Yes… another Gretsch, and this makes 3, why? Because I wanted to replicate both of the beasts versions of Malcolm, the one with the badass bridge and the one with the Burns vibrola.
In this case I bought another 5222 to replicate Malcolm’s beast with the burns tailpiece, the one I bought was purple and it had a bigsby arm, so.. this time I wanted to do a complete overhaul with a professional, what I ended up doing is the following:
Bought on bidding a shiny purple one and sold all the parts, se below the details for costs as I think this is the best way of getting a replica on the cheap

The mod (£404.35) which included re-finishing in nitro and reshaping of the floating bridge was done by DY Guitars in London which I recommend,m, he also did a bit of ageing.
Re-finishing in Nitro was a must for me. I just don’t like the finish of poly, it feels different…. And cheaper, i’m not too sure if it increases wood resonance and all that crap… but to my touch is just feels nicer and of course the back of the neck feels much better too, this time DY Guitars chose a matte finish which I think makes total sense as it makes it look a bit more worn.
So the total cost of the project was £672 which isn’t bad at all compared to the cheapest replica that costs around £2500




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