One thing I've been threatening to do for a while is buy a router. This might be quite an admission for a 'Guitar maker', and if I were a traditional luthier, it would either be commercial suicide (on the basis that I must be buying the woody bits in) or a massive selling point, as the alternative would be that I am hand chiseling everything out of old tree stumps.
In my case of course, neither is true as so far my 'approach' has been to buy pre-Mojo'd parts (second hand to you and me) and turn them into something new. In the poetry/art world this is known as 'found art', and is seen as very clever. In my case it is probably because I am cheap.
But a router I am getting as basically, there are jobs that would be a lot easier (I need to fit a soapbar P90 and a full sized humbucker in Andy's J-Bird One, when the body is routed for three single coils, f'rinstance), but also because I still want to make a couple of types of original-ish bodies myself. Not through any need to be seen as a 'real' luthier - just because I'm wondering if I can, and to be honest I am limited to some extent by the bodies I have available when I sit down to make something. I'm nowt if not pragmatical-like.
I do see Jooky as something different though, and it is nice that a few people seem to get that too. I've said it before that there are loads of really talented luthiers in the UK - people like Wes Venables, The Creamery, Feline, all of whom I've mentioned here, and I'm quite happy to not be one of them. Jooky is a bit more punk than that, I think, and all about the 'What if' rather than the 'what sells'. The fact that people do buy them here and there means I can carry on making more. If that makes me a hobbiest to be sneered at, well, I've been laughed at before and still got on with what I see as cool and not done or felt the worse for it. I've been in the art and literary world for years, trust me them there people can sneer to Olympic standard.
So this is me, off to buy a router this week, for better or worse. This is what I do and all is cool as far as I am concerned. Join in, watch or ignore me as you see fit, it is all the same to me, sugar. But I tell you want, nobody makes guitars like I do. La la & laaaaa ;)
6 comments:
The fact that people want and buy them says there is a demand for this type of guitar. I love them because they are unique and as individual as the person buying them, and even if you tried no 2 would be the same.
So I say keep em coming and long may jooky guitars live.
Cheers Geoff... I really must get the T Shirts done :)
Here here.......
Cant wait to get my t-shirt ;-)
Right, I'll nip down the market and get a few from the second-hand clothes stall...set fire to them, scribble on them with a marker, set fire to them again, stick some other bits of material randomly over them, swap the arms between them all with ones that don't quite fit and then stick the scraps off the floor all together again..
Sounds like a plan...
that sounds like what my daughters t-shirts look like! only hers are naturally reliced.
Just re-read this again ,sorry if its my J-bird thats made you get a router.
Your guitars are awesome dude, full stop.
Before coming across your blog I was pretty lost on the guitar that would be my ONE for me.
When I found your blog, and saw what you were doing I wondered what if you could do it . When that mockup landed on my post on musicradar , i thought I'd take a gamble as I had seemed to try every guitar i could and So far its been amazing .
A custom finished ,custom designed to your spec guitar -that there will never be another one of is the dream of most guitarist and its on the horizon for me .
Anyone whos snears at what you are doing or your guitars, knows nothing and should wind their neck in...
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