[templton89]

Hey guys,

After playing my rg7321 for almost 2 years with stock pups I decided that it's time invest some money and get better tone/look. After strugling with decision for a while I got myself PAF7 and didn't really like it so I called up DiMarzio and found out about their exchange policy and few hours later I was on my was to postal office with pickup and $10 check (paf7 was black, and I wanted blaze bridge in white - and if you want different color, you have to pay, otherwise if i chose black - it wouldn't cost me anything ). Why I changed my mind and went with white pickup? - because it was when I saw Dendro's black and white 7321 and from there I knew only want thing - I WANT MY GUITAR TO LOOK LIKE THAT! (no an exact copy , but something similar).

note: since I'm a newb when it comes to tech questions and just recently found out some of the basic things - I decided to show all my steps in details, in case there are more newbs like me who want to experiment with their 7321's (and I'm pretty sure there are plenty), and in case I did something wrong so someone could point it out and etc. Plus answers I still don't know answers to some things , so from time to time I just used logic - but I'm pretty sure some people with experience have better methods/ideas.

4 days later I got Blaze 7 bridge and found out that base plate is wider than on stock pups. While Paf7 was not a perfect match either and I had to make holes a little wider - Blaze's plate was a lot wider.

I started thinking about drilling pickup base plate to achieve this


...but Ibznorange suggested that it would be better to drill new holes in the body and put some epoxy and toothpicks into old ones. At the same time I asked a question about painting the pickup - I didn't like the idea of bobbin toppers for several reasons (durability, money, wait time and etc) - and thought that I could take appart humbucker and paint it... turned out that it would be almost impossible to do, and I chose another option - masking out everything but the plastic part and spray painting it - thnx to NiCkMiLnE for an advice.

First I took care of old holes with some toothpicks and epoxy


when both holes were filled I decided to point out the difference between stock pickup and Blaze 7


... black dots illustrate location of holes on stock pup


... 5 min later epoxy dried up and I was ready to drill new holes. To make sure I don't go too deep I took a toothpick and measured how deep were old holes before I filled them, and then made a mark on the drill...




.... and that's it - Blaze is in!!! I could'nt resist and put the strings back up and play it for a few min... in a few words - I loved the way it sounded. I was looking for something similar to old korn's tone - heavy , crunchy, a bit scooped and clear at the same time - and Blaze is exactly what I was looking for.



...later on I had to go to friends house to pick up some white plastic. On the way there I saw some a bunch of parrots - not something you could see everyday in the middle of brooklyn. There was about 13-14 of them, but the cookie that I bought attracted only 6-7 of them...


... and back to the guitars...
At my friends house we took some white plastic and exacto knife and cutout new plastic cover that goes on headstock - right next to the nut (honestly no clue how it's called )




After that I went home and took out neck pickup. Standard procedure - unsolder, unscrew - take it out... and right after that I started masking everything that wasn't supposed to be painted. Gotta say cutting out those small stickers for magnets was really time consuming =) And after all they didn't come out super perfect - but it was good enough for me, plus I knew I could fix imperfections later on

it was late and I decided to continue next day.

Woke up, ran downstairs, check mail - and Yay! Trem-nut finally came.
Time to take off old nut



Here it is



and here is a shot showing difference between grapetech nut and stock.




Stock nut didn't want to come off, so I had to use the ultimate weapon - exacto knife... I did chip a little bit of finish that was under the nut - but I don't think there was a way to avoid it - then nut was glued dead on. Anyways - chips aren't significant, wont affect the way guitar plays, and wont be seen under new nut.




Next I had to paint the pup. Since I live in a small appartment and would choke if I painted it inside I had to step outside...but obviously I'm too lazy to walk out of the building and do it on the backyard... and if I do it outside of my appartment - neighbors and supper will be bitchin till I die. Solution - put pup in the box - at least I won't fck up the floors and walls (but to be honest I still fucked up the floor a little bit heh).



I used Krylon spray paint (although I have a suspicion that this cheap-ass hardware store next to my house sells generic spray paint - because usually krylon put text and graphics directly on the can, while in my case it was a can with a sticker around it......). First I applied primer since we are dealing with plastic and it would be almost impossible to apply paint to it... after primer I applied coat of paint and then finish.


An hour later I took off all masking tape and etc and cleaned up the magnets using exacto knife and wet cotton swab (cotton swab + alcohol works great as well). Plus I used this nail polishing thing on it (it has some really fine sand paper on it).


Later I put the pickup back in and then I realized ...


I used wrong finish...
I wanted more of a plastic feel to painted pick up - something glossy and a little shiny, while with finish that I had (Krylon Clear Vanish) I got plain white color.... Ran to my friends house, grabbed Lacquer (also by Krylon) - and then started thinking how could I re-finish the pickup without unsoldering it and etc...

... minute later I figured out the solution.
Unscrewed the pickup, took it out, wrapped the bag around the guitar and make a small cut in the bag to fit the pickup through it.


And then using some tape I fixed it in place so it wouldn't move and was ready to re-finish it (there was another way to mask it witout even unscrewing it, but it involves cutting and folding paper and takes a lot longer - so I wont go into explanation)



After I re-finished it , I put a box over the gitar so there would be no dust on the pickup - you know it would be a bitch to have dust under/in new finish.
All in all I'm happy with the result - there are some minor imperfections, but hey - I'm not a pro, and they are not seen from a foot away (you gota look reeeeeally close to spot them - so might as well forget about them)


And here it is -




...but that's not all.

I'm still waiting for tuners and knobs to arrive.
Knobs will be painted white. Tuners - ill probably leave them black, plus I ordered only 2 - want to replace B and E tuners, since those are the strings that I tune the most - drop tunnings and etc, and they always get out of tune, so I thought 2 schaller mini's would be enough.

To be continued...



PS I apologise for all typos, grammar mistakes and etc - if something doesn't sound like english or not clear - let me know =)


Thanks to Ibznorange and NiCkMiLnE for suggestions, Dendro - for answers to my questions and inspiration and people who helped me pick out new pup

[cow 7 sig]

looking good
realized what

[HaGGuS]

nice 1..
and.. what did u realize?

[templton89]

yea I didn't finish writing and pressed Enter by accident))

I added the rest of the stuff that was missing

[HaGGuS]

...

[Blood Tempest]

Looks awesome dude! I'm gonna be doing somewhat of the same thing. Adding some things here and there. My pup selection is gonna be an Evo 7 in the bridge and a D Activator Neck in the neck, both in white Looks awesome man. You should dye your fretboard ebony too!

[templton89]

thanks

yea I didn't have money to buy neck pickup, because my goal was to pimp my guitar for the suggested retail price of my bridge pup lol . Suggested retail price is 120, I bough mine for 65, 25 on tuners and knobs, 14 on trem nut, and 15 on paint = 120))

[Blood Tempest]

That is definitely an awesome deal. Sounds like the cost of it wasn't bad at all. Looks like good work too

[templton89]

oh and I just found out some stuff about parrots from my friend (and he saw it on news)

there was an accident on highway and a truck full of parrots crashed and cages openned so they all flew out

[FortePenance]

lol at the parrots!

Great picstory, waitin' for more.