The Drowning Man

I hate to admit it, but I've got a bit carried away on the guitar buying front in the last few weeks.

And that's just under the stairs

It's all down to the fact that for the first time in ages I've had a chance to get a bit of a run at it, and then I get keen, and then I get into the old 'wouldn't it be nice if I just...' mindset, and then all of a sudden I've got bodies and necks all over the place, complete guitars I'm going to lift and separate and pickups coming out my ears.

But I can't find a strap button for love nor dosh.

And it is madness, this path.
But it is also rather fun.

So at the moment, apart from the two customs, which take top priority, I've actually got plans for eight more guitars. And this after I said that I was going to have a few months off at the start of next year to get on with the woodwork and copper cutting.

Still all good fun, and if you like offsets and Danos, Strats and Teles, Semi acoustics and Flying Vees, all with quite odd twists, this might be the place to be over the coming weeks and months.

*Whispers* There are 14 guitars in the house at the moment, and I'm worried that somebody might begin to notice soon. Shhhh....

Jangle Jewelry

WIP - The Jangly One, minus just about everything

I was quite pleased with myself yesterday as I managed to pick up a couple of Kent Armstrong Lipstick pickups for the Jangly One to replace the 'Stock' reissue jobbies. They are the slightly hotter than normal ones, which I'm thinking will keep 'that' sound, but maybe give a couple more tricks for the olde one-trick-pony too.

They are the same ones I've put in the OCD One, of course, which should be as good a recommendation as you can get, if I ever get it back from the soldering-chap and find out for sure, but different bodies, wiring and everything else, well you never can tell.

I am chuffed with how the wee beasty is coming together. I've done the body work, and the paisley is quite simply gob-smacking, but I had a bit of a dither with the scratchplate as initially I was going with a trancy rave kind of thing, but it looked horrendous and now I can't even begin to think why I ever thought it would work.

Instead then, I'm going to break my duck and dip my toes in the enameled copper water and have a scratchplate like nothing else. I am still doing the copper-topped Tele, but this seems to be a good time to try it out on a smaller scale, so we shall see.

If you look at the comments, John - the proud owner of the Funky Spangled One - who part ex'd the Dano in the first place made a suggestion I like, which was a copper banding  that runs around the edge and overlaps onto the front and back. To replace the traditional Dano cheapo vinyl tape 'binding', if you see what I mean.

Well, I'm not sure if I am up to the job, but if I can find some suitable copper, I might just give it a go. I also like the idea of nailing it down using either copper or zinc nails if I can find some small enough. Against the paisley I think it would look amazing. So cheers John, much appreciated.

As for the tuners, as everything is getting a bit gaudy at best, I'm going to see if the gold plated Gotoh tuners I picked up the other day will work. The Dano ones were OK-ish, but, I'm never one for half-measures if I can go ferret, as it were.

By the way, here are some veeerrryyy early WIP fotos of the Jangly One and the Fat Pussy One.

The taste-filled Fat Pussy One WIP

All good stuff.

Baby Please Come Home

Hopefully today it will actually have strings attached

Well today is the day that I finally get the OCD One back from the chap who is helping me out on the soldering front.

It's taken a week, feels like a decade, and it has been me that has been getting narky about it, Geoff has been really calm.

I'm sure I'm doing this wrong and it should have been the other way around somehow.

In the end practicalities dictated that we've gone for a mini-switch instead of a push-pull pot for the coil tap, but not the end of the world and in truth it might be more useful in those live-stress-filled-moments where you want to give it a bit of welly without changing your volume and all that.

I just can't wait for it to show up, to be honest, I just want to give it a blast and make sure it is all bang on before it gets the brown paper and string treatment and winds it's way down the M5 to it's new home.

I know I've done this a few times now, but I still get all emo-tional about it....

Anyway, when I've got it and all is well, I'll put some fotos up of our first example of Katy's Killer Custom Jookiness

Needing a Fat Pussy

I did suddenly think that there is a bit of a lack in my life right now, a bit of hardcore that I'm missing out on, so I decided that as is traditional in Jooklyand, I needed to do another guitar with a P90.

What prompted this was a bunch of Strat parts in one corner, and a long-held desire to have a pickup handwound for me by Allan Price at Catswhisker pickups.

Catswhisker do a humbucker sized P90 called The Fat Moggy that I’ve heard from quite a few people is bang on the money. I tried one in a Les Paul a while back and it sounded stunning and since then I've had a bit of a yen.

I do realise that it kinda goes against the old Jooky ethos, but I've had my eyes open for ages trying to see one for sale second hand but they never seem to come up, which I took as a good sign. So I've bitten on the bullet and had one handwound for me to fit the specific guitar, and there we are.

Anyway, that's the plan and imagine how impressed I was at Allan's 'service. I ordered the pickup on Saturday morning, and he emailed me that evening to say he had already wound it, would be wax potting it Sunday and posting it to me Monday. And true to his word it was delivered here on Tuesday morning.

Bleeding hell, the guy is a diamond. I just wish I'd got the guitar ready a bit quicker...

I must admit, in my search for a perfect P90 sound out of a humbucker packet, I think I'm going to try a few of the 'other' handwinders in the UK over the next few months, but I bet nobody delivers quicker than that. The Bare Knuckle Mississippi Queen is excellent, but it is nice to see what else is out there. So I've got Shed and Wizard on my radar too for future builds... Shed's even come with a proper plastic, scaled down soapbar cover, and you don't know how tempting that is to me...

As for the guitar, I thought this time, that I would go for a two-tone Paisley kind of thing. Something a bit more understated than the recent Funky One and Jangly Ones have seen. So what I have planned is that classic red and black contrast, for a bit of drama and the rest. Though this in no way means that I am a Holocaust denier or lover of Wagner. I never am fancy dressed up as a Tory politician either.

I think it will look pretty good when it is done, The Fat Pussy One.

Sold: The Peace Train One

The Peace Train One moves our Jooky journey forward, away from the Paisley and into a full-on flower powered, love story of an acid fried generation. Peace signs and a hallucinogenic finish beam like the Love, Love, Love generation, and a whiff of incense brings back George playing his Rocky guitar, John and Paul in Pepperdom and Ringo with his Yellow Submarine in the bath at number 48.

The Peace Train One isn’t just a fancy finish though, it has a darker almost Seventies side beneath it’s scratchplate and all manner of switches and knobs above it.

For built in to this pacifistic innocent, is a Lou Reed sleazy dirt beneath, with pulsating auto-wah and filthy distortion just the flick of a switch away, to take you from the neon lights of Carnanby Street direct to the rain sodden time-stained sodium of Berlin's seedy underbelly...

*

To be clear, The Peace Train 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 a Perfect Day. 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: Teisco Strat pickups

Guitar Type: Fender Stratocaster type, but of unknown vintage. Believed to be based on a 60s or 70s Teisco guitar.

Construction: Cloth over wood.

Strings: Fender Stainless Steel 10s

Output: ¼” Guitar Lead

Controls: Active circuitry:

-    Master volume on/off switch
-    Three volumes, one per pickup
-    Three effect switches turn on/off Auto Wah, Distortion and ‘Normal’
-    Three pickup selector switches
-    This is an active guitar and only work when the batteries are installed.
-    Needs 2 AA batteries, supplied.

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

Serial Number: JGE#18

RSP: £399 SOLD

Oh Dano Boy...

They are very, very complicated pickups...

Well, I think I've got to the bottom of what it is I should be doing with the Danelectro '59, and in some ways it is making me a little sad.

It has a name now, by the way, The Jangly One.

I'm feeling imaginative today,
it probably shows...

OK, but back to the point - what am I planning.

Well, it is obviously going to have a killer finish, and the slightly dodgy bits will be upgraded - that's fine.

And I think I'm going to replace the pickups with something more 'original Dano authentic' if I can find some that work for me, which I'm happy about too. My biggest concern is keeping the Dano sound really, so we will have to see.

Anyway, I've started to dismatle the Dano and am already up to my neck in gubbins putting the rather tastefilled finish on it and I have to say, I almost feel bad about it. It means I can't jingle around the living room like a floppy fringed indie boy. Better do the vacuuming instead, I guess.

Actually, bad.
But not that bad...

Wassup, for our American Readers

Well, it seems as though the J-Bird One, that is the name for our second Katy's Killer Custom guitar, is coming along quite nicely. I think the specification is pretty much there now and I'm kinda chuffed that my scouring of the byways and airwaves for various parts has already thrown a few up, including a rather helpfully routed Jag-esque body which I should get my hands on later this week, so things are going well on that score.

While I search around for everything else we need, I'm also trying to polish off a couple of the other guitars that are in various stages of completion. I'm also hopefully meeting up with Geoff sometime this week to hand over The OCD One, which will be a bit of a buzz for me, and hopefully for him too.

I had planned to get a 'bunch' - the officially collective term for Jooky things - of cigar box amps done to capitalise on the massive pre-Christmas demand for presents made out of old junk, but soldering is still slightly beyond me at the moment and they are having to wait unfortunately. Similarly delayed are the effects pedals and the Growler project. All most annoying, but the price of being a crip I guess.

So, anyway, don't be surprised if there are a few new guitars popping along over the next few weeks. I can manage them, with a little help from my friends, if nowt else.

Saying that, this final wee crop are likely to be the last ones for a while, as I want to get to grips with a bit of woodwork and copper mining for a while in the new year. As ever then, catch 'em while you can, I guess.

One other guitar I have to have finished pre-Yuletide is for my eldest who in fact started all of this Jooky nonsense when we built a guitar together, for him, a while back. Well, he is struggling with the size of The Dragonocaster, so I managed to get hold of a decent 3/4 sized electric recently, and I'm going to pimp that up with a rather cool Pokemon livery for him...

He already plays better than me, mind you.
Maybe I shouldn't be encouraging him...

Is it a bird? Is it a rather scary cat?

Feline guitars came up with this - cool or what?

I mentioned the other day that there are plans-a-foot for a second of our Katy's Killer Custom guitars, following on from The OCD One, and I thought that perhaps it might be good to talk about it a wee bit more.

As we stand, I have got a rough spec from Andy, the chap it is for, and the mock-up on the right, to illustrate the point and I think we are 97.5% sure what it is going to work out like.

The nice thing, from my point of view, is that already it is going along the same lines as it did with Geoff. Andy had some ideas, I came up with a few more and then we've batted-them-about until we're both happy that it is achievable and gives Andy the guitar he wants.

And what a guitar this is going to be. You may have seen Andy popping up in the comments talking about offset guitars, and that is what we are going for, with a couple of radical twists.

For a start, it is going to have a Jaguar/Jazzmaster type of body.

Bolted into that we're aiming for something that looks a lot like a neck from a Gibson Firebird, complete with the 'right' kind of vertical 'banjo' tuners, though they will be the Steinberger version as they apparently work better than the Gibson originals, and look amazing.

Pickups, we're having a humbucker and a P90 for that Gibson BFG Les Paul type of rock 'n' roll-ness, with kill switches, coil taps and anything else that gives us a few different sounds thrown in on the leccy front that we can muster... This is going to be a working guitar, and is going to need to handle snarling overdrive, creamy fuzz and as well as some cutting cleans. (I read that in a brochure somewhere, but it fits...)

As for the finish, well it will only be the second ever 'Kylie' as it will have a rather cool comic book feel to it, based on Marvel's Punisher series, although done in a quite different way to The Beano One of yore.

Obviously the first thing i did was order some comics, purely for research purposes. That'll account for the first week.

In terms of timings, the aim is to have it finished pre-Xmas, which I think we should manage OK. I've decided that i'll only be doing one 'Custom' at a time, and everything else will have to fit in around it as it's only fair really.

So as far as our Katy goes, that will be it for this year, and sorry if you have been wondering whether to try one or not, but there won't be any more until the new year (though there are a few Leona's on the cards, ahem, if you have an itch that just has to scratched).

Obviously, a couple of days in and we're still finalising everything; it is as yet unnamed, but I think it will prove to be a stunner when we get there - like Geoff's OCD One, a custom in every sense of the word...

Man, I'm all-of-a-buzz

p.s. At the time I wrote this,  I didn't realise that Feline Guitars were doing a combo Jaguar and Firebird and that I'd used their foto. I wish I had as they are super cool British luthiers and they make lovely, lovely guitars. They were very nice about it, but credit where it is due, and if you are into guitars you really should... Check them out HERE

I Dunno

Since I started talking about the OCD One, it's been quite surprising how many people have asked about them.

I guess we guitarists all like the idea of a one-off, built to fit our own ideas of what a guitar should be and I have to admit that the Jooky ones are about as one-off as you can get.

Anyway, the question I've never quite had an adequate answer for is 'How much do they cost', as to be perfectly honest, it depends on so many things.

When I make them for myself, I decide what I'm going to build and then hustle around looking for parts, or as I've said before, I come across parts and that sets me off in a different direction. Cost doesn't really come into it - I make something I like or that interests me and then when I sell it, I try to get enough money for it that I can make something else. Profit and wages don't really come into the equation either. And if that means I happen to have the money to pick-up a Bare Knuckle P90 when I see one - great - and if I don't have enough, I might get a PRS one, or an IronGear, or whatever.

In terms of the Katy's Killer Customs though, it is a rubbish answer, but it really depends what people want as far as parts go, if you are verily specific, it will be a case of what I can turn up and how much they cost, If you want new parts, they cost more than second-hand etc.

With Geoff, and the OCD One, we did it the other way around. We agreed a budget, and I then worked within that, having a base spec but trying to improve on it as we went along with anything better that I could lay my hands on. For example, when I planned things initially, I was expecting to use some nice Wilkinson tuners, for instance, but then came across some (superior) Schaller ones going second-hand, and instead went for them.

Similarly, I was going to use some Mexican Fender Strat pickups, but then had some Kent Armstrong lipstick ones available, so went with those instead, and so on.

And to be honest, that is probably the best approach, with the sticky bit being the setting a budget up front. Which brings me back all around the round thing.

So, much as it bugs me in a way, as I'd much rather be thinking about making guitars than talking about money, I'm thinking that what I should do is set a price for an example Jooky Custom guitar, which can then be adjusted based on specific requirements, as was suggested in our comments section by 17FiftySeven, who obviously is more switched on than I am..

And so that is a plan, the Jooky Guitar Emporium will soon have a price-list of sorts.
How scary is that?

Katy's Killer Customs

Katy plays guitar,
and married a spider from mars,
but has nowt to do with our guitars

Well, Geoff’s OCD One is very nearly ready to hand over to him – I had to get a local tech to do the soldering again, but there we are, and it will really be nice to meet him after all this email activity, putting the guitar together.

Just hope he likes it ‘in the wood’ as it were.

I must admit, I had been thinking about the Customs idea for quite a while, but had held back for a couple of reasons –

1.    I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t work. The person wanting the guitar would really have to ‘buy in’ to the whole Jooky idea, the Rough Finishing and environmentally-sound use of second-hand parts, and all that. Oh and the strange approach to finishing guitars in paper and cloth, of course. I forget that isn’t run-of-the-mill at times.

Also, it isn’t like I am a traditional luthier who is starting with a couple of chunks of wood and a tub of nitro asking what shape you want… Saying that, the guitars are a lot cheaper too, and perhaps even more one-off than the rest of the Jooky guitars.

2.    The second reason of course, is that I’ve gotten very used to following my own path with these guitars, and change my mind – get excited/inspired and generally can be a bit of a nitemare, I’m sure.

Could I stick, more or less, to a specification then?
A big question, but so far at least, as long as it is clear and agreed up front, it seems as though I can. Which is all-good, and has been a lot of fun.

So would I do it again, and I guess more to the point – would anybody else want me to?

Well, from my perspective, I came to conclusion that I would. It was fun, it stuck to the ‘ethos’ and as long as I’m clear upfront about what I do, I can’t see that there should be too many problems…

Least, I hope so anyway.

And as it happens, it seems that somebody else does want one, and so for the last couple or few days I’ve been happily exchanging emails about what will prove to be the yet unnamed, second ever Jooky Custom guitar.

More about that soon, I expect, but it seems as though ‘Katy’s Killer Customs’ – I figured I needed a new name for these – might just have wings after all.

Spirit of '59, or maybe '69 - Pure indecision

I'm struggling a bit at the moment to decide what to do with the Danelectro '59 (or is it '69, I forget) reissue that I had as a part-ex the other week.

Would you cover a Dano in this? What would Jimmy P. think?

My initial thought was that I would give it a totally outlandish finish - that one over there - you can't try and be subtle with a Dano, lets face it - and maybe change the tuners (which aren't great) and perhaps the pickups too. Bridge and nut are awesome of course, but I wasn't too sure about the bridge pickup especially.

Where I'm stuck though, is what I do with the sticky tape binding around the edges. I mean, I could take it off and glue it back on once I've 'finished' it, and if I knacker it up Danelectro even sell it as a part, but I really don't know whether I want it at all, or more to the point, if I leave it off does that kill the guitar's original design.

I mean, whatever I do, I love the scratchplate, so that will stay in some form - I wonder if I could make a copper one and whether you can get glittery enamel, hmmm... - but that tape. Sheesh, bit of a tricky one.

As for the pickups, I like the Kent Armstrong ones, but I wonder what else is out there?

I'd love a P90 sound, but would it work?
Would it still be a Dano that I'd love etc.

Yours, in dilemma.

Chugging along peace-filled, like WIP Fotos

I'm really feeling rather charmed by the Peace Train One, at the moment.

I sorted out the neck earlier, so it isn't so glossy or neat anymore, and I decided to replace the rather shonky tuners with some Wilkinson ones which should make a world of difference. I've also made a rather momentous decision, and am going with a plain black scratchplate for the first time ever.

At least I am at the moment.

The hippified fabric looks stunning, so I might have to relent and cover the scratchplate with it in the end. I just think, for once, a little err; subtlety might be in order...

I also decided to keep the original pickups. I think I said that I have some from a Fender Highway One Strat that I was thinking of using, but these have such a distinct 'voice' especially with the aluminum (or whatever it is) bridge, that it would be criminal to change them. Again, that's the plan as I write this, but who knows really.

Here it is so far anyway... (And yes, I rrealised after I took the snaps that I'd forgotten to put the bridge on - sheesh.) Quite nice to be thinking peacefilled thought on a day like today...

A Bit More OCD - WIP Fotos

Well, the OCD one is all dry, and so I've partially fitted and partially plonked it together so that Geoff can see whether he likes it or not.
And being the sharing kind of chap I am, I thought I'd put my triumph/shame (delete as you see fit) for all to see in public.

I know, I am such a muppet.

Here are a couple of fotos of it looking somewhere near close to being done, like...

I Will Survive

Well, R&D day was fun, and somehow I survived. I have to say that the enamel was the biggest success, but then I'm not sure how long I'm meant to leave the weathering approach, so that might get better soon I guess.

I have come across a company (where I bought the copper) who will actually cut the pieces to size and shape, and even more impressive - they sell pre-weathered copper, both of which are tempting.

But I think that would be a little boring, and a cop out if I don't actually try it myself first.

If I prove too hopeless, maybe I would go that route - I buy 'normal' scratchplates after all - but you have to find your level, don't you? Plus they are bleeding expensive.

While I'm in R&D mode I've also decided that the time might well be upon us where I have to get meself a router and have a go at making my own guitar bodies. I said before that I'd got a couple of cool shapes I fancy using, and like the copper I have somebody who will make them for me if I want to, but I really need to know whether I can do it myself.

I don't mind buying all the parts for the Jooky guitars I've done so far, but if I'm moving on a stage, it seems wrong somehow to have someone else do the work. 'I'd never use a 'Designed by Duncan' pickup on principle, and I can't say I find 'designed by Jooky' much of a turn-on either.

But there we are, time will tell.

R&D Day

Well, all the recent usual suspects are trundling along as before like a Jooky little production line, and so, again, I'm thinking of where I go next - and the future is enamel. Or maybe copper. I don't know.

Today I thought I'd have a bit of an R&D moment, and see whether my ideas for a copper-topped-tele are actually achievable, or more to the point,  whether they are achievable with me as a big part of the fabrication equation.

What the plan is then, is to top the pine-bodied Tele I was talking about with a sheet of copper. I even bought some copper (though I think the bit I've got to practice on is maybe a bit thick to be cut-up-able, but we'll  see.

As for what I do with the copper, assuming I actually manage to cut it into something that looks like the shapes I want when you squint a bit in the dark, well, that is where the R&D comes in, as basically I have a couple of things I want to try.

First up - I quite fancy trying to 'weather' it. I don't mean stick it in the garden for six months; I mean use some sort of chemical bobbins to force the issue.

Roofers do this, apparently, when they put copper roofs on stone cottages so that they look old and green - a patina, I've discovered this is called - and also gardeners do it to copper pots for the same reason.

Anyway, I read somewhere that copper sulphate might work, and somewhere else that vinegar, or lemon juice, or urine or, well, shed loads of ideas to try.

And so that is the plan.

How you 'fix' it so that the guitar's player doesn't get covered in green manginess, I don't know, but I guess I’ll have to find out.

The second idea I want to explore, is enameling. You know like you see in hippy shops and on the jewelry teachers wear.

Enamel is apparently not something Airfix came up with, and instead is powdered glass that you put onto copper (in this case) and heat up in a kiln so it melts.

I haven't got a kiln, but I know a chap with a blowtorch, so I figured that might be fun, so I'm going to try using one of those instead. I also read that simply heating copper with a blowtorch can induce a patina of sorts, but that is option three and I'm not sure that it is worth separating out as that will happen anyway as I'm not exactly likely to be competent with a blowtorch, lets face it. Dangerous probably.

So there we are, an R&D day, and if I don't breath in the powdered glass, catch something off the cat-piss drenched copper or set fire to myself, I'll tell you how I get on.

Flying Out They Is

No more Funky Anymore

Well blimey, The Funky One didn't hang around long - that nice Fat Old Man snapped it up within the hour of it being listed, which I think is a new record around here. Hope you enjoy it mate, it is truly a lovely wee thing.

In other news, I've shuffled along quite quickly on the Peace Train One, and I have to say it is really quite a stunning looking guitar as well. It is going to be pretty cool to put it back together and turn it up way loud, methinks.

I've just got hold of some nice Fender pickups which (I think) I'll drop into it, though to be honest, I'm still not really sure as the existing ones have a sound about them that is just 'different', and that is always worth holding onto, innit? Maybe whoever ends-up with it will get the choice between them, just have to see.

In other news, The OCD One has had its final coats of lacquer and will be drying over the next few days. The scratchplates, however, are both done in terms of the finish, and so I can whip out the soldering iron and get them sorted out tomorrow with a bit of luck, so that they are easy to pop on in come the glorious day.

I don't know why it is, but some of these Jooky guitars come together really quickly, and others seem to take forever with no discernable reason. The OCD One has certainly taken longer than I thought - and not for any 'committee decision making' reason, that side has been very easy, it just seems to have been in slo-mo.

I guess me cocking-up the first finish, having to strip it back, paint the body and then do it all again, may have come into it, thinking about it now.
Ho hum...

Sold: The Funky One

The Funky One is James Burton meeting James Brown on top of a mountain and exchanging little bits of paper to see what happens. It is what Bootsy would play if he learned how to deal with a couple more strings. It is pure lysergic funk mixed with something a lot older, dirtier and hot, hot and a bit more hotter.

But it has a secret under the hood. The pickups are scorching. I mean burning. I mean sheesh.

At the bridge is an IronGear ‘Hot Slag’ which is awesome sounding.

At the neck is a DiMarzio 'Evolution', which is frankly crazy.

But it isn’t all hot and heavy, The Funky One has knobs as well as balls, and the more you take the time to twiddle them, the more you’ll get out of this little cherub.

To be clear, The Funky 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 a British funkster. 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

Pickups: Di Marzio ‘Evolution’, IronGear ‘Hot Slag’

Guitar Type: Fender ’72 Custom Telecaster Inspired

Construction: Cloth over wood.

Strings: Fender 350L Stainless Steel

Output: ¼” Guitar Lead

Controls: 2 x Tone, 2 x Volume, Three-way Selector

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

Serial Number: JGE#14

RSP: £399 SOLD

Introducing The Funky One. Eventually.

Well, I got it done at last and it sounds like a Demon..

(Sorry for the lack of words, but piccies do tell their own tales, dontcha know...

...even quite quickly taken, rubbishly posed pictures.

The Funky One - Finally, finally....well, nearly.

Well, the OCD One is still bobbling around under the influence of thinners and stuff, and the Peace Train One is equally being finished, so today then, I am wiring up the Funky One, after far too many false starts and distractions. Saying that, to be honest I think somebody else will be doing the soldering as I knacked my hand up and I'd probably set fire to the place.

But I'm talking about the guitar, and in case you can't remember it from all those weeks ago -  it is of course a '72 Custom Tele, type of thing, with it's lovely big sweeping scratchplate and twin 'buckers. I decided to keep the usual two volume/two tone controls in the end after mucho dithering, and pickup-wise, have gone for the unholy alliance of a DiMarzio 'Evolution' at the neck and an IronGear 'Hot Slag' at the bridge, which means this is going to be an interesting old mix. Quite warm around the edges but hopefully with a good variety of tones. Be good to see anyway.

And really, fitting those little beauties was all I needed to do as the rest of the guitar was sorted out months back like. In fact, and I've no doubt mentioned it before, the wiring had been done as well, until my 'little princess' attacked it with some wire cutters.

but there we are.

So today is going to be Funky, that's the plan.

Complete guitar pictures to follow as I get around to it...

Jump Starting The Peace Train

Well, Geoff's Custom OCD One is into the lacquer/dry/sand/repeat loop at the moment and will be for a while yet, so I've started thinking a bit more seriously about what-comes-next, and more to the point when.

First of all, I am really intrigued by the one-with-all-the switches - The Peace Train One. Mainly because it is just so odd.

I mentioned the bridge being aluminium (I think) and the fact that it has a zero fret, which lets face it, you don't see too often. But there are other things too.

Obviously, having built-in effects is not exactly mainstream these days (apart from in Gibson-land, for some reason) but it is the little things that catch the eye. For instance, I've taken it to bits this morning and couldn't get over how short the neck 'bolts' are - tiny wee things, but when I took the last one out and removed the neck plate, what do I find but that it is covering three quite solid screws that are really holding the neck together... Again, I don't think I've seen anybody have a cover like that before, most odd.

I really can't make my mind up about it - it is either old, and there was a different approach to crafting even, what I would guess to be, guitars from the cheaper end of the continuum, or it is just a complete oddity. Either way, I think it is lovely, and well worth the effort to take it up a few notches. It sounds like a Dano, so maybe that was the starting point and then things just went a bit...wooooaaahhhh.

I can understand how that can happen.

Anyway, it is in bits now, and I have started on it's finish, which I think will be quite fitting.

As I'm trying to remember to do my bobbins in public these days (since the restraining order lapsed, anyway), this is the back of the wee Peace Train one, with it's very first coat of glue and grainy filler...enjoy.

Love-filled peace, to one and all...