Cheapo p90 partscaster

chris_john

I had an itch for a p90 guitar, and very little money to scratch it. I'm in Korea at the moment, and the guitar market is not great unless you buy Korean. So..
 Bought a super cheap used POS Corona strat copy (chinese made) for around £55, and a set of Tesla p90s (Korean) for 60. 
I was going to chisel out the pickup cavities by hand, but fortunately, they were already routed. The pickguard was the first challenge.  I have no special tools because I live in a tiny apartment.  I decided to improvise using a putty scraper and my gas stove to melt through the plastic. It's clearly not perfect, but it worked out ok in the end. 
The nut gave me a lot of grief. It had a horrible plastic nut that was virtually welded to the neck. When I tried chipping it out, it broke and left pieces of plastic attached to the wood. A lot of filing and shimming followed and I was eventually able to fit in a tusq nut. It's ugly as balls but it works and intonates fine. 
To my surprise it sounds great. No buzzing, or dead spots. A quick tweak on the truss rod to add relief and some saddle adjustment. 
Added a switch to put the neck and bridge together and it is a very playable guitar.
http://imgur.com/gallery/jk9rx9b

chris_john

Sorry was supposed to add to the finished project thread