Some of you might remember when I bought this cheap backpacker's guitar off eBay. I think it was a little over a year ago. It was just a cheap $40 guitar to toss on the back of the dual-sport motorcycle when I went camping. Nothing fancy and no big deal if it breaks. It's actually the perfect guitar for what I'm using it for.
The truth of the matter is, this is everything you would expect from a $40 guitar. Terrible fit and finish, terrible string action, and decent sound, but surprisingly it stays in tune. I thought tuning would surely be the one problem I'd have with this guitar. Surprisingly not.
A good of example of fit and finish is the misplaced 12th fret marker. They marked the 11th fret. I honestly thought I could ignore it, but surprisingly, it just kept goofing me up. So I decided to replace the fret markers today.
I purchased some Jockomo Inlay stickers off Amazon for around $10 and some new strings.
I honestly wanted to go a different route other than stickers. I tried the craft store and they suggested a bottle of this $40 resin/epoxy. The stuff cost more than the guitar. Guitar Center in my area said they didn't sell anything for fret markers. So off to Amazon.
After reading the reviews on the inlay stickers I decided to give them a chance. Honestly, for only $10, I should have done this a long time ago.
The stickers were pretty easy to do. Remove the strings, and clean the fretboard really well. I used Windex because such a fine instrument only deserves the best.
Once the fretboard was clean I painted over the misplaced fret marker with some black Testors model paint.
It was a warm day here today so I let the guitar sit in the sun while the paint dried. I also painted the bottom of the fretboard that was left untouched by the factory. The frets were pretty rough, so I polished those smooth with P1000 grit sandpaper.
One of the best parts of having a crappy $40 guitar is not having to be super gentle when you're working on it or worrying about dripping paint. For the most part, this came out OK.
The stickers were pretty easy to apply. It was just like applying vinyl graphics to a car or motorcycle but on a much smaller scale. I cut the individual fret markers and placed them in their frets. Then did one at a time. The instruction said you can just cover the old fret markers, so that's exactly what I did.
You just peel off the paper backing, position the sticker, rub it on with your pick, then peel off the clear plastic covering! Easy peasy!
Like I said earlier, the nice thing about a cheap guitar is that you can get away with doing things a little half-assed. The fret markers could have been centered better. If I did this again I wouldn't eyeball them, I'd actually mark the fretboard and take a little more time with lining them up. Frankly, I think the uncentered fretmarkers just add to the hillybilly charm of this thing 😃
Not exactly perfectly centered but functional. These help a lot. Anything that helps improve playability on this thing. Every little bit helps. I'll do a 3Speak about this and play a little in the next few weeks. No more confusion over that 12th fret now!
Honestly though, I really enjoy playing this guitar. It has a unique sound and you're a bit limited to what you can play on it, but if you know your limitations and stick to the basics you can strum out a nice melody and pluck out a few notes.
I kind of put this thing up there with a cigar box build. Crude but effective and extremely fun to play!
PS: Cigar box build coming soon. I'm setting a goal to have my first build done by the first of the year. I have all the parts, all the tools, and I'm just waiting to make some time now.
Thanks for reading and rock on!