A Bit of a Ronin Sore

Well, as we seem to be back in the land of 'ware de vapour at the moment, I thought I'd sort out in my bonce just what I'm doing with The Ronin One as my bonce is done in.

For those of you that have forgotten the tales of long ago woe, this is an old 70s or 80s Japanese copy of a Gibson Marauder and jolly nice it is too. It has a solid maple body - and man you know it, a guitar the word 'heft' was designed for - with a maple/rosewood neck that is quite lovely, complete with a pointed flying vee-esque headstock.

As with the original it is a bolt-on neck, not that that is much of a worry and it feels like something John Shaft would have swinging around his neck down Madame Jojo's, assuming he'd run out of go-go dancers and ladies of the night. He's a bad motha, after all.

Obviously that is just a starting point, as when I got hold of it, it was a sadly neglected body and neck combo of ill-repute and a lack of shoutable family values.

From there of course it has had a beautifully corroded copper finish inflicted upon it, along with a Gibson scratchplate, a pair of authentically cool and rather enormous looking 1978 stamped Gibson pickups, which will be wired with the usual volume and tone knobs and a more unusual blend pot instead of the three-way switch the plonked together foto is showing you. Some of the originals used a switch and others used a blender, and I think I'm probably doing it the wrong way around for this particular model, but what the hell. I've never tried a blend thingy before and this seems fitting somehow.

And it is a chance to use a Chicken Head Knob for the first time on a Jooky guitar.

And what geek can ever turn down a Chukkie Headed Knob, I ask you?

(Maybe somebody can ask that at the next Apple iExpo.)

Whatever. Rather handily the Gibson pickups and scratchplate all fit perfectly, which is more than I could claim for the harmonica bridge thing which basically doesn't, and has proven to be the Peter Crouch in the corps de dancers de limbo. Or something.

So what I need to do to fix this (having zero chance of finding a bridge that does actually fit - and believe me I have left no pebble unskittered searching for an easy way out,) is to plug the existing holes and drill new ones. Of course a pillar drill comes in handy for the latter, which I'm still waiting for, as you need the holes to be straight, let's face it and the chances of me managing to do that 'by eye' are reedy slim.

What I can do now, I've just realised, is cut out and fill the incumbent bridge post holes, that is the new plan d'hoof. I can also put some new tuners on and wire the scratchplate now I come to think about it...so that is the newly minted intention du jour, and if the drill ever materialises, I should be able to finish it off quick smart. And that is plain unlikely.

Blimey, I never thought I'd actually be doing something today. I've talked meself into it.

There is good reason for wanting to get this done, of course, I just forget what it is right now.

La la laa