ShortScale.org

I thought some people might find these humble guitars interesting, others may remember them as a good 'first guitar' and others may not know about them. Prepare for Iceybomb.
When you mention a Peavey guitar, if it isn't a Wolfgang or T model its easy to dismiss it as an average 'international series' model but these are quite different.

I stumbled across the Predator at my local guitar shop last year, the owner passed it to me as a repair. It looked surf green in the dim light and i instantly joked i'd give him £50 for it. He accepted. When i got it home i could not believe how good the neck was on it, to the point of researching as to why i knew nothing about these models, they are effortless to play. I found several threads on various forums and other reviews were people are banging on about the Predator neck, also suggesting that with a pup upgrade and a maybe machine heads change these are a Strat that is as good as some more expensive models by other brands.
Not so sure about that for everybody though, the fretboard is quite flat with jumbo frets and the headstock shape isn't pretty. All things that dont generally appeal to usual Strat users.

I picked both of these up for £50 each. The black one is a standard model;


The blue one (that sometimes looks surf green) is a higher end AX model;




These pictures were taken before i modified them. Reasons being i'm not keen on the Strat volume knob directly below the bridge pickup and the s/s/s configuration is not need in my Punk band. As standard they are along the same lines as a decent Squier as far as sounds go. The tremolo system is of similar quality too, i block mine off anyway.
This is how they look now;



The good thing about modifying these guitars is a standard Strat guard will fit directly onto the body and also, the body is factory routed to take a humbucker in the bridge position (if that's what you wish to do).

After doing a bit of research i found out the body is made from Poplar, which is quite light. One of the interesting things with the maple neck model is Peavey used a bi-laminated method that stops any twist or warping. You can see the joint here;



These guitars also have the neck micro-tilt adjustment;


The machine heads hold up quite well although the ones on the AX model (top) are better quality;


Understandably the deal breaker here is the headstock shape, it doesn't personally bother me but i know some folk will hate it;


If anyone is interested in finding one of these models some of the International Series look identical, but the way to tell the difference is the US Patent on the back of the headstock;



All in all two great Strats that cost me very little

Fran whered you get that orange case for the tiny terror from and how much did it cost

metalhead384 wrote:Fran whered you get that orange case for the tiny terror from and how much did it cost

The previous owner got it, i'm not sure dude. A few folk here (like Thom, Reece etc) will know though.

forum member dawnofzion used to make 'em, right? I'm really into how those peaveys look now, the blue/green one is rad. What was up with the original bridge pickup in it?

Both of these look rad! What made you decide to go for volume and tone on the blue one, but just volume on the black one?

Thanks guys. The original pup in the blue one is basically two Peavey single coils together that can be combined with the micro switch. It did sound okay but a bit microphonic at gig volume, mostly due to the covers not being properly attached to the bobbin.
All the pups in these guitars were ceramic single coils.

Freddy- basically these were the guards i could find on ebay. I may drill for a tone pot on the red guard as that old 70's DiMarzio is quite bright sounding. On the other hand the pup i put in the blue model (custom made by a local luthier some years ago) is quite dull sounding so the tone pot is always wide open.

these look great Fran and as you said as a first guitar or a modding platform they look like a cheap alternative

jeezsh that green one on the bottom is mazin

the green one looks like a badass tom delonge signature.

Black, red tort, maple - great combo

Those really look great.
I do not ever recall seeing a neck like that. Bi laminated, that is pretty interesting.
Peavey gits and basses are a great value that can be tweaked to sound great.

I have a bad strat-boner lately... and I'm lookin at one of these on CL. if its in good shape I hope that will quench my thirst for cheap. Thanks for the recommendation

edit: you said strat pickguard fits-- is the neck pocket strat-size too?

I really like the Peavey EXP telecasters:





Lovely.

brainfur wrote:you said strat pickguard fits-- is the neck pocket strat-size too?

Yes, the Peavey neck has that overlapping fretboard as well so it would hide any gap at the bottom of the neck

Nice finds! How are the necks profile-wise? Superstrat-thin or chunkier? They do seem like a lovely starting point for some modding, especially since the price IS right (even here).

More traditional C shape but the radius is quite flat and the frets are medium jumbo. They are closer to modern Fender necks than anything else.

Interesting neck construction on these Peavey. It seems that trussrod goes exactly along a glue joint. Is the joint strong enough to withstand tension from trussrod? Or there are some accidents with Peavey necks when they laminated in two pieces?

i have had two peavey predators, both strat like version HSS with a cool floating strat trem sort of thing. both i found for less than 100 usd locallly, but i smashed both....
but they are great fucing guitars, better than 500 dollar fenders.

As I remember HNB have a couple of them or used to have, cause the were in Classifieds recently

As I noticed when HNB posted his, I love that they have the proper modern US-spec micro-tilt adjustment and there's no doubt in my mind that more thought and design went into these than similarly-priced Fender guitars.

I for one have never minded Strats with non-Fender headstock shapes, I remember when I first became interested in guitars people actually seemed to prefer that look to the Strat's pelicanstock (no doubt due in part to the higher frequency of high-end strat copies around in the pre-grunge era) and also remember that later on I wanted an Ibanez beginner Strat over a Squier because the headstock looked "cooler" when they were right next to each other on the catalog page.
In retrospect it was a pink spandexy/permed blonde locks type of cool, I suppose... the idea that Howard the Duck was selling me short would've made life less worth living, though.