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...best, favorite, most sentimental, only, oldest,...or just the one you played last guitar or bass (or other noise-making device).

Where I don't always name the pedals, I did name this guitar Anvil. At just over 3/4 stone, you can guess why.

It's a run of the mill Les Paul Studio. I've eviscerated it many times over with new pups or pots, switches or jacks.

The headstock decided to secede from the neck, so I put it back on (a lot longer story). That was 15 years ago and it still plays nice.

Forgot to mention...bought it in a pawn shop when working out of town. Had a straight neck (still does) so I bought it. I think that was in 82-83?

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Here's my only guitar, a 1994/1995 MIJ "Foto-Flame" 1962 RI Strat.
I actually purchased it in my teens in 1995 with money saved from my first job and some Xmas money from my parents. It's an awesome guitar that plays and feels really well. I stopped playing a couple of years after that, and sold it to a friend around 2003-2004.
I started playing back after having acquired a couple of effects pedals to play with my synths, when someone offered to trade a Peavey EXP tele for a Boss SL-20 slicer.
I then sold that guitar after having spoke to my friend and found out he didn't use the Strat anymore, so I bought it back 3 years ago. I needed a lot of love, as it was in a damp basement, but I brought it back to great playing condition, and I was lucky to win a Gunstreet harness in an instagram raffle, so now it's got great electronics (which is the weakness of those MIJ IMO). The harness was the first thing I soldered in my life.
The foto-flame finish is prone to cracking, but this one is not so bad, and I stopped some cracks with crazy glue, wet sanding and car compound.
Now, I just have to build the Tele I had planned before I started building pedals last year, especially now that I have all the parts!

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I've got three bass guitars and one acoustic guitar, but this is my "mojo bass."

It's an 03-04 American Standard Precision. These were the years when Fender was trying wacky things like putting a parallel switch on a P bass :sick:

I bought this bass used in 05 or 06. Since then I've not been able to find myself a bass that fit in my hands as well as this thing does. I ended up selling a few basses over the years that were better looking or more expensive than this thing, but none compared to the feel of this P bass in my hands.

I installed Lindy Fralin pickups in it in October last year (finally getting rid of that S-1 switch) which was the thing that helped me to remember that I enjoy soldering and doing this kind of work and directly lead to my discovery of this place. It had been at least 6 or 8 years before that that I'd done a vero build, so this bass has also helped me to get in to pedal building as a hobby. I included a photo because it was the first time I nerded out and used pushback wire and a stupidly expensive PIO cap :ROFLMAO:

I turn 40 this year and am thinking of getting myself a new Precision bass to try to take this ones place as my main bass. I really am not a fan of Inca Silver as a color, which is the only thing that I really do not like about this bass. I am thinking about one of the new American Original 60's Precision basses with the nitro finishes since I think it would be pretty cool to have a bass that shows my wear over the years.

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thewintersoldier said:
I have gone thru a lot of guitar phases in the past 20 years. Humbuckers, p90s, hollow body, single coil, bolt on, set neck, hard tail or trem but I always come back home to this gal, no matter how far I stray.
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You got some nice grain going on there.

That a custom shop decal up there?
 
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thewintersoldier said:
It's a partscaster lol my strat, tele and jazzmaster are all put together by me. I am in total control about every detail and part used. Custom shop wishes they could put one together this nice. This can be done for under a grand easy. It's actually an all parts neck finished in nitro, body is also nitro. The decal I put on top of the nitro just like pre cbs fender did. This baby oozes pure sex from a tweed or blackface amp!
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You're like one of my favorite people right now.
 
This is actually my most recent guitar. It's a Gretsch '53 Vintage Select Duo Jet, kind of a '53 Duo Jet RI.

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I've already swapped the bridge pickup for a TV Jones Filter'tron Classic+ in a DeArmond mount. It plays ridiculously well and sounds incredible. It's also extremely light as it's almost hollowbody in nature. The standard of finish on these Gretsches is very, very high - the guitar is flawless. With the Bigsby it can shimmer like a Strat or it can rock out like a Les Paul. I also have a '59 VS Duo jet which has an even meatier sound but this one has a fuller neck and twangs a bit more - it's a more raw sound.

Gretsch just keep getting better and better.
 
thewintersoldier said:
It's a partscaster lol my strat, tele and jazzmaster are all put together by me. I am in total control about every detail and part used. Custom shop wishes they could put one together this nice. This can be done for under a grand easy. It's actually an all parts neck finished in nitro, body is also nitro. The decal I put on top of the nitro just like pre cbs fender did. This baby oozes pure sex from a tweed or blackface amp!
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Ace job!
 
For me, it's a particular 1990's MIM Thinline Telecaster Reissue

I acquired this thing used on eBay some 14 years ago between my sophmore/junior years of high school with funds earned from a summer job and it became my main guitar. I was really rough with it- without going into too much detail I'll just say that this is the guitar that suffered with me as I learned how to get through a live set without losing my balance and falling into the crowd or the drumset. I still believe that stupid stage antics are a large part of many types of rock & roll but during my teens I was an absurd, ham-fisted imbecile .

Here I am as a kid staying still long enough for a picture:
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Anyhow, it started off the factory sunburst with pearloid pickguard and it ended up looking like this:
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I removed the tone control, swapped out the bridge pickup because I thought the OG was "broken," and painted a shoddy version of Leonardo Da Vinci's "the Last Supper" over a large crack in the finish. Looks like a bit of residual blood splatter from a dropped pick as well..

I started playing in a band again a few years ago and decided it needed some work so I took it to a local guy who did a great job leveling the frets and re-finishing, and now it looks like this:
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I found the OG pickup and realized that it wasn't "broken" as I'd assumed so I put that back in there and re-did the original wiring harness as well as shielding the cavity with copper. It plays and sounds better than ever- the guy who worked on it will forever remain named "Jeff Guitar Wizard" in my digital address book.

Sorry for being so long-winded..I really like this guitar.
 
thewintersoldier said:
Thanks, I prefer to build it myself. I want nothing more than to build an amp but I'm afraid my bank account will never recover from me going down that rabbit hole lol
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I’m a bit wary of my tele build, worst case scenario, it will be a beater guitar for my boys ;) hopefully, restrictions relax here shortly and I can go to my friend’s shop to properly drill holes.
 
thewintersoldier said:
Thanks, I prefer to build it myself. I want nothing more than to build an amp but I'm afraid my bank account will never recover from me going down that rabbit hole lol
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I've only put together one guitar, but it has been two decades in the making going through lots of iterations. It's kind of like a never-ending project bass that I have never really been satisfied with. This is it currently: a Warmoth parts bass. It's a P neck and body with Jazz pickups (60's placement). I think it's a pretty good looking bass and it plays well and sounds good, but it rarely gets played because I just am not that in to jazz pickups.

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thewintersoldier said:
That's a good looking bass, perhaps try a p/j pickup configuration like on a jaguar bass with the jazz pickup at the bridge. You could roll the it in and out with it's volume. Or just disconnect it and rock a p-bass pickup only.
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It is actually routed for a P pickup in the middle position and I have thought about doing just that (P/J). Maybe one of these days I will give it a go. That'll be version 8.6. It'll also give me a reason to mess around with making a pickguard.
 
This is mine, a 91 Strat Plus with Lace Pickups. I got it when I was around 17. I actually met John Fogerty in the music store that day, he was buying old guitars. I bought it that day and he signed the tremolo cover, and I got to sit down and play with him for a little while. He was super cool and had his tech with him who fully set it up for me. Still one of the best Strats I have ever put my hands on.


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chongmagic said:
This is mine, a 91 Strat Plus with Lace Pickups. I got it when I was around 17. I actually met John Fogerty in the music store that day, he was buying old guitars. I bought it that day and he signed the tremolo cover, and I got to sit down and play with him for a little while. He was super cool and had his tech with him who fully set it up for me. Still one of the best Strats I have ever put my hands on.


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What an awesome experience. I love stuff like this.
 
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My parents bought me this 1963 Jazzmaster as a graduation gift in 1998. It cost $500 CAD which even back then seemed like a sweet deal (~$375 USD back in those days). It had been really badly refinished when I got it in a thick 1980s-style poly, and someone had shaved the neck down to ibanez-levels of thinness and as a result, the headstock has cracked more times than I can count over the years (that got shaved down too).

For our 20th anniversary together I had it refinished, got a new pickguard (splashed out for a spitfire even!) to replace the very cracked and shrunken original, and reverted it to an original-style bridge (staytrem) from the TOM that I had installed shortly after I got it and tried to get through a single rehearsal without knocking the strings off the saddles. I'm mostly a drummer, but I've played guitar in a couple of bands over the years and this has always been my main guitar. Of the half dozen or so guitars that I have these days, this might not get the most use but it's definitely the sentimental favourite.
 
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