Finally got my 51 back from the Luthier today.
In addition to the bridge pickup, it now has the following mods:
IanRich control plate.
500k mini pots lifted from a vintage Burns guitar.
Orange drop cap.
3-way pickup selector of unknown origin.
New cover for the neck pickup.
Aftermarket pickguard from GuitarFetish that was then recut to fit my own design.
Misc amp knobs.
The guitar turned out well. The pickguard looks wonderful, and my luthier crammed everything into the cavity pretty well.
The neck pickup has maintained all its snap and balance, so that's a good thing. However, the bridge pickup seems to have lost the 'grunt' that I liked so much. It now sounds... unbalanced and VERY loud. The treble strings and D sound okay, but when I get onto A and E, it sounds like I am playing a bass.
There is also a horrible vibration when I play on the G and D strings. The luthier tried to fix this but was not able to. It is far worse than the usual G-string issues. I think before too long I might replace the bridge, and maybe do a string-through conversion. Mod this thing beyond recognition 😀
