MRJ's Personal Guitars

 

I  have been building custom guitars for quite a while now, and I get a lot of questions about them.  These 'profiles' for each of my personal guitars are an attempt to answer many of those questions, and to show people what I use and what has worked for me.  I'd be happy to answer pretty much any further questions about these guitars -- just ask.  I have also included profiles for my guitars that I did not build.  Many of them have been extensively modified, or even rebuilt -- some of them have not, but I'll list them all as a reference here anyway.

 

MRJ #X001 "Red"

 

Guitars:

mrj1

- GFS Budget pre-wired pickguard pickups.
 - GFS White Bridge pickup replaced with a Dimarzio Humbucker
 - Licensed Double Locking Floyd Rose
 - D-tuna installed
 - Johnson Strat neck (pulled off a Johnson strat)
 - Rosewood/Maple Neck, Nickel Frets
 - Layered Spray Paint Finish

 - Recording Ready: Yes

 - Tour Ready: Yes





This is the first guitar I ever made.  It was started in 2006, and fininished and painted in early 2007 (when the warm weather allowed me to paint).  I had a strat, but it was falling apart, and I wanted a guitar that I could play more and abuse more than my poor strat could take.  I wanted a guitar that would allow me to play more like Eddie Van Halen without going horribly out of tune, and there were also some things about the strat I had that I thought could be improved.  I knew Ed used the whammy bar a lot, and I wanted to be able to do that too, so I researched who made his guitar (The Frankenstein, which I had admired since the age of 3).  I quickly found out that Ed made it himself, so I figured if he could do it at about the same age as I was, I could also attempt to build my own guitar with the help of online research.

 

So I went online and researched everything I could about guitars.  I found that most guitars that had everything I wanted were way too expensive for me, especially since I could barely play the guitar, and my main instrument was the trumpet.  The guitars I was looking at all cost 3-5 times what my really nice trumpet cost, so I knew it would be impractical to buy one.  I read up on every DIY guitar building site and forum I could find, and when I had enough money, I started buying parts to build my 'dream guitar'.  I knew it probably wouldn't turn out very well, but I was hoping that with a lot of work and tweaking, it would at least PLAY like I wanted it to.  Ironically, it turns out that it is still my favorite guitar to play.  I have no idea how, but the hours I spent tweaking it must have paid off somehow.  I doesn't always have my favorite tone, but the playability of it is still tops in my book.

 

 

 

Here is the guitar in various stages of production.  Yes, I was dumb enough to cut out most of the body by hand...

As you can see, the guitar originally had smaller pickup routes.  That was one of the things I modified before the paint job. 

 I did have a good 6 months to experiment with the guitar and play it before I was able to paint it,

so many things got changed by trail and error.

 

 

 

Here is the guitar right after I finished the paint job.  The ugly pickguard was only put in place to protect the very

cheap and soft spray paint finish....  The unconventional control layout was on purpose.  I do prefer something different now,

but the control setup on this guitar works fairly well.

 

 

 

Here is the guitar in its current state (minus the white humbucker in the picture on the left).  Although it has a fully

recessed and routed floyd cavity that can allow floating, I have the floyd setup to be dive only. 

 

 

 

Here's the guitar with me on a band photoshoot in July, 2009.  You can see that the paint isn't quite as shiney...