can wire up this spaghetti mess, outside of the guitar. I nearly go blind, soldering up all of the tiny little intricate joints, but I get the job done. The beauty of the Sustainiac system is that it all fits in the LP control cavity. No separate battery compartment, no separate compartment for sustainer guts etc. All switching is handled through push-pull pots, so no minis added etc. I highly recommend the Sustainiac product! I went with a DiMarzio single coil sized humbucker rail type pickup, whatever Neal was using, honestly I can't remember. I went with a  DiMarzio super distortion in the bridge. Normally I am a total Duncan man, but I took a chance, and I'm glad I did for this particular guitar. I went with gold hardware, because I feel that it looks classic on a LP custom. Top mounted the Floyd locking clamp, so that I never have to worry about the neck joint. I also replaced the tuners with proper Grover rotomatics, which I rebuilt. Finding the right tuners took months of scouring eBay, btw, total pain in the ass! I also used some aged speed knobs, to go with the totally beat up relic look of the guitar. She plays like a dream, and it is on the lighter side, for a Les Paul. The Floyd is blocked, like on all of my guitars, as well. Sorry for the long rambling story, on to the pics:

 Floyd route took care of all of the belt buckle rash!! Kind of a greener black color??

 See, everything actually fits in the cavity, no swiss cheese, like Neals!

 I hate leaving holes in any guitar, I would rather have a lonely old screw-head

 About the same height as an early Soloist, which works well for me!

 Tucker even routed the back for a recessed plate, awesome!! I painted it black...

 Peter Frampton finding his original 54 Les Paul, inspired me to modify mine, once again. I have always liked the versatility, and honestly, the look of a 3 pickup Les Paul. I figured what better guitar, than this one, as it is already a Frankenstein, of sorts! Here is an updated pic:

 The addition of the 3rd pickup, does effect my playing, a bit. The center pickup gets in the way, when you are really 'digging in' with your pick. When I'm strumming or speed picking, there virtually is no difference. Time will tell if I can live with this, or not. There is more to this story, that I will reveal, after I first get some feedback about this.