Planning a Route To Hartlepool

Well, I've finally decided what I'm going to do with The Hartlepool One, my Semi--AcousticDanoesque jobby, and I think it will be fun.

From the top:

1. A solid korina centre block. I wanted a good basis and this should give it. My plan is simple, and the neck, bridge and pickup will all be nailed onto it at one point or another, which will hopefully give all those resonance, sustain and synchronicity words true meaning to me. Suddenly.

2. Around this Korina kernel (I'm making up my own technical terms now), the body shape will be made from a ring of confidence, or at least some side bits of wood cut to shape, with the top and bottom being cut out of quarter inch thick wooden board stuff. And then all stuck together with chewing gum and faint hope, like a proper Dano should be.

OK, I might use glue, though I am tempted to put a ring of copper nails around the edge for a real Cold War look to it. We'll have to see.

3. The neck is going to be my favourite big headed Strat, with a nice set of Grover tuners.

4. The bridge will be a hardtailed Strat type  for intonational goodness.

5. The pickup will be a single Mojo Pickups Filtertron, with tone and volume knobs to twizzle and twoddle.

6. As for the shape of the guitar, after mucho deliberation, this is going to be Vox Teardrop inspired, and for a change of direction I think I'm going back to my roots and painting it by hand in acrylics. I used to do this a lot (I am such an artist) so it will be fun to do it on a guitar, I've sort of avoided it so far, but this is a bit of a new direction across the Jooky map, so what the hell.

And there we are

Obviously there are a few woodwork bits I need to get my head around but the neck socket is the key for me and If I start with a long plank of Korina, and keep going until I do one right, there might be enough wood left for the rest of it.

I also have to think about things like measurements, which is novel. I normally use a bit of string with knots in it and a school 6-inch ruler if I'm getting technical.

La la laaaa