I'm quite fond of these SX Strats, so I bought a nice sunburst one to replace the faded, surf green one I sold a while back. It's sort of my beater guitar, one I can take anywhere, and anyone can play, and I'm not too concerned about. I'll also use it for pickup experiments and things too I suppose. This arrived today and I immediately set to work with my vision for it.

I was after something a little different, and I've been GASing for something like a Faded G400, with a nice satin finish, not all glossy, which of course fits with it being a beater. So I took to it with some scouring pads from the hardware store to dull the poly finish like so many are doing with their Epiphones here:
http://www.mylespaul.com...-guitars-pic-heavy.html

I think it came out pretty well, nice and satin-y. Used a green scourer to rip the poly off, and a finer white one with some car polish to remove the scratches. It's still covered in some very fine scratches, and if I wanted to be super pedantic, I could get some cutting compund and keep buffing them out. But, meh, it's a beater, I'm not going to spend too much time on it.

I also did the neck, in fact I started with the neck to make sure it would go well. If you've seen the neck on an SX, you'll know it's covered in that horrible, orange, 'vintage maple' stain, and a thick layer of clear. i soon had that down to a nice smooth, light colour, which makes it play quite nice for such a cheap bit of wood.

I wasn't going for a relic look at all (I hate fake relics, despite creating such an abomination myself a while back) but the finish is obviously quite thin in places, and a couple of patches wore through to the wood. It looks quite natural and tasteful though, and again fits with the beater theme.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics, and a comparison with my full gloss Deluxe Mexican Strat so you can see the difference.







Excuse the average pics, might take some better ones later.

I'm thinking I'll find a semi well used black pickguard and whack that on, although the mint green one these Vintage Series SXs come with as stock, along with the aged white pickups, doesn't look too bad on it.

Thoughts?

Cheers mate. I suppose my idea of a beater is something that's not actually all that beat up, but something that I don't mind other people touching and playing, especially those who think that holding a Stratocaster in their hands immediately makes them Hendrix! Definitely a beater though, but one I can enjoy.

Man, there's as many folks on here gassing for Agiles as for an Epis, me included.

I hope everyone whose planning on buying an Agile will do it through the epiwiki, they get 10% of the sale to help support the site.

Either way, support your local forum...

It's nice of you to make sure that a guitar is available for anyone to play! I'll be right over!!

I know a number of people who are interested in playing guitar, but don't have their own. So whenever they're at my house, they're always at me to teach them some stuff, but I'm always reluctant to let them touch my gear. Probably seems a bit lame, but I just don't trust many people to look after my stuff the same way I do. And I'm all for promoting decent music and playing guitar to people, so it's good to have a guitar around that I don't mind them getting their hands on, and that I can enjoy too Something that's still semi decent, but not overly fancy or expensive. That way I can just chuck it in my car and go, with little concern about damaging or ruining a beautiful and often expensive instrument. I took my old SX to school a few times to play between classes and stuff. Was a bit lame without an amp though, I wasn't too keen on lugging my amp to school! Though sometimes some of my mates would bring their guitar and amp, so we'd just plug into that and jam. Very impromptu, which makes it awesome.

And, y'know, it's not a bad way to impress the girls either! I always thought it was a myth but they do seem to like musicians, and guitarists. Perhaps it's the awesome finger skills?

Dost thou still haveth thine Firebirdicus Maximus?

Maybe if it had a bolt-on neck... Otherwise you simply cannot have "strat" in the name...

I suppose the most evil sounding strat would be one with only one pickup as close to the bridge as possible, a bolt on neck, and no tone/volume knobs or switches, a maple neck with ebony fretboard, maple body, metal nut, stainless steel frets. The stainless steel frets would just set it way over the top, way too bright... Especially when paired with stainless steel strings... cover your ears now, here comes SATAN STRAT, THE BRIGHTEST SOUNDING GUITAR IN EXISTENCE!!!