New Build.. 7 string soon to be content :)

[K-mark5]

Hi guys,

been lurking for some time and occasionally posting here and there, so I thought I might just start off with a new thread.
A guy I know has been building guitars in the last couple of years, still in the learning phase you know but I thought it would be a nice experiment to do something creative together.

The guitar we've been aiming for is going to be
7strings 25,5'' scale
bolt-on
1-piece swamp ash body with a figured walnut top
walnut/maple neck with birdseye maple FB
BKP holy diver 7 pickups with camo covers

Currrently the neck has been glued together, wood for the body has arrived and we're about to start working on some cutting and stuff

Here's a first pic.. more to come soon

 

[crankyrayhanky]

Cool, keep those updates coming

 

[K-mark5]

things starting to get some shapes here and there..

 

[Steinmetzify]

Nice dude.......love the build threads. Nice choice of woods and hardware, too.....you've got great taste. Keep em coming!

 

[snowdog]

Looks great.

 

[K-mark5]

almost finished, it took a while to get all the HW and materials together..

Should be picking this one up this Saturday.. Still some minor details to be done but all in all I hope this will turn out great.. Kinda like the walnut top after the first oil coating has been applied.

 

[Chris O]

Sweet! LOTS of awesome there...

Is that a Hipshot bridge?

 

[K-mark5]

yesssiiiir.. I love their bridges. Got one on one of my other custom 7s and it feels great.. I could never jive with the tone-o-matic that came with my old schecter hellraiser 7.. that thing was really jast too far from the guitar's body and I could never really let my right hand rest properly on the body (if you know what i mean)

 

[Chris O]

yesssiiiir.. I love their bridges. Got one on one of my other custom 7s and it feels great.. I could never jive with the tone-o-matic that came with my old schecter hellraiser 7.. that thing was really jast too far from the guitar's body and I could never really let my right hand rest properly on the body (if you know what i mean)

That darn left hand...

I'm thinking about getting an Ibanez RGD7421, and doing some upgrades to it, one of which would be a Hipshot. I've never had my hands on one, but I notice a lot of the higher-end hard tails are using them, so there must be something to it. I was sniffing around a little, and I noticed there are two different ones - the .125 and .175 -- which are you using, and why?

 

[Qweklain]

yesssiiiir.. I love their bridges. Got one on one of my other custom 7s and it feels great.. I could never jive with the tone-o-matic that came with my old schecter hellraiser 7.. that thing was really jast too far from the guitar's body and I could never really let my right hand rest properly on the body (if you know what i mean)

I know exactly what you mean. I recently got a KXK with a recessed TOM and it is all the difference with that height and neck angle gone. I actually really like the TOM itself in this manner and is super comfortable to play.

 

[K-mark5]

yesssiiiir.. I love their bridges. Got one on one of my other custom 7s and it feels great.. I could never jive with the tone-o-matic that came with my old schecter hellraiser 7.. that thing was really jast too far from the guitar's body and I could never really let my right hand rest properly on the body (if you know what i mean)

That darn left hand...

I'm thinking about getting an Ibanez RGD7421, and doing some upgrades to it, one of which would be a Hipshot. I've never had my hands on one, but I notice a lot of the higher-end hard tails are using them, so there must be something to it. I was sniffing around a little, and I noticed there are two different ones - the .125 and .175 -- which are you using, and why?

hmm difficult to say, the height of the bridge plate allows you to adjust the string height only to some extent and I figured that ifI go with the higher one, it would still leave me with enough of a reserve in case the strings have to be raised. If I for instance went with the 0.125, I might end up with strings still being too low..

I like my string action moderate, so, I guess it depends on the fret height, the neck angle and what your specific instrument needs.
Try measuring the current height of your bridge and compare it with the charts that hipshot have uploaded on their webpage. You should be just fine I guess.

I just saw the RGD7421 pics and the bridge they use is fairly high, so I guess you can't go wrong with the 0.175, however make sure to check a couple of things like the mechanism they use for mounting the bridge to the body, you don't want to end up with huge holes on each side once you mount the new one in.

Guess a luthier would easily tell you if it's feasible and possible to use such type of bridge, anyway I guess I would not expect a day/night difference as the current bridge is already a string/through type perhaps the only minor difference would be the attack/snap of the strings. Hipshots have quite an amount of presence and are known to be sharper, I guess?