Rambling Rose...

Well, I was really chuffed yesterday. Firstly, the Novatron (resonator meets Leslie pickup) arrived from the excellent Wizard Pickups in record time. I raved about the service from Catswhisker a while back, and Wizard have proved to be equally good.

The Rusting Nail One - Before it rusted.
So that would be The Nail One, then.

I ordered the pup on Thursday night, got a fone call Friday with the news it wouldn't really work well with a Strat. Instantly changed my mind and decided to put it into a SG instead...and then it was wound, wrapped lovingly and delivered first thing on Monday morning. In fact the post arrived three hours earlier than normal too. Which is more miraculous than magnifique. If it sounds half as good as the service, I'm going to be mighty pleased indeedy.

Anyway, that gave me a kick as far as The Rusting Nail One goes, and it received a liberal coating of iron paint today. The paint is basically a lacquer I think but with fine iron powder in it that is still 'active' and will rust. I believe it is because the iron bits stick out of the top somehow and are exposed to the elements, which is how Gold Tops are done but with bronze powder. I may have that wrong.

Once that is dry I've got some gubbins that speeds up the rustiness, which I'm going to apply over the top. In practise it worked well, though not as quickly as advertised, but there we are. Some things are worthy of a decent wait, after all. The foto shows it after the first coat. I've decided to use a brush for the paint as I wanted a bit of an uneven surface when I come to the rusting - bit more texture. Whether that is a good move or not we'll see I guess.

The Red or Dead One from behind

Once we're looking rusty, I'm going to nitro lacquer it thinly and then go for a bit of a craqueluer  finish on top for a bit of craziness. I've ordered a different type of crazing bobbins as the other wasn't as good as I hoped, so this will be the place to try it.

After that it will be a P90 and Novatron combo for the pickups, a bit of work on the neck and then hopefully it will all come together simply.

Unlike the Blue Moon One which I still haven't started again today, but am trying not to think about that right now as I'm in a good mood.


The other fotos show me starting to gild The old 70s Jaguar copy I got. It is in fact (I'm told) a bit of a rarity and was made by Conrad between '68 and '78 in Japan at the same factory that was making Tokai guitars. Whether that is true, I don't know, but it is a very nice guitar body/neck so that'll do me whether it was made in a sweatshop in Tipton last week.

Either way it is getting a variegated red/gold finish with a matching headstock just for the hell of it like. For the pickups I've been offered a set of olde worlde single coils from a Hayman guitar (which has a similar lineage to my Shergold), which I am being tempted by. Though maybe I should think about putting them in the Shergold - Hmmm. Why didn't I think about that earlier

The Red or Dead One - Matching Headstock Folly?

In other news, I had a couple of peeps asking about the Beaton One, and mainly about the 'giving it away part'. I do intend to, but I think there will be a twist there somewhere, just haven't decided what.

Still as far as that baby goes, the change of spec means more parts shopping, so it will be a few weeks before I think about that anyway.

The Futuristic One is still available though, and rather lovely it is too... Not that I need to sell it to buy more weird and wonderful parts or anything...

La la la