MOD and G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) - Part II

I must say I am really pleased with drives that are available on MOD platform - Jay Ray, Dude, SD1, plus drives from JCVM but I could not get any fuzz that I could say it is a good one so I got this yellow guy and it is as good as they say and works perfect with Aida amps.

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LOL hell yeah! :love_you_gesture:t6:

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My wife is quite talented as curbing my GAS impulsivity when it comes to spending money. So I had to switch to alternative ways of doing things, one of which is trying to get free or cheap equipment (Charity shops are great for that in the UK) and to improve it.

My latest move was to fish out a perfectly decent Encore strat from a skip at the local amenity tip. There was also another poor guitar as well as an Amp that I couldn’t rescue (RIP).

I have tried to apply the set up method I learn from the wonderful Sam Deeks from “Reloved Guitars” (His Youtube channel is a must see). He also developed a super original (and cheap) method for dressing the frets with the strings still on, which I believe very seriously rivals all the pleking hype, for a vanishing fraction of the price.

Sam sells a little and cheap PDF ebook which contains more or less all you need to know about setting up and refretting, with the central idea that today’s cheap guitars are perfectly good enough and that the effort must be put in the setup (and fret dressing). Sam provide a list of very affordable tools that basically allow you to do most of the work you will ever need to do on your guitar for very cheap.

On top of that I indulge in customization stuff. I have swapped the strat’s pickups with alnico V ones and the 5 way blade switch with a 10 way one, which allows for additional pickups combinations. Unfortunately my soldering skills are not great and my previous iron was shit, so I spent a little more money to buy a decent one and still have to find the time to fix the dodgy soldering I did last summer.

Once I am sorted with the circuitery, I am planning to potentially do something with the neck’s bolts sockets so that I can undo/redo the neck as much as I want, which would theoretically allow me to put my guitar in my luggage when I fly (the Julian Lage method). I’m tired of leaving my guitar behind when I go on holidays, which is normally the time when I have free time for practicing.

To wrap up, my conclusion is that G.A.S can sometime effectively be converted into G.M.S (Gear Mod Syndrome).

PS: I also recently bought a dirt cheap Beringher V-Amp2 from EBay, which is absolutely fine for practicing Jazz guitar (along with some decent computer speakers) in a place where I didn’t want to transport all my equipment (including Dwarf) everytime.

PPS: here is a video from Sam Deeks explaining his fret dressing method with the so call “Banana tool” (a salvaged truss rod)

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