Introducing The Golden Shower One

Well, February may be the shortest month and full of distractions, but somehow I managed to put together the Golden Shower One, just about within the timescale of the Music Radar Forum's £100 challenge.

For the record it is a Gold Topped Les Paul-a-like, with twin P90s, a trapeze tailpiece and a good dose of Jookiness...

The gold is actually 23 Karat 'Russian' Gold Leaf - which is the real deal and a true 'pleasure' to work with.

The golden top has been heavily lacquered.

The pickups are two humbucker sized Kent Armstrong P90s, one of which is reverse wired so that the middle position is hum-free, apparently.

The tailpiece is a nod to the original Golden Les Pauls, before they started using Tune-o-Matics and the rest.

I've left the ToM holes in place unfilled, as well, I liked the idea of them still being there and visible.

The gold leaf, I should mention has over 'run' across the sides of the guitar and on the headstock. This is the nod to the 'shower' part of the name, over-spill as it were - one for all you glass coffee table warriors.

Other than that, it has a brass nut, PRS tuners - though I might upgrade them to be totally honest - and that is about that.

Sound-wise, it is great, the P90s are excellent and considering it is a bolt-on neck with god knows what sort of body, it has a quite amazing sustain to it.

Best of all, parts-wise it was well under the £100 (although that is mainly down to flogging parts off two donor guitars, but there we are..) and in fact came in at a stunning £49.

I should say, this is one I'm keeping :) It's about time I had my own Jooky guitar...

Here are loads more fotos and I'll link to some of the other people's entries later on...

Before the Goldrush

Well, school holibobs have kept me quiet again, but sneaking in an hour or so today I should just about get the Golden Shower One all ready to play. It is the last day of the challenge, so I guess I'd better really.

Fotos to follow along with trumpets and an Oscar-esque speech explaining my motivation and the debt I owe to others..

Speaking of influence, I was humbled to see that a former lead singer of my acquaintance, lets call him 'Tony' for the sake of anonymity and well, because it is his name. Where was I? Oh yes. Influence.

Well, imagine how pleased and proud I was when "Tony" decided that if a numpty like me could make a mess of guitars, he was quite capable of doing the same too. This he did, enlisting his kids and their paint box and he came up with a quite wonderful looking splatter caster (for want of a better name). A single Di Marzio humbuckered Strat with a unique and quite compelling paint job...

I love it and naturally wish I'd done it first. Well, before John Squire anyway.

He's moving on to a Les Paul next, which knowing the chap will be equally groovy.

So "Tony" welcome to Jookyland...

The Twangy One - WIP

The Twang is the thang, apparently.

Well, I figured it was about time I sorted meself out, and so this morning I've pulled together the Twangy One, as it has been looking at me all accusing-like since I got sidetracked by a shower of Golden Rain, as it were.

I'll hopefully get it all put together properly over the next few days - though it is school holibobs again, so who knows - but here is a plonked together version of events..

The pickups are a couple of Kent Armstrong 'Kentrons' - which are their take on the classic Gretsch Filtrons. Nice humbuckers with added twang.

I was a bit undecided on what to do with them electronically-like, and so thought I'd go the Les Paul route, hence two volume controls and two tone knobs (where they will actually end-up, I'm not really sure at the moment, time will have to tell it's own tales.)

It should be cool though, and I'm looking forward, as ever, to giving it a bang and a twang...

Should I put a fuzz in there? Should I? It is tempting....

Nice Chap is Alex

Hello, Baby Blue

I met up with a really cool chap the other day.. He came down from Coventry on the train and went away on the bus with the Jangly One, leaving me his 'Baby Blue' a quite luverly Tanglewood 335-a-like, which means I'm wasting far too much time doing BB King and Buddy Guy impressions, quite badly it has to be said. Ask the neighbours.

Anyway, we had a lovely chat about music and DIY instruments and then he toddled back to the Midlands and plugged the Jangly One in for the first time - in front of an audience of a hundred or so.

Now that is cool.

Anyway, he wrote about it on his blog HERE, bless him.

Nice chap is Alex. I really like his Diddly Bow...

Getting closer, like

Well, I'm twiddling my thumbs over the Golden Shower One at the moment, as in a last minute piece of dithering, I decided to go for two Kent Armstrong P90s, instead of one plus a humbucker. Mainly  because I thought it would look nicer that way. I am truly that shallow.

Anyway, I'm waiting for it to show up, but in the meantime have done far more work on the neck than I ever expected, sorted the headstock, fitted the tuners and added a nice brass 'nut'. I've never used a brass nut before, so I'm curious to hear what it sounds like. I have a bone one here somewhere if it proves to be a disaster, but we will see, what we shall see...and all that.

What else? Oh I went for a traditional looking creamy scratchplate, for period accuracy (ahem).

So there we are, and not a lot left to do other than wire it up when the pickup arrives and then get it all playing nicely. I think I'll hit the end of month deadline anyway...

The finish on the body, I forgot to mention, got a bit more scraping and a lot more polishing and looks absolutely amazing now. I'm really pleased with it. So I did the headstock too, which looks sufficiently battered to be cool.

La la laaa

Sold: The Daisy Jook One

About The Daisy Jook One

So there you are, Highway 51 a memory and you are trudging along in your rental, looking for a place to stay, a cold beer to get the dust from your mouth. You set off thinking you were Steinbeck looking for his California, miles down the road you realise that you’re just another tourist. You pull over the Buick into the car park of a roadhouse, be-spattered pickups line the path to the confederate flag clad door, tattered around the edges, time-stained like everything else. You open it into a wall of heat and sound and the smell of stale beer and road kill hits you, moments before the lively country rock coming from the stage dies as everybody in there turns to face you, in your Man United shirt, Hawaiian shorts and long, be-sandled socks.

The lone guitar player starts to strum her guitar, singing Hank Williams songs with a different beat. The crowd starts talking again and you give the singer, your saviours a wave as you walk to the bar.

*

The Daisy Jook One is a slice of Americana without the make believe of Disney, the commercialism of a Coke or a Sub. She plays country and blues, and indie and anything else you want to try, twin handwound mini-humbuckers give you it all, a semi acoustic, f-holed construction adds a traditional slant but the covering is pure Jooky, with cowgirls and rhinestones, and the chance to throw the dice and make your own luck.

To be clear, The Daisy Jook One is an utterly unique guitar, and there will never, ever, be another made. It is signed and numbered, entirely hand built and finished cooler than Britney in shades. There will genuinely never be another guitar like this and past experience suggests that it won’t be around for long.

Technical Stuff:

Type: Leona’s Groovy Guitar

Electrics: Catswhisker Handwound Mini-humbuckers

Guitar Type: Semi-Acoustic

Construction: Cloth over wood, selected rhinestone cowgirls

Strings: D’Addario XL 10s

Output: ¼” Guitar Lead

Controls: Two Volume, Pickup selector

Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered, All Wrapped with our Trademark Jooky Wrapping.

Serial Number: JGE#22

RSP: £399
Gone, Gone and Gone... Sorry

More of a Golden Drizzle So Far

Well, I've not done much else - like find the parts so that I can finish the Daisy Jook One, for instance, but I have moved the Golden Shower One in the right direction.

As you can see in the fotos, the gold foil on the body has been finished - initially this was a tidy-up exercise, fill a few gaps, remove some extraneous bobbins that were floating around, generally pukka it up.

Next there was a lot of 'burnishing' which again helped a lot and brought out a really deep 'lustre', as it were.

After that, of course, I added a bit of wear to it all, just so it looked suitably old and well used. The rest of the guitar does, so it would have looked silly if I hadn't.

Yesterday saw many, many, many, many, many and a few more coats of lacquer being applied, as lets face it 22 carat gold isn't the strongest, and it would be nice to protect it a wee bit.

For the first time I also used a drying technique that I had had recommended that worked wonderfully. (A heater in the freezing cold garage where I had done me spraying, like).

Anyway, in this case I've gone pure poly for the lacquer which means that by late last night, it was dry and solid and looking - imho - amazing. 24 hours later it is perfect and doesn't even smell too bad now.

And I don't kid myself much, but this really does look fantastic. Nowhere near as tacky as I imagined, just really classy and deep and very old.

I'm in love (so be ready for more of such things popping up at a later date.)

As you can see, being a bit excitably challenged I tramped on and fitted the tailpiece and bridge and for the benefit of the fotos, plonked on the switch, neck pickup and knobs.

Can you see what it is yet?

The neck pickup I can't wait to hear - it is a Kent Armstrong humbie sized P90 - with a creamy plastic cap, so with the surround it is probably as close to a soapbar as I'm going to get.

For the bridge pickup - I'm still waiting on that. It will either be a Seymour Duncan JB, which I think will give me the whole Les Paul BFG kind of thing, or maybe a Dimarzio Super Distortion or PAF Pro - all depending on how I want this thing to sound in the end. All three have their pluses and downsides, but as I paid different chunks of change for each of them, and this is a challenge, of course, it might come down to the budget. We'll have to see.

Anyway...

The Psychedelic Surf One - Another Chance from Long ago

If you've been a follower of this blog for a while, I'm sure you will remember The Psychedelic Surf One, which was (to date) the only Jaguar/Jazzmaster-esque guitar to ever be born of Jookyland.

This was snapped-up in no time at all by muso genius James Sant, and has been used on a few of his recordings.

It's odd, but this guitar is *the one*, as far as I've been concerned, of all our guitars that really worked in every way. It was the right shape, had P90s which sounded awesome, and the finish was incredible. I still find myself pining for it and I've almost not been able to make another quite like it in a sort of I'm-not-worthy fear that I won't be able to replicate it's feel and tone.

All of our guitars are one-offs, but The Psychedelic Surf One just had something above and beyond, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, life has moved on and unfortunately James finds himself in a position where he needs to sell the guitar - and you can't believe quite how gutted I am that I'm not in a position to buy it - and so I thought I'd mention it here as I know at the time quite a few other people were upset that they'd missed the boat, as it were.

He is inviting serious offers for it, and as the only other Jooky guitar that I know of being sold-on went for three times what the chap paid me for it, I'd bear that in mind.

If you are interested, you can contact James via his web site HERE or contact me via this one and I'll forward you on to him.

You can hear The Psychedelic Surf One on This Track Here, and watch out for the solo it is worth it.

Top fella to deal with too, James, in case you are wondering

Gilt-Wrapped

All a bit work-in-progress, but I've just gold plated the front of The Golden Shower One, and am waiting for it to dry so that I can tidy it up and then coat it with some lacquer or Teflon or something that might keep it in place for a while...

What do you reckon?
Cheesy?
Tacky?

Cool.




Other than that, I'm in a bit of a juggle at the moment about the parts. I've got a seriously nice yet amazingly cheap P90 for the neck position, but am lacking in the bridge pickup department. (I want a nice PAF type of thing, but it is proving tricky to stay within the budget.)


The other thing is that I got hold of an amazingly cool multi-fx to try and include, but it would leave me pennies to buy the other pickup, and more to the point I'm not really sure how it will fit into the guitar now that I know routing isn't really too much of a runner...
All a bit tricky really. Hmmm...

Still, gammon, as they say somewhere.

Getting Golden

Well, I know that I tend to spend my days covering guitars in beautiful fabrics and generally getting all poncy and arty about the whole thing, and if I'm honest I've never really got into spraying guitars, as well basically *everybody* does that, don't they? Boring, boring and lacking individuality.

However, I did in fact spray a guitar with paint today, and I am rather pleased with the results, even after a couple of coats.

As you can see with a wave or lots of my wrist, paint can in hand, I have indeed gone alchemist and turned my cherry sunburst Satellite Les Paul into a wondrous Gold Top. I don't know why I didn't think of doing such things before.




Anyway, if you look close you'll notice a lack of P90 routings. This isn't because I forgot (totally). Rather, my router buggered up, and so I was going to use a chisel or two, but looking at the guitar closely, my eagle eye noticed that the maple (?) top was quite thin and in fact not actually connected to the body as a whole - kinda bent over the top rather than carved to shape.

It sounds great, so I'm not worried, but I thought hitting it with a hammer might be pushing my luck somewhat.

Sooo...pickups-wise, I'm going to try and find a nice humbucker-sized P90 for the neck and a humbucker-sized, err, humbucker for the bridge. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem, but as the challenge is limited to £100 for parts, I need to work out where I stand. Hmmm.

The on board electronic multi-fx is looking unlikely now, I have to admit.

Still, when the paint dries good and hard I'll be having a go at gold-leafing it...that no doubt will be where my troubles really begin.

A Little Bit Country

Well, having managed to knacker-up my router, all of the jobs today went out of the window, so I decided it was about time I got a bit further with The Daisy Jook One, and here she is.

Still got a bit of work to do (not being able to find various parts is never a good thing. Tuners for one), but I did manage to give the girl some bling, a mixture of diamonds and amethysts (though these may be glass, it has to be said, but how is a girl to know late at night in a dim-lit roadhouse...)

Hopefully she will be struttin' her stuff this week, and we'll see if the girl can sing..

Getting Challenging

So, it's February is it? Time to get on with ye olde Golden Shower One, I guess.

Good job that I've pretty much got all the bitsunbobs then.

The 24Karat gold showed up today along with all sorts of sticky and lacquering kinds of gubbins. That should be fun, but there are a few things to sort out first.

Today's job was to take the 'donor' guitar to pieces. Off with the neck, bridge, tailpiece, shonky tuners. Out with the pickups and wiring loom, jack, pots - well everything really. Won't be using much of it anyway to be fair.

So I'm left with a pile of stuff...cool.

First real job tomorrow is to sand the top of the body to get rid of the laquer so that I can spray it gold, after a judicious bit of masking of the sides.

Why bother?

Well, I want a gold top but I like the distressed look of the rest of the body and the general '70s-ness of it all.

The guitar as it stands is really resonant, which is nice and a bit of a surprise as I was expecting it to be balsa wood, but it doesn't seem to be that way.

Oh, I almost forgot, after the sanding but before I do the spraying, I've got to widen the pickup holes to fit some P90 soapbars in. Mustn't forget that bit, they look horrible when you fold them...

As for the spraying it gold - this was a tip I got from the nice Mr Venables, presumably so it doesn't look so obvious when I miss a bit with the gold leaf, or maybe it enhances the effect. I'm not sure, and to be honest didn't ask.

So day one - this is what we are starting with...