'Ere we goo agin

So another week, The Futuristic One sat in the corner sounding brilliant, begging to be played badly, which I can usually manage.

The Blue Moon One needing wiring, and a tap of the soldering iron to bring it to life and getting increasingly bugged that I'm not fulfilling my duties in that department.

A half started The Beaton One just needing some love and attention...and a touch of inspiration while I'm at it.

And so, obviously I'm about to start something else.
It is the way of things after all.

I mentioned the Tele Custom body I grabbed recently, which had been routed for a couple of soapbar P90s originally, and then 'converted' so that it would take a couple of humbuckers in it's strides. Well, I've got meself a lovely PRS P90 - I am an addict, it is true - but I don't want to put two soapbars in, so I'm looking for a partner with a difference.

Now don't get me wrong, it would be easy enough to grab another humbucker, and I might well do that, but I quite fancy finding a mini-humbucker from a Firebird or Les Paul Deluxe and then using a P90 shaped ring to fill the gap, as it were. Not sure how easy that will be - though the Catswhisker ones on the Daisy Jook One were a very good option, so I might do that. We'll have to see.

As for the neck, I've got a nice maple and rosewood one already, so that is covered, and I'm going to try some locking tuners mate-of-the-fat-white-jook Andy recommended the other day. He put them on The Crowley One, which I need to talk about soon, of course, and they seem well worth a pop.

For the body, I've got an idea for something a bit swish, but need to get some gubbins, so we'll have to see how that turns out. I need product man, simple as that.

Other than the Tele Custom, I've got the other Jaguar/Jazzmaster body turning up. This I already know is going to have a quite leary leaf finish. Something a bit different to those that have gone before. It is also going to have three single coils but nothing at all Stratty this time, something more along the lines of those classic Burns tones. There are a couple of options but I need to grab the pickups first and take it from there. Can't make up my mind whether to go for two pups in a Jaguar kinda way, or whether thee would give me more options.

Decisions,
    decisions.
         Monday,
              Monday.

Sold: The Futuristic One

About The Futuristic One

The Futuristic One is a first for the Emporium, featuring both one of our beautiful, ‘trademark’ fabric ‘Leona’ finishes, and a ‘Pat Platinum Blond Top’ finish that has been corroded to reveal the design beneath. The scratchplate has a weathered, variegated gold finish, just to set it all off quite blingily. In a big way. All of which is protected by first coats of acrylic and then nitro lacquers.

The guitar is of course based on the mahogany bodied, Gibson SG crossed with a maple neck/rosewood 'board that is more more Fenderised. Tuners and bridge are both takes on traditional parts and work perfectly, and the corroded gold of the bridge and tailpiece a lovely finishing touch.

As far as the pickups go, these are Gibson from a Les Paul Classic, but have been modified with different magnets to give a ‘T-Top’ and slightly warmer ‘T-Top plus a bit’ sound and feel. This is very much a rock guitar, although cleans up beautifully.

All in all, it is a very modern sounding guitar – if modern means late ‘70s tripping over the kilts and ra-ra skirts of the early ‘80s.

*


To be clear, The Futuristic 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 pleasant night checking your floppy fringe in the mirror of the Barbarella toilets. 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 / Pat’s Platinum Blond Top

Electrics: Modified Gibson Humbuckers

Guitar Type: Gibson SG body, Fender Strat Neck

Construction: Cloth over wood, corroded platinum leaf. Mahogany body, maple neck

Strings: Nickel 10s

Output: ¼” Guitar Lead

Controls: Dual Volume, Dual Tone, Three-way Switch

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

Serial Number: JGE#31

RSP: £499 THIS HAS GONE, GONE & GONE

Introducing: The Futuristic One

Well, I decided on a quiet weekend, but a load of bits I was waiting for arrived and so I thought I'd have a go at putting The Futuristic One together. Oh, and maybe even getting my finger out and finishing The Blue Moon One too.

Well, I can but dream.

After the fiasco with the Bill Lawrence 'The Original' pickups, where I (hate to admit that I) somehow managed to set the wires on fire, I've gone for a plan deux, which is a set of stock Gibson SG pickups.

Now as my  friend The Fat Old Man pointed out in the comments, that is rather boring and most unbecoming of the Jooky core principles, so instead of sticking with the basics, I decided to visit a chap of my acquaintance - let's call him 'Paul', mainly because that is his name, and he supplied me with some different magnets and talked me through my first attempts at modifying pickups.

Well, Alnico 2,3,4 and 5 were all tried, and I've come home grasping what is in effect a 'T-Topped' pickup and a slightly warmer version which with all imagination we've called 'T-Top plus a bit'.

Needless to say, The Blue Moon One went out the window and I've installed everything, strung up The Futuristic One and man, it is cool. I mean, very, verily cool. It looks great (if you remember the '80s) and it sounds stunning, even if you don't.

None of that buzzing hornet in a jar bobbins, this is a proper rock guitar, yet still really clear when you power it down a bit with those funny knob things I usually ignore.

So there we have it - no doubt a proper introduction will follow, but the Future is now, (dare I say it? Yeah, why not)....and the future is Jooky.

Actually, this is the introduction, what am I thinking of?

(Sorry.)

For the record then...

Mahogany SG body
Maple (I checked) Stratish neck
'80s Geometrical Design
Pat's Platinum Blond Leaf top, corroded big-time
Modified Gibson pickups (T-Top and T-Top plus a bit)
ToM and tailpiece.
Twin Volume, Twin Tone, Three-way switch.
Jooky Heaven

I did burn it a wee bit...

So Tired, Tired of Waiting..

Well, I may have mentioned it (whinged like a bairn) once or twice before, but I really do have a deep loathing for the time I spend waiting for couriers. Don't get me wrong, I quite often go to the post office, but that is a pain too in different ways (f'rinstance, our local post office won't take parcels that don't fit thru a window in their internal door. They used to open the door, but these days no. Naturally guitars in boxes and cases won't fit thru and so I have to go to a different village and use there's. Which is in a precinct and means I have to lump the box, not the easiest with a walking stick in t'other hand. So couriers seem the perfect answer, until you have to wait for them.

Today though one has already been and delivered the case for The Lulu One. Why I didn't have the case sooner is another tale I'd rather think not about - two cases in fact, but another day. Anyway, that showed-up, and Lulu is nuzzled with her tag and 'handbook' as you can see, and it is DHL I wait for now so that she can go to her new home.

I'll miss the old girl.

Other than that, and I feel better to 'share' my pain, I tidied-up The Futuristic One and wired everything except the pickups. I'm waiting for the ones I'll be using to arrive as after my own goal with 'The Originals' I've gone for some other Gibson ones that fit the era. (A second set, as I realised that the ones I'd put in were actually Wilkinson's and not really what I wanted to use.)

OK, my brain is addled today, and worse my PC is dying on it's feet too - so if anybody wants to swap me a nice laptop for a guitar, just give me a shout. I like Macs, but Windows is OK too...any takers? Nahh, didn't think so.

As for other things to do while I'm waiting, well, The Beaton One I mentioned yesterday - the Strat with the coat of many colours, has gone together remarkably easily. In fact I keep waiting to hit 'the wall' and something dubious happen to make me cry. I almost feel guilty about it going so well, I mean this is all meant to be part art after all, and it doesn't feel right not to include a wee bit of suffering, does it?

Pictures to follow when the PC lets me.

Other than that, I think it will be a weekend off as far as Jookydom goes

The Future is Now. Well, maybe next week...

Well, OK. I still haven't started to finish The Blue Moon One, but I will, some day, one day, sometime.....soon.

However I did manage to move on at a pace with The Futuristic One - hence the fotos overtaking yesterday's missive by the time I got around to 'posting' it to this here blog-thing.

The body has even been lacquered and is swinging in the breeze drying itself in front of a fan heater. But that wasn't all, as I even got busy and sorted out the neck, removed the Foney-Fenderisation with some wire wool and then burned a Jooky logo into it's place. Bit of oil today and that will be lovely.

As for the top, I am really pleased with the effect. I let the acid-stuff burn quite a lot of the leaf away, and then Jooked it a bit more so it has ended-up with a spangled yet glittery burst type of effect. I wanted a lot of the purple to show thru, and it has, so all is cool.




So in truth, a bit of a tart up on the body once the lacquer has 'cured' and it will be time to wire the thing up, where it will no doubt flounder on the same boulders as my luna-de-bleu, as my rocking and rolling hands are shaking and a quaking a bit too much for soldering to be an option at the mo'.
But there we are, can't be helped.

I did do one other thing yesterday, and that was to rescue a Strat body I've been using over the last few months to practise my gilding and corroding on. It's been covered and wrecked more times than a (insert your own simile that doesn't involve crack whores) but by some twist of fate has ended-up looking quite amazing. It has stars depicted as a kind of relief (or whatever you call the opposite of embossedness) and has some quite lovely verdigris and generally looks quite beaten.
I just fell in love with it, sitting there all quietly timid. The guitar not me. The Beaton One, I think I shall call it, as it has been a bit of a Jookified cookbook truth be told.

So, without talking about myself in the third, I'm getting a bit self-referential and recycling myself, and while I was lacquering The Futuristic One, I gave this a good spray too.

Don't get me wrong, it is going to make a nice guitar and the body is beautifully light - maybe alder at a guess, but I'm wondering now what to do with it. Well, obviously it will have a neck and tuners and everything, but I mean what shall I do about pickups?

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ LATER THAT DAY ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

Well, since I wrote that and didn't immediately post it to tthe blog/site thing, I did instead move on even further with The Futuristic One, as you can no doubt see from the fotos....

Anyway, neck and body are done, a slight change of direction in terms of the pickups means a pair of uncovered Gibson ones are replacing the err, broken, 'Originals', which is a pain in the bum, but there we are. (Don't ask, just don't ask).

Other than that, it just needs wiring and we be there, which is all cool.

Oh, and a bridge as I can't find that at the moment...it really is here somewhere though..

La la laaa

WIP - The Futuristic One

Step 1- Cover it with Fabric

Well, inspired by the need to do something while I wait for a variety of couriers to bring/take-away multitudes of objet de delight, I side-tracked myself from the 'Must finish the Blue Moon One' mantra I've been chanting for months now, and started something else.

Surprise, surprise.

So here we have a bit of WIP of The Futuristic One, and a lovely bit of purpleness it is too, you'll have to admit? This was going to be called The Starship Trooper One, or maybe it was The Super Trooper One, but then I changed my mind and called it The Futuristic One. I don't really know why. Maybe it would just fit on the headstock easier, like.

Step 2 - Tidy it up a wee bit

I think I said before, but I chunter on so much I can quite easily forget what I have said, but the body will basically be covered with this 'period design' with the period being that '70s crossing into the '80s time that taste forgot.

The guitar top will then be covered with Spacetastic platinum leaf, which in turn will be distressed in a big way so that the purple can be glimpsed thru, as it were. Kind of like all those people's houses, where they covered the lurid '70s wallpaper with bacofoil so that it would look like something believably futuristic like Buck Rogers. Or maybe that was just down my street and didn't travel any further than the Pershore and Alcester Roads

Step 3 - Roughly put the Leaf on

But to the platinum - well, after that is dried out, I might melt it with acid or I may instead just scratchcard it with an old threepenny bit. A silver one, not one of the modern bronze ones, pah. A bit of Queen Victoria as a girl, it has to be done.

Just to make it even more futurama-o-tastic, the larger variety of SG scratchplate will be used, and it has got a nice bit of variegated gold on it already and has been lacquered and even dried. Talk about organisation, and I rarely do.

Step 4 - Cover it with bubbles of acid

Why the golden scratchplate, I hear you ask. Well, I was worried that it might be too taste-filled to represent the '80s if I didn't do something flashy and golden around the edges. Or at least on the top.

Pickups, are the Gibson 'Original' XXX ones I waffled on about before, and I expect it will be the traditional twin volume, twin tone, three-way-switch control scenario, unless the mood takes me elsewhere. Which it might, of course.

Step 5 - Let the leaf eat away to show the colour thru

The neck is something more Stratty and is a lovely bit of maple or maybe mahogany, I can't remember without looking and for some reason has Fender writ large on it at the moment. That will go, of course.

Step 6 - Give it a few admiring glances

So there we are, though I guess I should be going for lasers, LEDs and all that, but probably won't
It might get a bit Andrew Lloyd Webber and I really don't fancy betting my balance on a set of roller-blades.

Step 7 - Wash the acid away and let it dry

So I'll stick with Buck Rogers.
Wilma Dearing, where are you now?
Beely-beely-bip.

Step 8 - Go and buy some lacquer

(Yes, I know I will finish this and still have the Blue Moon One staring at me with evils, but such is life).

Picking-Up Pickups

Well, as you may have noticed by my accidental re-posting of the Lulu page, the girl has dumped me and move on to pastures new - well will do in the next couple of days anyway. I had just about convinced myself to keep her when a nice chap called David snaffled her from under my nose. That always happens when I am at the point of forgetting my golden rules.

Moving forward, I mentioned before my varied and far-too-big collection of body parts (guitar, that is, not a Khmer Rouge tribute type of thing), but that I'm lacking a wee bit in the pickup department.

No big deal, but it does slow me down a touch and makes the guitars quite quiet in their absence.

Anyway, as seems to be the way of things, parts seem to float in this direction when I come to think about them (or rather I notice the ones I would normally be oblivious of) and so I've been 'stocking-up', as it were.

First up I have a set of Bare Knuckle 'Piledriver' pickups. These are for a Tele (forgetting that I haven't got a Tele body that they will drop into, apart from the parquet one) and are hotter than normal. Interesting, anyway.

Nextly, I liked the Fender Custom '69s so much on The Pink Panther One, that when I was offered another set I grabbed them, despite not really knowing what I'd do with them. Still, I'm sure they will come in useful somewhere down the line.

Afterwardly, a couple of old favourites, IronGear's beautiful Alchemist 90 humbucker sized P90s popped-up and I had to grab them. I think they will be nice in one of the SG bodies somewhere down the line. I like P90s.

Then of course I need a couple of Soapbar P90s (as I always do) and have a few options - a pair of Bare Knuckle 'Nantucket' Soapbars, which I've tried before and have 'that' sound in spades. I also hold gallons of  knowledge of a couple more of the PRS Soapbars which are amazingly good, and tone-wise not much different to the Bare Knuckles, so they tempt me. I'm also itching to try a Seymour Duncan P90 Soapbar, mainly because I never have before...and I know where one is going ...and generally, too many options. I haven't had a Catswhisker soapbar thinking about it, or a Wizard one so maybe, just maybe...

Other than that, I fancy using an Alnico II humbucker for something quite old skool, so I'm sniffing around for that too.

So in summary, s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g.

Mmmmm...

Sold: The Lulu One

About The Lulu One

The Lulu One is a first for the Emporium, featuring both one of our beautiful, ‘trademark’ paisley finishes, and a ‘Lulu Copper Top’ finish that has been corroded. All of which is protected by first coats of acrylic and then nitro lacquers.

The guitar is of course based on the early pine bodied, maple necked Fender ‘Esquires’ with it’s black scratchplate and single pickup at the bridge aesthetic.

Tuners and bridge are both Wilkinson takes on traditional parts and work perfectly, and the ashtray bridge cover over the brass saddles is pure class.

As far as the pickups go, there is a Bare Knuckle Brown Sugar pickup at the bridge which easily nails all of those classic sounds from early Rock ‘n’ Roll, thru to Keef and Britpop, Indie and beyond.

All however is not quite what it seems as rather than stick to the single pickup template, we have included a ‘Stealth’ pickup under the scratchplate.

This is a P90 soapbar taken from a PRS SE "One" guitar, and it adds a whole new range of tones.

The middle position on the three-way-switch gives an out-of-phase/cocked wah type of tone that is beautiful to play with. In fact that as a starting point for the rhythm, jumping to the Brown Sugar at the bridge for a solo that really cuts through,  is an awesome combination.

*

To be clear, The Lulu 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 pleasant evening stuck in the Cavern Toilets. 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 / Lulu’s Copper Top

Electrics: Bare Knuckle Brown Sugar (Bridge), PRS SE One P90 Soapbar (Hidden at the neck)

Guitar Type: Fender Esquire/Telecaster style

Construction: Cloth over wood, corroded coipper lead. Pine body, maple neck

Strings: Nickel 10s

Output: ¼” Guitar Lead

Controls: Single Volume, Single Tone, Three-way Switch

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

Serial Number: JGE#29

RSP: £499

SOLD, Sorry - it got snapped up....

Blue Days Are These...

It came as a shock earlier on, when I realised that somehow I'd managed to complete 20 Jooky guitars since I started my crusade to paisleyify the world. There have even been a couple of 'influenced by Jooky' cases out there, which in a way is cool, if a little amusing in another way.

Still, all good fun.

Anyway, I'm finally finishing The Blue Moon One this weekend, and then hopefully putting The Old Burny One together, which will be a couple of long-term 'aims' realised.

I can't help thinking about what comes next though, and the SG body, The Super Trooper One, with the purple geometrically-challenged fabric and platinum leaf finish looks likely to be next, along with the Gibson 'The Original' pickups I wittered about the other day. I'm really keen to hear them, as they are meant to be 'hot' and there we are...

Other than that...

Introducing The Crowley One

Well, nine long months in the 'development' I'm pleased, chuffed, delight-filled and generally quite happy to introduce you to The Crowley One, and a reet beauty the girl is.

From the top she has..

A Slab Mahogany Body

A Mahogany Neck

A Rosewood Fretboard

Wilkinson ABR, ToM and Tuners

A matched pair of Gibson 'Platinum' pickups (A Classic '57 and another Alnico one I can't remember the number of, but should really find out. Oh, just found my notes, it is a 490T.)

All topped off with a variegated gold finish, that has been crickled and crackled using aged varnish and funny craqueler chemical bobbins.

The scratchplate has a real platinum leaf finish with a sparky electric design (if you look from the right angle).

Sounds-wise we're into Classic Rock, with the neck having a bit more oomph if needed.

For those of you viewing in black and white, the red button is a killswitch for all those RATM/Tom Morello moments, with a standard three-way-switch, single volume and single tone covering the more usual fine-tuning.

All in all, it is a beautiful guitar to play and hopefully will be well loved...