Turning a cheap acoustic into a better/prettier acoustic.

DavidR

I was fortunate enough to trip over a lovely small all-mahogany acoustic in York a couple of years ago (Vintage V300MH). The tone for me was really nice and the instrument was comfortable to play but there have been several simple things I have done to make it my favourite instrument now. I'm not going to go into all the small detail of each little improvement but just thought I would list them. All products from Amazon.

1. Set up. Pins (£13.50) and bridge saddle (£6) changed from plastic to bone and bridge saddle sanded down to optimal action. Truss rod adjusted ditto. Nut slots cut down ditto.

2. Fake inlay. There are several inlay transfers available on Amazon currently. They are more than just crude plastic things and look great. They are thin and convincing. There's a bit of technique to application but easy stuff. I bought a nice flower inlay (£8) which matched the pearloid Vintage logo on the headstock.

3. Swapped tuners. Generic steel tuners (3R3L) changed to Gold Guyker locking tuners. These also look great. More by luck than judgement they fitted and (bit sloppy this) I just used the steel screws from the old tuners since the holes matched up and I didn't really want to redrill the original holes unless I returned to the original tuners if things went wrong. How often do you see the back of the headstock anyway. The new ones really posh-up the headstock and are better quality-wise (£33).

4. Strings. As ever, you are always going to improve your tone by taking a few months to find your favourite strings. For me Monel (Martin MM12) (£12). Another economy. Monels last a lot longer than PB.

5. There was no pick-guard so I put on an adhesive clear pick-guard (like some Lowdens have!) (£8)

The only way you are ever going to sound better is to play more and I now love this Vintage so much I am always playing it. 

The only part of the above that I did not list as expense was that I already had some nut files. These are expensive but I already had them.

So overall I paid £220 for this little guitar and upgrades cost about £75. £300 pounds for an instrument I now play more than my Martin OM28.

There are so many perfectly good budget instruments out there now. A project to personalise and improve is fun, makes a guitar unique to you and is not that difficult.

:-)

Soupman

Interesting thread David.
I'm not confident enough to tackle the nut slots, but getting a tech to do that bit would probably be cheaper than buying the files anyway. Any before & after pics?
  

DavidR

No pics no. Not yet got round to being able to do on tFB. Good point about files. An easy job if you have, as with many jobs, the right tools. 

MartinB

Tweaking a nut without the proper tools is a miserable experience, especially when it's bone! One day I will just fork out for a set of the proper files.