Hollowbody upgrade

Dave-the-Pub-muso

So I’m finally getting around to showing off my most recent purchase/upgrade. I bought this rather unique limited run Ibanez Artcore AXF74 on bid or Buy for R1700. It was a blind purchase, but I was looking for a small hollowbody and I was willing to spend a bit upgrading whatever I bought. It arrived with the original shop tags on it, but there were old strings and plenty of gunge on the fretboard. The guitar has a nice feel to it, but there were some tuning consistency problems and I figured I could improve the pickups too. So, I have done the following:

New GFS roller tunomatic type bridge
2 x GFS Fat Pat Humbucker pickups

Now it stays in tune well and I don’t think I’ll ever break a string!

I did not change the switch or the pots because they’re difficult to access and I’m not exactly a past master at this whole upgrade thing!
Here’s the end product:

Great guitar for warm, mild overdrive blues and rockabilly through my champ. Also sounds good for jazz with the volume and tone rolled off through my Roland Cube.

singemonkey

Very cool guitar. Saw one of these in the shops once and have had a thing for it ever since. Cool move upgrading the pickups.

Question: why the roller bridge?

I only have one issue, and that's that the pickguard (even if it's original) doesn't fit with the aesthetics of this guitar. I think it needs something a little like an ES335, or Epiphone Casino, or a Gretsch Duo-Jet style pickguard. The sharp angle just do esn't fit with the rest of the guitar, IMO.

But I'd love one of these. How's it sounding with the new pickups.

Dave-the-Pub-muso

Hey singemonkey - I think you're right about the guard. More of a Les Paul shape than a hollowbody. I'm toying with removing it alltogether!

Dave-the-Pub-muso

oh, and the roller bridge was a practical choice. Holds tuning nicely and reduces string breakage which is a key issue if you're a pub singer!