Introducing The OCD One

Well, after far-too-many delays, I’m finally meeting up with Geoff today to hand over our first ever Katy’s Killer Custom guitar, The OCD One. And I think for both of us it will be a relief; as to be honest it has taken a month longer than I initially hoped and that is a wee bit disappointing. Not that it has been down to a lack of effort, more that for one reason or another – mainly my ropey hands, relying on other people and weather/kids/you name it, it kinda dragged at the end.

Anyway, I gave it a final blast last night, and it plays lovely, so it is all Jooky wrapped and ready to go. So don’t be surprised to see reports of four foot of snow hitting the M5 in the next hour or so.

The guitar itself, I’ve talked about a lot, but basically it is a Strat shaped beauty, with a maple on maple neck, big headstock and Schaller tuners. The body has an amazingly designed cartoon skeleton sort of covering in white with a contrasting black scratchplate with the same design, just in reverse. This has a thin nitro finish over the top, which I’m hoping will age beautifully over the next few years and is stunning to see, though still very much Jooky, it has to be said.

Pickups are a GFS Hot Liverpool Retroton at the bridge and a couple of Kent Armstrong Lipstick single coil pickups. These look the dog’s, but give a great range of sounds. We have a micro-switch to coil tapp the humbucker, which works nicely and a kill switch to do some odd stuff with. Which is all good fun.

Other than that, I’ve done a second loaded scratchplate, this one with more standard Strat pickups, with the design of the main body – so it will have a nice white-on-white look to it when Geoff gives it a run out. It’s a nice option to have, though how much it gets used is up to Geoff of course.

As this was our first ever Custom, I’d said to Geoff that he doesn’t have to have it if it doesn’t work for him, but I hope he will, as it really does have a lot of him in it and it would be a shame for all the effort on his part not to come to something. (Unless he hates it, of course, but there we are.) If he doesn’t like it when he finally sees it, well I’ll bring my baby home and keep her, ‘cos lets face it, there is a lot of me in there too…and there will always be a roof for her if ever she is stuck...