Early Morning Mourning

Could I really finish something?

Finally, today after much messing around by UPS, the Royal Mail should be delivering the Loveless One to Sean, who snaffled it oh-so-quickly. I hope he likes it, I certainly do.

I must admit, the T-Topped pickup and P90 combo certainly caught me. It really was a striking sounding guitar and I have to admit I'm missing  it big time already. Looked amazing too, but the sound was right on the edge, even thru my little Blackstar babushka and I can't think of anything else I've played that sounded quite as sweet as it.

Actually, maybe I hope he won't like it and I can have it back again..

Other than the mourning, The Lulu One has been lacquered, looks great and just needs to be put together, soldered and generally alchemised. Though I haven't got a clue what I've done with the nut, if I'm being honest, and the tuners too, thinking about it. It is looking cool mind, it has to be said and I'm itching to get it finished..Teles always seem like proper guitars to me. Maybe me roots are showing.

Moving on, The Blue Moon One needs to be soldered in a big way, but that isn't kiddy friendly in the activity stakes, so will have to wait for a tender moment. Still, I might manage to sneak a half an hour here or there and get it done. Fingers crissed.

But none of these jobs are really plannable as young kids + hot soldering irons = bad mix.

So what to do between requests for drinks/food, visits to parks and all the other stuff on the agenda for this week?

Well, I figured that as I now have the lovely, loverly Fender Custom '69 pickups, the paisley to hand and a deep seated love for all thing offset - I might as well start on The Pink Panther One. The paisley I have is gorgeous and I've been thinking a long time about how to make the best of it. Not sure I have a suitable neck, but we'll see. I do like the idea of the Fender pickups, and they get rave reviews, and as I have a lovely Strat body or two around the place, maybe I'm being a tad perverse putting them in a 'different' guitar, but then who cares if I'm being honest. It's only an outline, after all.

(I do realise at this point that I should be careful, given my tendency to start lots of things and end-up finishing none of them, but what can you do? Multiple viewings of the Garfield movie aren't grabbing me overly, it has to be said.)

So where to begin? Well, as I've mentioned a few times over the last six months or so, I'm struggling with shaky hand syndrome a fair bit, which makes soldering a tad chore-like. I'm OK with small amounts, but it isn't easy and can be verily frustrating, particularly when there are three or four wires going to a small area, like a pot or switch or something. I've been thinking about this a lot, and have finally come to the conclusion that I should come-up with a different way of doing things that works better for me.

Initially I was thinking some kind of socket/plug idea, which would work, but to be honest I'm not sure that given the fact that guitars tend to get thrown around a bit, they would hang together as well as a properly soldered joint. It's still an option though, and I've used it for convenience here and there - mainly to connect switches in Les Pauls, I have to say.

Another alternative I've tried is connecting all of the ground wires to a single point - a washer - that then goes out to the jack socket. This works well and simplifies connections elsewhere - 'Star grounding' as it's known, but I can't help but think it is only solving half a problem.

My latest thought then is to use a bit of strip board, so that all of the grounds, lives and everything else are connected in a planned order. This seems a good idea, and I'm going to try that later on if I get a chance.

Why mention this? Well, I can't sleep and this is what goes thru my head in the early hours of the morning. Sad innit?

While I'm talking about under the hood, somebody had posted a link on Music Radar to a site that gave a  great tip on adding a 'fuzz' effect to a guitar that is passive - not needing a battery. I can't say I know how well it will work, but I do fancy trying this on the Blue Moon One. Basically it means that the tone control turns into a Fuzz control. Full on is no fuzz, full off is total fuzz. I only need a diode, which I should have around somewhere, though maybe a LED would work, and I have tons of those. Pondering again...

But there we are, probably a few weeks work to keep me busy and despite the fact I know I will only be able to snatch minutes here and there for the next couple of weeks, I still delude myself that I will have everything done by Friday...

Go figure.

La la laaaaa