Like The Wind, I Ching

Well, I had a good hard talk to myself and decided that finishing something for once, would make more sense than picking a new direction, yet again.

As a result then, The Pretty In Pimp One will be a double P100 ensemble, and that is that.

Decision made.

To make sure that this is so very it, I've wired everything up - reliable switch from Axesrus worked first time, teach me to go cheapo on t'bay - and everything works, and is ready to go.

Well, apart from my 10 inches of vinyl delight, which is yet to show up, which is bugging me a wee bit, I have to say, and means I am scratchplate-less.

But there we are, once that arrives it shouldn't take too long at all.

And if the geezer on eBay doesn't deliver, I'll just have to go with the one I've got and revamp at leisure.

Which would be a shame, but I can't be arsed hitting the charity shops to look for any more records.

---

Coming to the end of yet another month of dithering, I'm looking forward to what I do next.
There are the amps and FX, of course, which I really must get on top off, but I'm enjoying the guitars at the moment, and have a couple of ideas I want to follow through on.

As for what is next then, hard to say. I'll see how I feel next week.

I know this is probably getting really tedious, but...

...I'm going to say it anyway.

I'm waiting for a new - 10" - bit of vinyl to show up, for what will have to be my final scratchplate for the Pimped One. Now, firstly it didn't arrive yesterday or today when I thought it was being sent on Saturday, so I'm twitchy as there are only a receding number of fewish days left if I'm going to complete the challenge, for what it matters.

Worse though, it gives me chance to think and more to the point, ponder and ultimately this usually ends-up with my changing my mind.

Dangerous, times.

And what brings this to mind, that it suddenly dawned on me that the reason said guitar has never quite hit the spot for me, is maybe because I may have got it wrong somehow.

Maybe, just possibly, I shouldn't have been looking at a couple of soapbars, but instead should have gone for a single dogear.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not convinced, and I haven't got a dogear to try, but....

Well, we'll see.

Bugged

Well, spent some time this morning wiring the Pretty In Pimped One up, couple of P100s, one volume, one tone knob, and a lovely Les Paul-style three-way-switch.

Pretty simple, you have to agree.

Absolutely nowt to go wrong.

Easie-and-a-peasie.

So why doesn't the bridge pickup work, eh?
The neck one does, the pots do, no ground problems.
Traced everywhere around with the multimeter thing I've never really understood.
But still...

Sod all.

Finally,  realise that it is the switch itself.
The brand new, straight out of the pack
switch.
Doesn't, well, 'switch'.
I even swapped the pickups to the opposite terminals
and now the neck one doesn't work.

Not happy.
A switch
I ask you.

Bored again

OK, I really should be finishing-off something, but I'm waiting for the final piece to the jigsaw to show up from eBay, for the Pimped-up one, and got side-tracked away from the solder iron.

As you can probably see, I changed the site about a wee bit. Still work-in-progress, but I got fed-up of the other boring template

Heh ho

Mwahhh
x


p.s. One for a Monday, SRV playing Hendrix... *sigh*

Something Eastern European For The Weekend

As you may know, if you are more than an occasional visitor, here at The Jooky Guitar Emporium, we aren't the most productive of people, and to be honest we don't tend to make many things that can be bought.

I'm not apologising for that, it is just the way things are.

However, there are a few people who quite fancy one of our amps or effects-in-a-tin, or guitars even, and so I'm going to have a little list and fulfill their needs before any others.

This won't be a mailing list or anything, and it won't be a custom service type of effort, rather if there is something you like the idea of, just let me know at:

info[at]jooky[dot]co[dot]uk

and I will let you know when something is available, before it goes on sale elsewhere.

No obligation either way, but I keep telling people

'soon ,soon and soon'

and, well, it would feel wrong if somebody else got the gubbins first in such cases.

That's it anyway, other than there will be a couple of Sophies, an Amy or two, a Leona and maybe a Cheryl over the next couple of weeks.



I am such a business man.

Here is something for the weekend - a lovely song from Galaxie 500.  I saw these the first time supporting somebody like The Sundays, and despite disappearing after a couple of albums, still think they are exceptional. The fella went on to form Luna if I remember rightly. This needs to be very loud.

Final Furlong?

Well, obviously, when I came to wire the Pretty In Pimp One, I was always going to realise that I was missing a couple of parts that might come in handy, wasn't I?

So, ordered they are - pennies from the 'net, or a budget-blowing-tenner from the local music shop - so I'll have to wait until Monday now to solder everything in place.

I should be within budget though - by pennies - which is nice, although I'm glad postage and finishing materials are out of the mix as I would have failed dismally.

So, in summary - mainly because I changed my mind so often, this is what the world has been waiting for:

Body & Neck came from a donor Tele-a-like. Nice quality for the price, and after selling all of the other bits that came with it the Net cost was £9.

Tuners: Gold ones. I had bought some Wilkinson ones, but ended-up using some that I was given for nowt . They aren't great and I will upgrade them post-challenge, but they should work well enough for now and kept me within budget - so thanks to Tom for those.

ABR Bridge and Tailpiece: £26 from Axesrus. I wanted something off the wall for a Tele and these gave me that gaudy feeling in excelsis.

Pair of Gibson P100 soapbar pickups £50 from eBay. Still not sure that I won't end-up with just one pickup on this, but that will be later or if I realise I've blown the budget and somehow forgotten.

Vinyl LP for the scratchplate, this was my own but for due diligence I had a look in a local charity shop and they had the same one for 50p

2 x Pots £2.20 from Axesrus

LP Style switch £1.99 from eBay

Strap Pins, String Trees, Screws scrounged

So as finishing materials don't count, although the cloth was a shiny sterling pound tops , and neither do strings I think the total spend was actually £89.70

Lovely. Though I hate too think how much time was spent, never mind how much I blew on things I didn't use in the end, postage and coffee whilst I pondered.

I do have to admit, that as I have a week left before this has to be officially complete, I might blow the rest of the budget on electronic gubbins and try and do something a bit flashy...we'll see.


The foto? oh, just the body with the LP scratchplate placed on...

Another Day, Another Donut

Well, obviously, the other day's euphoria at making a decision over the scratchplate - pickguard for our American readers, hi y'all - has given way to another change of mind. You see, I was pleased enough with it, but not, like, pleased enough, if you see what I mean.

I decided then to have another go, and that has been this morning's job. Another record bites the dust, but there you go. There were a couple of reasons for this Volte Mush, as cockernees say in Germany:

Firstly I decided that I would rather use a Les Paul type of pickup selector, rather than the Jaguar-esque slider that I had planned to go with. This was mainly because I wanted something that was a bit more on the solid side, but also because I'd used a slider on the Paisley One, and lets face it, life is too short to get in those sort of ruts.

Secondly, I just didn't like the shape. It didn't look enough like a record, too much had been taken away.

So there we are, and I am happier with the new one. The pickups and bridge pop through the plate and the record is as near intact as I could make it. The melted vinyl effect around the pickups looks better with them being surrounded too.

Other than that then, I did forget to put the screw holes in, which is a slight inconvenience, but I can do that once the paint has dried I guess.

As far as the putting-it-together goes,, the body is being readied for such interfacing at the moment and I'm aiming to have the electrics wired and ready to pop in tonight. Hopefully then, it should be playable this week, or maybe next Monday, depends how things go.


For the people who are waiting not-very-patiently for the Sophie's I've been promising, apologies, but they will be here when they arrive. The girl is always worth the wait though.

Making a Gold Record Scratchplate - Jooky Style

Well, after much messing around with cloth and velvet and suede, I thought I'd try a different approach to the whole scratchplate idea and go back to the basic idea of the guitar.

You see, we're into the last weekish of the challenge, and I've kind of gone off on tangents, as per, and so I thought it was time to go back to what the 'concept' was in the first place.

Now, I know I haven't really explained before, but with the 'Pimp One' I wanted to do some kind of tribute to the question and answer that went on between Marvin Gaye and Sly and The Family Stone in the Seventies, mainly because it was a volatile and interesting time, and in both cases they produced amazing records.

What I'm talking about is Marvin Gaye recording and releasing 'What's Going On?' - something political coming from somebody who had been seen as our standard, 'pop' act, if a really good one, that signalled a change in music and the power it had to convey what was going on, on the ground, without the hideaway easiness of the Sixties metaphors.

This was revolution, and very much symptomatic of the times, and without sounding like a dodgy NME retrospective was pretty much incredible.

As for Sly and his merry band, they answered Gaye's question with a statement of their own, the album 'There's A Riot Goin' On' complete with Stars and Stripes on the cover. This signalled a less stark approach but with words and ideas that captured the mood, even while the groove made you shake you thang

Coming back to 'The Pretty In Pimp One', I wanted this guitar to kind of capture that. On one hand it would be scorched by revolution's fires, and yet on the other it would have the whole Family Stone, pimp-esque livery of crushed velvet and gold.

This I've tried to do - the neck is tarnished and literally scorched, while the body is covered in velvet and the fittings are heavy gold.

The scratchplate though, what to do there?

Finally though, it sank in and so today I've made something that I hope will join the two sides together.

I've taken an old LP, and roughly melted a shape out of it using my trusty and now rather messy pyrography tool, gouged holes for the pickups, pots and switch and then with a nod toward two fantastic albums, painted it gold.

I like to imagine that this is how Time Life make their Best-of collections.

Anyway, you can't really see from the foto, but it does rather look like somebody had butchered a 'gold record', which was the point of all of this. It is drying at the moment, but I'll put it together later this week, let you see whether it works or not for yourself.

p.s. Yes, it was a U2 record, but what the hell, eh? Nobody is more, err, revolutionary than Che Bono

Learning The Odd Lesson Here and Over There

One thing that happened this week is that I learned a wee lesson about stuff. As I mentioned, a very nice fella bought the Paisley One, and wrapped heavily in brown paper and string, and then encased in boxes my local guitar shop donated, off it popped on the back of a DHL lorry.

I shed a little tear, our first Jooky guitar off into the world, but there we are.

Look forwards, that's the motto of the week.

Anyway, that was a week ago, and DHL's overnight service took four days and went from Bristol to Cambridge via Newcastle and god knows where else, but it showed-up. And I was pleased to hear that said new carer for the geetar thought it looked 'fantastic', which I'm chuffed about as you can no doubt imagine.

However, there was a bit of a 'but' which wasn't so good.

And the but was all about the fact that the action was very high, and more to the point that the neck was bowed.

And that this looked to be down to the neck bolts - the screws holding the neck on to the body - weren't all the way in.

The long and short of it then, and my first lesson, was that despite the fact that the Paisley One was very good for slide, it needed sorting out. Luckily, our buyer did it himself without too much trouble, and very thankful to him I am - he has been totally cool. My lesson though was that perhaps trying for added Jookiness by leaving the neck screws out a wee bit, wasn't the cleverest thing I've done.

Dumb, basically.

Saying that though, I think it may well have been OK if DHL had not bashed the parcel around - there was even a hole punched into the outer box - which brings me to my second lesson - all of our future guitars, assuming there are any, really must come with, and travel in a hardcase of some sort.

I know it makes it all cost more,
but better to get there in one piece.


Anyway, it all turned out well, but it's that easy innit?

Not Jooky Really

This isn't anything to do with Jookyland, but I got my Jazzmaster back, all gleaming of fret and intoned with grace and charm...

I can't remember if I said, but I had flatwound strings put on - I've never used them before - and they are excellent and sound great.

More to the point, despite being 12s, they are a lot easier to play than I would have thought.

In fact all of these years I have spent in awe of these jazz guitarist who seemingly play with 'difficult' flatwounds in telegraph wires gauges, were clearly wasted as the gets knew what I didn't and that is that flatwounds are easie peasie to play with compared to roundwound strings.

Its all been a con
and I fell for it.

The
dirty
stinking
flamenco
thumbed
gets.



Bireli Lagrene - Jazz guitarist, and probably couldn't cope with your average Stagg Strat-o-like.
Maybe...

Frustrating Week

Well, it started so brightly - nice little pile of Sophie's ready to be put into tins and things, The Paisley One en-route to pastures new and The Pretty In Pimp One well on it's way to going together.

Then I managed to put my back out a wee bit, abseiling in Snowdonia.
Silly really, but it was that final 300 foot drop for the cameras that did it.

OK, maybe not.
I did rick my back but  it was stretching for something on a high shelf in the pantry.
Not so glam, yet
still bloomin' painfilled,
my days have proved.

Anyway, what it meant was that sitting to solder or drill was out, so no tins of fuzz just yet, so I concentrated on sorting the scratchplate for The Pimpy One...and what a mare that has been.

Basically, this was the first attempt.

It is faux suede, meant to be golden in hue,
and soft of touch
but looked a bit dowdy to me
and apparently like a piece
of cardboard to others.

It was also quite big, and I wanted something smaller.

Next idea then was to get some gold coloured velvet, which I did
as you can see here
but that too doesn't work.

I mean, I like gaudy and that is half the point here -
the fire-burnt-neck
and the seventies gaudiness of the body
I know, I'm
very deep.

But it looks rubbish
even by my standards.

Anyway, I have a Plan C now, so later I'll try and sort that out.



Speaking of the pimpy one, I've decided against the sustainer as it doesn't really fit with what I want to do with this guitar. I'm thinking funk or vague jazziness, and that doesn't feel right.
It is going to be a pair of P100s then
with maybe something a little extra if I have the time.

Nice to improvise a tad
here
and over
there.

So there we are, less than I wanted, but can't be helped.

Sophie-is-a-coming..

Well, one more bratski at home than planned today, but I managed to have a good crack at building something for once, and the end result is that I have five - that's FIVE - Sophie's Filthy Boots fuzz boxes gubbins built, tested and ready to install in whatever they end up going into.

I'm pretty chuffed with that, and a couple at least will end-up in the tins I was on about the other week. maybe something Sex Pistols like, and maybe The Stones tin. I dunno.

I also want something a little more Jooky, and there is an old Senior Service tin I like that may join the cheeky throng.

All in all then, a productive morning. And if the postie ever deigns to show up with the gold velvet stuff, I might even manage to get a scratchplate together for the Pretty in Pimp One.

For the hundreds - OK two - people who have been asking then, you should be able to grab a piece of Sophie for your very ownsome later this week..

p.s. No, this photo has nowt to do with this post, that Sophie isn't even wearing boots - pah.

Definitely My Kipper Tie

I think I've fallen in love again....

Bit of a hen-house-raid feel to it,
but is this loverly or what?

Sorry - getting distracted

la
la
&
laaa

Slide Away

I've had a nice hour or so playing with my little Cigar Box Guitar, finally getting to grips with a bit of slide guitar in G...

I won't put anything here for you to see or hear
as it is still
painful
to listen to.

What I will say though, is that I'm going to make a couple of Jookified Cigar Boxers in the near future, and if anybody wants to buy one, I am definitely going to have to talk to those fine people at Diamond Bottlenecks who make the most gorgeous slides ever, as I will definitely be throwing one of their slides in as part of the deal.

I am sooo very market trader.

The slides are beautiful though.
I lurve mine
and
NO
I don't get anything for mentioning them.

And I bought my own slide
ages ago.





If you like slidey blues guitar, you should check them out at Diamond Bottlenecks, don't feel you have to wait for a freebie from yours truly..

Rough Finishing, For Your Pleasure

I have spent a pleasant few hours over the last couple of days, burning a guitar neck with matches.

And, it has to be said, my fingers.

Odd behaviour?

Well maybe, but it is for the Pretty In Pimped One.
It is all about Revolution, baby, I wanted the neck to show signs of riot and Molotov's cocktails. I wanted it scorched and so it is.

Anyway, this has taken days to do it right, just how I wanted it, but I got there and it has been set in place by six or seven coats of lacquer - it is setting now and after loads of care and attention to detail, what with the staining and sanding before..it now very much looks as though it has been through hard times.

Not a relic, something different to that which will contrast with the velvet body and generally tell a story for itself.

I thought I had better mention this as it probably explains a wider point about all of the Jooky stuff we're doing. I figured that I should probably explain this somewhere, as it is basically the 'core guiding principal' to this whole Jookiness of Being.

Our 'Brand Values' and any other bobbins name you want to describe what-we-are-about.


But where to start...? 

Thinking about it, it is probably easier to spot on the amps - old cigarette and cigar boxes, bit rusty around the edges - very nice and Mojo-filled, if you'll excuse the lapse into cliche-ridden-verbiage.


But on the guitars we are planning to make, it might be a bit more difficult.

You see the whole idea is to take second-hand bits, whatever they are - guitar parts or old tin cans - and turn them into something usefully cool and sometimes groovy.


Not because we want to be recyclers to the stars,
more out of an arty-up-our-own-bums kind of conceptual way.


That is why there is only going to be one of anything,
and everything can be  

displayed  

as easily as  

played.

Don't get me wrong, we want people to play them
and buy them - which is why we are keeping the prices very-un-boutique-like and cheap.

But that is money and not my point.

So for instance, looking at the Paisley One. It looks quite home-made, and the finish is quite rough. The odd screw is missing, the scratchplate is slightly raised and the cloth is runkled around the edges somewhat.

Rough finished, I call it and that is what I mean.

You see, like the Pretty in Pimped One, we took a lot of time making the Paisley One look quite that dishevelled. And if you think that is a cop out, I think looking at the care we take elsewhere with the guitar would prove you wrong.


The guitar itself is ‘rough finished’, but it was all planned and the bits that really matter have the care needed.

What we mean by that, is that it is intended to be serviceable, and work correctly, but that we deliberately aim for a home-made feel.

For example, we have no logo on the headstock, and the name of the guitar is simply written with a marker pen and then burned into the wood using a pyrography tool.

If you lift the scratchplate, you will see that the electronics for the ‘Fuzz’ circuits are contained in an Old England’s Glory matchbox.

Similarly, the scratchplate is fixed with screws but lifts slightly at the top and bridge ends. The four neck ‘bolts’ are fixed but not completely level. And of course the cloth that covers the body and scratchplate don’t have a pristine finish around the edges.

On the flip-side, the guitar has been fully shielded and star-grounded, the cloth has had fourteen treatments to turn it pliable, and then six coats of clearcoat and the neck has been sanded and stained. The Suhr shape to the headstock however, is pure chance – that is just how it arrived.

In summary the Jookiness is deliberate, and by design.

It's art baby, but you can play a nice tune too.

I'm not on a high horse
just figured
it would be better
said.

*

Elsewhere, I have a tender tear in my eye.

Not quite sure where to stand or what to do.

It is a sad day
when they stretch their wings..

One of the kids is leaving home
when the courier arrives.

Obviously, I made sure she was wrapped up well.
They grow, so very quick.

Dumber and Dumbest

I really wish I could count.
1-2-3-4-5
Should be simple, no?
I should be able to do it.

Why?
You may ask.

Well, a couple of weeks back I had five or six guitars, maybe seven, I forget.
I've sold a few
and my Jazzmaster is still being repairified
my Cigar Box Guitar still only has three strings
which is good
but I want to play something jangly,
not fretlessly slidey
and basically
I've realised that

I don't have a guitar to play.

The Paisley One is boxed and ready to go tomorrow
The Pretty In Pimped One is still in pieces
and I can't find an acoustic I'm sure
it
is
here
some..
.
.
.
w
h
e
r
e
?

I also have built a couple of Sophie's Fuzzy Boots
and have no way
of testing them
to see
if
they
work.

Like I say
Dumbest
is
as
Dumber
does.

Edit: I've just remembered that the slidey three stringer is electronicified, and I can play with the Sophie Triplets in the morning...cool.

Plans for the day - Bizzy bizzy bizzy

Well, Tuesday already - where does the time go? And I've got stuff to do if this Jooky little world of mine is going to flourish

La la la.

OK, firstly - I'm going to finish the Velvetificaton of the Hundred quidder, I need to get on with it.
I plan to finish that today then. The velvet, not the whole shebangabooloo.

Secondly, I've realised the posting box for The Paisley One has been turned into a Fire Engine with windows ripped in and other modifications, which leave it somewhat unfit for purpose.
So I need to get a replacement box from somebody nice in a local music shop.

Thirdly, tomorrow morning is my one chance this week to do a bit of soldering - kid free - on the amp/effect front, and so I need to dig all the parts out and make sure I'm ready to go and have everything I need. It would be nice to get at least a couple of them up on the site as it feels a bit silly now, a shop with nowt to sell. Not that I'm complaining folks.

Fourthly, I'm investigating pickups for a future project - on-line that is.

Something that sounds like this would be nice...

National Jimi Hendrix Day

Well, I guess it was always going to be the way.

In case you have been living in a cesspit at the back of a particularly dank and dark cave with extremely reticent neighbours, a 'New' Jimi Hendrix album has been released today called 'Valleys of Neptune' which is meant to be pretty special.


I must admit I'm looking forward to hearing it - Spotify here I came in a few minutes - but I do wonder how many more tapes they are going to dig up...

Anyway, as I say, no surprise really then to find that today is the day that somebody bought our own wee Hendrix-esque-backhanded-tribute, The Paisley One.


Now don't get me wrong, I'm pleased in lots of ways - I feel like we're on the right track, it 'validates' the whole Jooky thing and I don't know what else. But to be honest, I'm feeling equally sad, as it is a lovely guitar and it is the first Leona guitar we've made.

And now it is about to be gone, Sophie Fuzz and all.

Ah well, it should be on it's way tomorrow and there we are.

We've now got absolutely nothing at all for sale as well.
Better get me finger out.

Doo-doo-da-dahhhh






p.s. I love the comment on YouTube about this video that says,
'this song is about LSD, and thats a fact.'

Tailor Made or Further Adventures In The Use of Fabric In the Making of a Guitar for Not-a-Lot of Money

Well, with another can of spray glue, I decided to trudge on and sort the front out too...not complete as the sides will need a fair bit of tidying-up, but hopefully you'll start to see the general idea.

The scratchplate is still the gold suedette thing I made, but I'm not sure whether we'll end-up with that. All seems a bit tasteful at the moment, I fear, and more to the point quite thick. I'm wondering whether I can find something better to be honest.

Other things - you might notice a single coil type cover at the neck. This is to indicate the Sustainer, but who knows...time will tell I guess.

I've also gone further with the smokification of the neck and scorched the headstock - and my fingers - in the process.

I have to say, it doesn't look much like a Telecaster to me anymore...

All part of the plan
kind of.

Monday Mourning

Well, another week and it has started well with the plumber taking a couple of hundred quid off me before breakfast...

Kind of sets you up for the week,
truly it does.

All of which probably explains why I finished the remainder of the chiseling quite so quickly and with-vigour, as the instruction book may say. I really should know the Latin for that, but don't.

Anyway, I decided that removing enough rather than all of the wood, was a good idea, so that is what I did. Both pickups will nuzzle in quite nicely if that is the way I go, or there is plenty of space for sustaineresque gubbins if that is my eventual truth.

Feeling kind of funky again then, I covered the back of the guitar with green velvet, as planned, and very nice it looks too, I think even the Reverend Ian would agree.

I may however, have done a bit too much practice as I've run out of the spray glue now, but I can get more. I'm resourcefilled like that.

I'll pick some up later and see if I can velveteenify the sides and front of the Pimpy one by nightfall.


Game on then,
if brassic.

A-Pimping-We-Will-Go

Yep, finally got off me backside and did a bit more on the £100 guitar thingie...though to be honest I do feel like I'm drifting a wee bit.

What I did today, was change direction a little on the neck as the oiled version just looked a bit neat. Instead of going with the prissy-teen, I've rough sanded it back and have now decided to re-oil it, but this time it is coming out with a dirty, slightly streaked look.

OK, not an obvious thing to do, and it really isn't an attempt at producing a relic. The idea is that I wanted something that looked a bit beaten up and maybe even burned around the edges, as far as the neck goes...hopefully why will become clearer later on.

To follow this through, I've named the headstock, burning that in as well with the old burny-thing I used before on The Paisley One. I've also got a contrast in mind that will tie things together, but there is procurement involved with a teeny budget, so that needs to be juggled.

As for the body, I've half-chiseled things out there and I'll hopefully have that completed before I put this on the web site - if there is a foto, you'll know I did...though actually, as it turns out,I didn't.

What I did do was fit the nice gold tuners at a jaunty angle, although I couldn't find the goldy coloured string trees, so they will follow-on afterwards.

As far as the do-I-or-don't-I-use-a-sustainer dilemma, I'm still not sure on whether I will or whether I'll use the two P100s. I guess it will come down to time really. I'll try and get the rest of the guitar put together as soon as I can, and if there is time to do the Sustainer, I will, if not it'll be the twin pickups.

Though I've got the Octaver I never used on the Paisley One as well, 
Hmmmm....

Decisions, decisions.

Always the slowest part,
for me.

It's a Self Indulgent Mythtery

I'm having one of those days where you are just stuck in doors, but can't even get into the garage to do anything useful as you are waiting for a plumber/heating engineer to come and bring warmth into your house as the boiler packed in.

You know the sort of thing.

Anyway, rather fed-up of Handy Manny and Special Agent Oso - looking after pre-schoolers is such fun - I thought I'd have a go at making Robert Fripp sorts of sounds, you know something Tangerine.

Grabbing The Paisley One - which I fear I won't be playing much longer - and the old Korg Pandora I got off somebody the other week, I settled down to have a go.

Although, I forgot he is a really good guitar player
and I'm not so
much of
one.

So I went for the Synth sounds on the Pandora - which are good fun - and ended-up attempting some songs by Toyah instead.

*sigh*

Always liked Toyah, even if she is a tad earnest.

Bless her little punky socks

Bluesy McFloozy

I guess you may have guessed by now that I quite like listening to, and cackhandedly-playing The Blues. I've been playing guitar for twenty-odd years now, and despite coming from the general direction of indie-land, everybody seems to end-up playing the blues eventually.

A sign of getting old, I guess, or maybe it is just that as your synapses atrophy you can't handle more than five notes.

Either way, despite being rather rubbish, I keep trying - or more to the point getting books and magazines and learning next to nothing from them, before moving on to the next disappointment. And so I was rather chuffed to come across this cool site 12 Bar Blues Guitar  which has the unlikely combination these days of being both good and free.

I was actually looking for information about Clapton's Beano guitar, but found the chords and tab for the Mayall album instead, which is probably far more interesting.

Anyway, I like the Beano and used to be in Dennis The Menace's fan club, so I just thought I'd mention it..

A Chipping and a Chopping

Well, I figured that as Day 3 had arrived, I might as well do something about the hundred quid thing, and so I tackled the bit I always dread the mostest - the woodwork.

Not that I'm doing anything flash or clever - though I expect some of the other 'participants' will be dusting off timber they laid down in the seventies for such an eventuality as this. Nope, my woodwork requirements are limited to a few minor  tweaks to accommodate the gubbins that I'm using that isn't particularly Tele designed.

First of these was the holes for the tuners. I've got some nice Wilkinson ones I got for a fiver off eBay, but they are too big for the existing holes.

I read around and apparently I should:

'Carefully ream the holes out, taking care to rotate the hand reamer in the direction of the grain'.

That sounded simple enough, so I got an Electric Drill - these still scare me and I wish I had a handraulic one, but I haven't, so there we go. Anyway, I got the drill and tried a few different drilly bit things until one of them made a hole that would let the tuner peg go through, and then repeated another five times. Lovely.

Next, was the bridge and tailpiece. As both of these are more archtop suited, I wasn't surprised to have to make a couple of adjustments. Again I expect I should have used something full of voodoo to do the actual hole making, but once more an electric drill did the trick, and as you can see on the foto, the ABR bridge thing snugly dropped it lovely like.

On a bit of a run here, I thought, and so I pushed on.

The next thing I wanted to do was reshape the headstock a wee bit. The original was slightly odd looking to me, and I wanted to soften the edges a touch. To do this I got a steak knife and did the first bit of whittling I've attempted since I sliced my knee open trying to carve a tent peg, around about the time of the Silver Jubilee.

Actually, the headstock now looks a lot like that tent peg, thinking about it.

Once that was a nicer shape and smoothed with some sandpaper, I gave the rest of the neck a wee sand too, to try and remove the light varnish that was on there. I'm not sure if I said before, but the neck is a light, and insipid colour, so I had decided to Danish Oil it. To give it a nicer hue and bring the grain out a bit.

As it turned out, the varnish was about a micron thin, so no problems removing it. The foto shows the headstock and neck with a first coat of Danish. I'll do a few more over the next day or two. I have also got some quite treacly varnish, but I think I'll stick with the oil to be honest.

One final job, is to route out the body so that I can fit the P100s or Sustainer electronic gubbins in. Again, on the foto I've marked out the wood I'll be removing, as well as the scratchplate outline - well, roughly anyway.

I've had a quick look at doing this, and my trusty chisels seem up to the job, but I tell you what, I don't know what wood this is made from, but it is rock solid. Nothing like the lightweight stuff the Paisley One is made of, that took a few minutes to route out, this might entail hard work.

Bearing the work angle in mind, I'll maybe do it tomorrow, depending on time and all that. You can't push yourself too hard, after all.

So there we are, Day 3 and we're in the biz. Lovely.

Ghosts In The Machine - Delta Guitars

One thing I try to do with this wee blog, is flag up other interesting things, people and places.

Mainly because I haven't got that much to say that would be seen as interesting myself.


Over the last few months, I've been 'following' a chap on the Music Radar forums, who has been publicly designing and defining a new guitar, that he plans to have made. Incorporating peoples' suggestions and ideas, that sort of thing.

As a result, his guitar design has evolved before the eyes of everybody interested and is excellent looking, it has to be said. He is now at the stage where he has got a 'Proof-of-Concept- built, and has been clever enough to get it made by a top notch luthier, which means it is a real-deal kind of guitar.

He has even put together a prototypical web site so that you can play and pick your own features, for a custom version of the guitar, you might one day want to buy for yourself.

You can have a go HERE.

The foto at the top of the page is one I fancied...

The long term plan is, I think, that he will sell the guitars in kit form but with guitar techs local to you available to put it together 'properly' if you so wish.

Now if I was being cynical I'd say that all of this is a masterclass in new media web marketing - and if the chap is that cleverly-cynical, well, good luck to him, he is very good at it, and nobody seems to mind.

However, it is all about guitars as far as I am concerned and even if he is being cute on the marketing side, I don't really care as the end result is proving to be quite lovely and he seems a decent geezer anyway, so good luck to him.

You really should have a play on the web page if you have a minute and keep an ear out for Delta Guitars and The Ghost, methinks it could prove to be something special.

Three Weeks, 21 days, 504 hours, 30240 seconds...

I hate waiting.

I know I've got lots of other things to get on with, but I find myself wandering around and not really achieving too much.

You see, I've put my day-to-day-player of a guitar in for a 'service', and it isn't going to be back for three weeks.

Sounds daft, I've got other guitars around the place, despite my recent declutter, but it is my '89 or '90 - I forget which - Fender Jazzmaster that I usually grab for, for those in-between-moments.
I mean, it isn't having loads done. A bit of a fret dress, a general check over and I've gone for a set of flat wound Fender strings, as I'd read in a couple of places that they make sense, and were what the JM was originally designed for.

Don't know if that is true, but I was curious.

I'm going for heavier strings too - 12s as opposed to my usual 9s, and so everything else is being tweaked to accommodate.


Bit of a nothing post this really
kinda wistfilled.

Sorry about that.

I'll do something in a minute
really
I will.

Edit: Something to cheer me up....the slightly faster live version, luverly.

£100 Challenge - Day One

Well, nobody else seems to be doing anything yet, but I think today marks the start of the Music Radar Forum, £100 Challenge thing, and as I'll no doubt be going on about it for the next month, I figured marking the event would be good.

Saying that, it is more of a non-event as I probably won't do anything today.

But before the 4th of April, I plan to have built a guitar with parts costing less than a ton.

It is as simple as that,
truly.

If you look over there, you will see all of the parts, and they have cost me less than a hundred quid, so as long as I get it built,
lovely.

I'm in the quid seats.

For the record then, I've bought a cheap telecaster clone, flogged all the bits off it and plan to pimp it up - with the emphasis being on the pimping, using velvet, gold, gold and more gold.

I have Gibson P100 pickups, and am aiming to put a DIY sustainer on it too, assuming I have the time and can turn my Heath & Robinson, Jookified R&D into something that will last longer than the battery once it is stuck to a guitar.


Other than that, I was going to call it "Nouveau Riche One", but I think "The Pretty In Pimp One", is more fitting.

There are also lots of other people building guitars too, so I'll put links to them and their work as we go along.

Lovely.