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I upgraded my cheap Squier Strat which with a Hipshot Trilogy bridge and Quadrod pickups.

After the upgrade the Strat I started thinking about building it a guitar myself..  My original idea was to build a Ibanez Iceman.

                  Ibanez Iceman Paul Stanley cracked mirror                  Parker The Fly Deluxe Single-2

I started to look on the net for resources about building a guitar, where to start...... (here?)

Joining the MIMF helped a lot! It inspired me to go off the beaten path and be creative. Allthough I like the Iceman design, it is missing an upper 'horn'. The Parker Fly has got a disticntive upper horn, combining it with the Iceman would be cool. To the drawing board!

The guitar was designed with autoCAD. There are CAD drawing of guitars available on the internet this  is a good starting point:  neck and pickups of another guitar can be used. With corel draw several mockups were made:

Ok, I agree, it is not looking very sleek, but they were are a helpfull tool.  It is difficult when to stop and choose a final designl. New ideas come and go, if given more time the guitar would have been different. To quote Billy Corgan: 'people misinterprete my songs with the versions'.

This mockup was sent to Shamray:

The design changed during the build of the guitar, sometimes last minute changes were made, this was possible because of the flexability of the Shamray crew, in particular Michael Walker. Last minute changes: the thickness of the wood under the microswitches, adding of a chrome flamed cover, change of paintjob just before the painting started, the inscription was moved to the backside of the guitar instead of underneath the bridge, etc.

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