Introducing: The Black Russian One

Well, this one in particular has been a long time coming, but I am more than pleased to be able to introduce you to the rather cool, The Black Russian One, the latest of the Jooky brood and probably the last La Cabronita inspired one I'll do...

From the top, it is a rather delish swamp ash body that has been ebony stained and hard wax oiled with minor distressing here and there.

The neck is a beautiful ebony boarded one that I really am quite impressed with.

Pickups are a pair of specially wound TV Jones sized 'buckers, put together by Marc Ransley at Mojo Pickups, as indeed is the simplistic yet cool wiring loom. These are Filtertrons with HiLotron covers, or something like that. Sound immense, which is the main thing, too easy to get distracted by nomenclature.

A few touches worthy of mention are that the battered and torn pickguard and matching back plate have been made from an old Television red vinyl 12", and a genuine Soviet era cap badge has been plonked on the headstock. I like the chopped off Wilkinson short bridge too, but maybe that is just me.

As for sounds well Marc has nailed some grit in among some twangy cleans and let's face it, that is all we ask for in life....

So there we are - The Black Russian One, unavailable in the shops as it is off to a new home with Andy tomorrow, UPS willing.

And in summary, tur-dahhhh

La la laaaa

Strappado-a-go-go - Jookified Customised bodies

 

Well, one of the things I've been doing to keep-my-hand-in while screwing has been out of the question, is to finish a few of the bodies I am going to be hopefully flogging if I ever get a web site together, and it has been fun.

In fact apart from playing the finished guitars, doing the body arty business is definitely the part I like best, so it kinda makes sense.

Anyway, as with the full-on-proper-Jooky guitars, I want the bodies to be unique with all the usual arty bollox that goes with that, and so they too will be numbered and signed, although with their own numbering system (to avoid confusion).

I thought 'Jooky Custom Bodies' would be a good name for this little initiative, and I was right.

However I've decided instead to call them Strappado Bodies, which probably isn't as descriptive, but amuses me more and gives a nod to the fact that the bodies are largely tortured in some way. So Strappado it is.

I might in future do these to order, but initially I like the idea of putting them out there and seeing what happens.

The first of these is a Jazzmaster body - a nice bit of swamp ash - which I've given a rather dashing looking corroded copper and bronze finish and done a complementary pickguard to go with it, as I'm that kinda chap.

It has worked really well and you still get some of the lovely ash grain thru it all so that is a bit of a bonus (and the aim, but then...it always is and doesn't always come off that well.)

So that is ST#1 - the first of the Strappados, and cool it is too.

After that, there is a hardtail Strat, a normal Strat and a Tele in the works, which is all good, but more on those once they are done.

And who will want such trinkets?

Well, I haven't got a clue, though the biggest danger is stopping myself from using them for guitars, I would imagine. It is already proving harder than I'd expected.

As for today, well The Black Russian One is nearly there, so maybe I'll introduce you later on if I can find another replacement nut as I've just cracked the second one...

La la laaaa

River running free you know how I feel

Well, my new fangled and just pur-chased leccy screwdriver is charging (at least I think it is - anybody know what an orange light means?), my brain is sort of functioning and I can bend both arms without falling over, so  things are definitely looking up.


And whilst my natural inclination (for the nation) is to just jump back in there and do lots and then fall over again, instead I'm going to aim low this week and try not to fall short of that at least.

But enough of de babble.

So the plan this week is to finally put The Black Russian One to bed. It has been a while, but the time is now etc.

As to what is left to do, well in truth it is all about nailing it together and making sure it all plays nice and proper good.

After that is sorted, The Babylon Blue One needs some woodwork and then I can start on the finish. This is going to take a few weeks but hopefully will prove to be pretty cool...and not a little groovy.

But anyway...

La la laaaa

The Week Is Bright, The Weak is Jooky

Well, things are looking up and I'm tres verily hopefilled that despite being a week of the school holibob variety, I should well be getting back to work to some extent in Jookyland and doing something.

Top of the shop, is to finish The Black Russian One. I've got all the parts including a rather nice ebony 'boarded neck and cut down Wilkinson bridge plate and the Mojo TV Jones sized 'buckers have been staring accusingly at me for months, so it is overdue.

The Frou Frou Fox One is pretty much done already and sounds really cool, but as I can't play much at the moment it is tricky to tell for sure.

As for the others, well I'll get back to them soon enough.

La la, it's good to be back, it's good to be back...la la laaaaaaa

Black Russian Mojo Babushka Blues in Em

Mojo Filterons in Hi Lo Up Down And
Very Left Tron Design Shocksome

Well, I had one of 'those' emails again from Marc at Mojo Pickups, where he sends me a foto of some cool little trifle of a trinket he has put together especially for one of my Jooky babies, and this time the boy has excelled hisself and come up with something particularly groovy. for The Black Russian One, my final La Cabronita.

It has been a while and specs change, so as a refresher for those that haven't been paying attention to their note-taking duties, The Black Russian One is a swamp ash bodied La Cabronita, with a evil black stained and waxed body.

The neck is maple/maple (originally this was going to be ebony but I changed my mind) and pickguard and rear control cavities offer a flash of colour if not inspiration and are hand carved from an old Television, red vinyl disc. Lovely.

The knob has a genuine old Russian red star badge cap affixed to the top (though I'll have to supply a normal one too I think as it may not prove to be the most practical of knobs. And  we all need knobbages with a hint of practicality.)

Black Russian, Among Friends
On My To Do List

The rest of the hardware will come as no surprise, but where Marc has excelled is that he has created a couple of TV Jones sized Filtertron voiced pickups especially for it, designed to look like Hi Lo Tron pickups, and verily cool they are indeedy. They should set it off a treat. These are low output, vintage tone chillsters rather than high gain screamers, which is cool. I like a bit of tone of a morning.

He has also done one of his classy wiring looms, completed with all that is good and wholesome in such circles.

Anyway, the pickups should hopefully be here soon and this little baby rocking like a mocking bird next week sometime. Can't wait.

So perhaps this will be the first Jooky to break cover in 2013, who'd have thought it?

You gotta love it.

La la laaaa

Red Star Television

Well, after the proto-excitement of the forthcoming Teardrop of yesterday, I really need to get back down to earth today and do, well, something.

Top of the list then, for no good reason whatsoever apart from that I like breaking stuff, I will finally, finally finish making the red vinyl pickguard for The Black Russian One out of my Television 12".

That is fun, though I haven't got the rest of the bits yet so that will have to be that for a while, but a pickguard, that's a good thing to have.

Usefully aesthetic, in a uselessly ugly kinda way.

After that, I am hoping that the Hot Broadcaster pickup and general Esquire Loominess Marc at Mojo Pickups has sent me will arrive today. And that the postie will arrive before the child-free-sands-of-the-day have fallen into the bottom of that funny metaphorical glass thing.

Because I might get a chance to fit them that way, instead of spending an evening looking longingsome at what might have been but wasn't, or something.




I hadn't looked at The Bergasol One for a while, but it is a stunning top (I know I shouldn't say such things) and I'm really rather chuffed with it. In fact I am tempted to do something along those lines on The Pearly Dewdrop One, mainly because I still can't remember what the plan was.

==== Musical Intermish =====

And as I hadn't got around to putting this on the blog, I seem to have scratchplated The Black Russian One. Still no postie, mind.

La la laaaa

Sad Ol' Red

Hot Sex. End of...

Well, I'm still all-of-a-buzz with The Fallen One twanging the night away like a twangy thing, and I'm finding it hard tricky to get away from my latest baby at the moment.

But I am going to have an hour or two today so it will be nice to try and get something else a bit further along too.

As I never quite got there the other day, I'm going to make the red vinyl 'plate and cavity cover for The Black Russian One.

Can't do much more on that for the mo' but at least it will be as far as I can get.

I'd also like to silence the niggles I've got about The Chi Chi One, though until I play it again I can't really remember what they are. I might have sorted them already, of course, and just forgotten. It happens.

I have also got plans for two more uber cool guitars, but I'll tell you more about them when there be something 3D to photograph. Enough of the vaporware for one year.

La la laaa

WIP: The Black Russian One

Well, Jookytime is going to be sporadically occasional this week, but I was quite pleased to get somewhere with The Black Russian One over the weekend. Teensy steps, but staggering in the right direction.

But what did I do?
I know,
I can see you are curious
bet you can't wait.

Well, as mentioned before it is a rather lovely grained La Cabronita Tele body, which has been stained ebony all over. And very Black Magical it looks too.

From there, it was given a dousing in hard wax oil, quite a few dousings in fact, which finally dried to a hardened shiny shine.

Not being the world's greatest shiny wood fan, I took that back to dulldom using wire wool of a high OOOO value, and then smothered it with some gloopy soft wax which was buffed to a sheen.

Sheen is good, Shine is bad.

I'm sure George Orwell's pigs said that.

As that is looking how I like it, a few roughing up episodes completed the picture and for a change I started with the Strap pins. Shiny chrome they are too, which works goodly well.

Next I put the hard tail bridge on in the right place - nice steel saddles for added zinginess - and I even remembered to press into place some slightly pre-aged trad looking ferrules.

A boy needs ferrules if he is to thrive, or something.

So that is that.

As I am basically waiting for parts for the rest, the only thing I can do today is make a nice red vinyl pickguard out of my Television 12-incher. I have in fact superglued my Pinko-Commie Red Star onto a flat topped Tele knob, which looks good but may not prove to be the most practical.

I think I'll have to think of something else as while it looks cool, it is quite tall, and sharp of cornery spike. We'll see how it looks at the end though.

Other than that, the only job I really want to do today is fit the new switch to The Fallen One and bathe in some Jazzmasteryfilled goodness.

All good tack

Speaking of which, with the terminal demise of The Golden Shower One, I may in fact be welcoming an old Jooky back into the fold as my one-and-only-keeper. More on that if I can make it happen, but I have to say I'm a little excited at the prospect, so fingers crissed.

La la laaaa

Drug of the Nation

Well, I managed to give The Black Russian One a good hard waxing yesterday, if not a lot else of a Jookified nature and that is looking pretty good, if I say so meself, which clearly I do, so that was a thingy well thung, if ever I've seen one.

*Breathe*

I've also tracked down a Television 12" made from red vinyl, that criminally, I am going to carve up into a pickguard for this baby. That should work I think, and as I am now the proud owner of a genuine (apparently) USSR cap badge with a lovely red star on it, it should match quite perfectly assuming I can manage to make a knob out of it, rather than out of myself, as per.

Other than that, I still have some parts to sort out, with an ebony 'boarded Tele neck perhaps top of the list, but they are hardly unheard of so....

Other than even more than that, the new switch for The Fallen One arrived so I'll hopefully get that fitted and some strings on the beast over the weekend. It's been a long time coming but I'm already pacing metaphysically and expanding my mind metaphorically and doing other stuff too while I await a bratski-free moment or nineteen.

So again, nothing much finished this week - though The Chi Chi One is, I guess, if I can overcome my niggles, but all good stuff nonetheless.

La la laaaa

Fancy For A Black Russian

Well, bit of a shonky day in Jookyland yesterday and not a lot got done.

Instead I retracted into vaporwareville and decided what to do with that pretty lump of swamp ash I mentioned.

As you may have noted it is another la Cabronita body, and despite planning to give up on such things for a while, I intend to stain it somewhat and generally make it pretty. OK, perhaps a bit bashed around the edges, but it's thirty years now, we're all allowed to look a little wind swept and well, damaged.

Why 30 years?

Well, I fancy doing an 80s kinda thing and giving this the ebony stained coffee table look and marrying it with plenty of shiny chrome seems to fit the bill.

For that authentic Glasnost leit motif, I've got a nice USSR red star cap badge which I hope I'll make into a knob somehow, and have a vague plan for the 'plate that is so vague I can't remember where I put the bit of paper I scribbled it onto in the middle of the night.

Other than that, I'm thinking it will either be a pair of Marcy Mojo's TV Jones-sized 'buckers or one of those and a similarly svelte P90. Just not quite sure which yet.

As you can see, I made a start on the staining if nowt else.

So there it is, The Black Russian One, coming one day soonish with a fair wind at my back and the walls coming tumblin' down.

La la laaaa

The Apathetic Serial Killer

Oddly Unmentioned La Cab,
As Seen Earlier Today

Well, it has suddenly dawned on me that I only have 48 hours until the next bratish holibob commences and Jookytime disappears in a flurry of spindrifty smoke, so I guess I need to think about what I can actually finito for once.

From the top, The Fallen One awaits a new switch which will hopefully arrive today. That would be nice to finally play as it has turned into another Homerish thingy.

The Chi Chi One is still bugging me slightly and I can't quite put my finger on why, so I need to spend a while with that and tweak like only a tweaking tweaker tweaks.

The Bergasol One needs parts, so that is fine.

The Travellin' Man One now has a rather lovely neck, but I am still missing other parts.

Actually speaking of Homer, sheesh.

There have been shorter sieges and wars.

79 million births, 74 million deaths and two days of British Summertime since I started that one.

In fact I've often thought that I could have become a really successful and undetected serial killer, but for my lack of application. I don't know why I mention that.

As for chopping wood for The Pearly Dewdrop and Hartlepool Ones, well that is out the window until school's back as I have got distracted elsewhere again.

Oh, and then there is another Tele/La Cab which is what I'll probably start today, thinking about it, that I have not mentioned even just-once before now.

So you wouldn't have been able to help me at all with my list with such a gap in the knowledge's corner.



See, it is happening again, but on the plus side, think how many lives it saves.

So today - Fallen switch, maybe, Anonymous Tele, probably, sorted yet unlikely.

La la laaaa