Music Radar £100 Challenge 2011 - And So There Were Three

Well, I said I'd show you the final entries, and I guess as was always going to be the way of things, a few people fell at the last and it ended-up with only three chaps completing the course. The best thing of course with this kind of thing is that you see how people's minds work, and pick-up a few innovative tips from others doing something similar to yourself. But like a lot of good things - it is the finishing that counts, however Heath Robinson it has to be to cross the line.

Well, I know what I mean.

Anyway, pretty pictures:

First up is a lovely looking Bass put together by StickyFiddle, a diamond geezer, who always seems to be selling guitars I want when I can't afford them... I like him anyway.

Things to note include

- the rather groovy placement of the knobs,

- the wicked bridge - Gotoh I think, and

- the wonderfilled bubble of goodness that is the logo on the headstock.

- The neck and headstock are all nitro finished and all.

The second, and it has to be said quite sneaky last minute entry, coming down the rails like a bat out of hades was Casperh7 (it's a family name) with his quite beautifully green Ibanez/Little Stevie Vai  inspired chunk of slick necked superstadiumstarduststardum.

This has been a serious bit of work, check out

- The shaped headstock and design features in that neck o' the woods

- The green nitro finished body - quite beautifully done

- The array of pickups and covers. Wonderfully eclectic, and

- The rather pinkish knobs - hence the Vai mention of course.


Thirdly of course, was my own wee effort - The Golden Shower One, which I've mentioned before.
Since then though, I've changed the knobs, as you can see and will probably tweak it a bit more (tuners/nut that sort of thing) in that eternal search for tone. Or maybe to minimise the buzzing and reduce the 1/4" action a bit..

But anyway, it sounds far better than it has any right to and the gold...

*sigh*

I'm in lust, it has to be said and admitted.

And so there we are, the second year I've made the grade. And they are all winners, as it is truly the taking part that counts.

OK, I'm only playing the right-on card as if there had been a judge I realise mine would probably have come 3rd out of the three, but

do I care?

Will it make me try harder next time?

Nahhhh...


StickyFiddle, Casperh7 - I salute thee...

Introducing The Golden Shower One

Well, February may be the shortest month and full of distractions, but somehow I managed to put together the Golden Shower One, just about within the timescale of the Music Radar Forum's £100 challenge.

For the record it is a Gold Topped Les Paul-a-like, with twin P90s, a trapeze tailpiece and a good dose of Jookiness...

The gold is actually 23 Karat 'Russian' Gold Leaf - which is the real deal and a true 'pleasure' to work with.

The golden top has been heavily lacquered.

The pickups are two humbucker sized Kent Armstrong P90s, one of which is reverse wired so that the middle position is hum-free, apparently.

The tailpiece is a nod to the original Golden Les Pauls, before they started using Tune-o-Matics and the rest.

I've left the ToM holes in place unfilled, as well, I liked the idea of them still being there and visible.

The gold leaf, I should mention has over 'run' across the sides of the guitar and on the headstock. This is the nod to the 'shower' part of the name, over-spill as it were - one for all you glass coffee table warriors.

Other than that, it has a brass nut, PRS tuners - though I might upgrade them to be totally honest - and that is about that.

Sound-wise, it is great, the P90s are excellent and considering it is a bolt-on neck with god knows what sort of body, it has a quite amazing sustain to it.

Best of all, parts-wise it was well under the £100 (although that is mainly down to flogging parts off two donor guitars, but there we are..) and in fact came in at a stunning £49.

I should say, this is one I'm keeping :) It's about time I had my own Jooky guitar...

Here are loads more fotos and I'll link to some of the other people's entries later on...

Before the Goldrush

Well, school holibobs have kept me quiet again, but sneaking in an hour or so today I should just about get the Golden Shower One all ready to play. It is the last day of the challenge, so I guess I'd better really.

Fotos to follow along with trumpets and an Oscar-esque speech explaining my motivation and the debt I owe to others..

Speaking of influence, I was humbled to see that a former lead singer of my acquaintance, lets call him 'Tony' for the sake of anonymity and well, because it is his name. Where was I? Oh yes. Influence.

Well, imagine how pleased and proud I was when "Tony" decided that if a numpty like me could make a mess of guitars, he was quite capable of doing the same too. This he did, enlisting his kids and their paint box and he came up with a quite wonderful looking splatter caster (for want of a better name). A single Di Marzio humbuckered Strat with a unique and quite compelling paint job...

I love it and naturally wish I'd done it first. Well, before John Squire anyway.

He's moving on to a Les Paul next, which knowing the chap will be equally groovy.

So "Tony" welcome to Jookyland...

Getting closer, like

Well, I'm twiddling my thumbs over the Golden Shower One at the moment, as in a last minute piece of dithering, I decided to go for two Kent Armstrong P90s, instead of one plus a humbucker. Mainly  because I thought it would look nicer that way. I am truly that shallow.

Anyway, I'm waiting for it to show up, but in the meantime have done far more work on the neck than I ever expected, sorted the headstock, fitted the tuners and added a nice brass 'nut'. I've never used a brass nut before, so I'm curious to hear what it sounds like. I have a bone one here somewhere if it proves to be a disaster, but we will see, what we shall see...and all that.

What else? Oh I went for a traditional looking creamy scratchplate, for period accuracy (ahem).

So there we are, and not a lot left to do other than wire it up when the pickup arrives and then get it all playing nicely. I think I'll hit the end of month deadline anyway...

The finish on the body, I forgot to mention, got a bit more scraping and a lot more polishing and looks absolutely amazing now. I'm really pleased with it. So I did the headstock too, which looks sufficiently battered to be cool.

La la laaa

More of a Golden Drizzle So Far

Well, I've not done much else - like find the parts so that I can finish the Daisy Jook One, for instance, but I have moved the Golden Shower One in the right direction.

As you can see in the fotos, the gold foil on the body has been finished - initially this was a tidy-up exercise, fill a few gaps, remove some extraneous bobbins that were floating around, generally pukka it up.

Next there was a lot of 'burnishing' which again helped a lot and brought out a really deep 'lustre', as it were.

After that, of course, I added a bit of wear to it all, just so it looked suitably old and well used. The rest of the guitar does, so it would have looked silly if I hadn't.

Yesterday saw many, many, many, many, many and a few more coats of lacquer being applied, as lets face it 22 carat gold isn't the strongest, and it would be nice to protect it a wee bit.

For the first time I also used a drying technique that I had had recommended that worked wonderfully. (A heater in the freezing cold garage where I had done me spraying, like).

Anyway, in this case I've gone pure poly for the lacquer which means that by late last night, it was dry and solid and looking - imho - amazing. 24 hours later it is perfect and doesn't even smell too bad now.

And I don't kid myself much, but this really does look fantastic. Nowhere near as tacky as I imagined, just really classy and deep and very old.

I'm in love (so be ready for more of such things popping up at a later date.)

As you can see, being a bit excitably challenged I tramped on and fitted the tailpiece and bridge and for the benefit of the fotos, plonked on the switch, neck pickup and knobs.

Can you see what it is yet?

The neck pickup I can't wait to hear - it is a Kent Armstrong humbie sized P90 - with a creamy plastic cap, so with the surround it is probably as close to a soapbar as I'm going to get.

For the bridge pickup - I'm still waiting on that. It will either be a Seymour Duncan JB, which I think will give me the whole Les Paul BFG kind of thing, or maybe a Dimarzio Super Distortion or PAF Pro - all depending on how I want this thing to sound in the end. All three have their pluses and downsides, but as I paid different chunks of change for each of them, and this is a challenge, of course, it might come down to the budget. We'll have to see.

Anyway...

Gilt-Wrapped

All a bit work-in-progress, but I've just gold plated the front of The Golden Shower One, and am waiting for it to dry so that I can tidy it up and then coat it with some lacquer or Teflon or something that might keep it in place for a while...

What do you reckon?
Cheesy?
Tacky?

Cool.




Other than that, I'm in a bit of a juggle at the moment about the parts. I've got a seriously nice yet amazingly cheap P90 for the neck position, but am lacking in the bridge pickup department. (I want a nice PAF type of thing, but it is proving tricky to stay within the budget.)


The other thing is that I got hold of an amazingly cool multi-fx to try and include, but it would leave me pennies to buy the other pickup, and more to the point I'm not really sure how it will fit into the guitar now that I know routing isn't really too much of a runner...
All a bit tricky really. Hmmm...

Still, gammon, as they say somewhere.

Getting Golden

Well, I know that I tend to spend my days covering guitars in beautiful fabrics and generally getting all poncy and arty about the whole thing, and if I'm honest I've never really got into spraying guitars, as well basically *everybody* does that, don't they? Boring, boring and lacking individuality.

However, I did in fact spray a guitar with paint today, and I am rather pleased with the results, even after a couple of coats.

As you can see with a wave or lots of my wrist, paint can in hand, I have indeed gone alchemist and turned my cherry sunburst Satellite Les Paul into a wondrous Gold Top. I don't know why I didn't think of doing such things before.




Anyway, if you look close you'll notice a lack of P90 routings. This isn't because I forgot (totally). Rather, my router buggered up, and so I was going to use a chisel or two, but looking at the guitar closely, my eagle eye noticed that the maple (?) top was quite thin and in fact not actually connected to the body as a whole - kinda bent over the top rather than carved to shape.

It sounds great, so I'm not worried, but I thought hitting it with a hammer might be pushing my luck somewhat.

Sooo...pickups-wise, I'm going to try and find a nice humbucker-sized P90 for the neck and a humbucker-sized, err, humbucker for the bridge. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem, but as the challenge is limited to £100 for parts, I need to work out where I stand. Hmmm.

The on board electronic multi-fx is looking unlikely now, I have to admit.

Still, when the paint dries good and hard I'll be having a go at gold-leafing it...that no doubt will be where my troubles really begin.

Getting Challenging

So, it's February is it? Time to get on with ye olde Golden Shower One, I guess.

Good job that I've pretty much got all the bitsunbobs then.

The 24Karat gold showed up today along with all sorts of sticky and lacquering kinds of gubbins. That should be fun, but there are a few things to sort out first.

Today's job was to take the 'donor' guitar to pieces. Off with the neck, bridge, tailpiece, shonky tuners. Out with the pickups and wiring loom, jack, pots - well everything really. Won't be using much of it anyway to be fair.

So I'm left with a pile of stuff...cool.

First real job tomorrow is to sand the top of the body to get rid of the laquer so that I can spray it gold, after a judicious bit of masking of the sides.

Why bother?

Well, I want a gold top but I like the distressed look of the rest of the body and the general '70s-ness of it all.

The guitar as it stands is really resonant, which is nice and a bit of a surprise as I was expecting it to be balsa wood, but it doesn't seem to be that way.

Oh, I almost forgot, after the sanding but before I do the spraying, I've got to widen the pickup holes to fit some P90 soapbars in. Mustn't forget that bit, they look horrible when you fold them...

As for the spraying it gold - this was a tip I got from the nice Mr Venables, presumably so it doesn't look so obvious when I miss a bit with the gold leaf, or maybe it enhances the effect. I'm not sure, and to be honest didn't ask.

So day one - this is what we are starting with...

Like A Golden Shower...

Well, I've nearly got all the parts together for my Gibson Golden Topped Tribute (really must think of a proper name), and I have settled on how I'm going to do the effects too, which I have to admit was the fly in the aqueous cream.

Basically, to be a bit different, I've found my inspiration from a cockroach and am intending to put the exoskeleton on the outside, in the shape of a small multi-fx unit I've managed to get hold of within my budget. Well that was the plan anyway, but when the FX showed-up this morning they didn't work *sigh*.

Never simple, life around here.

Besides that though I'm pretty happy with the idea now, so it is just a case of finding a proper replacement and then starting on it come the 1st of February.

Before that though, I do intend to get back to both The Daisy Jook One and The Twangy One, which are hanging around awaiting my attentions and really do deserve to be finished before I start on something new. The Crowley One too, has been sprayed and is dry, but I'm still pondering that one. I've got the PRS Tremonti pickups, but am wondering if I should have a go with something else.

I've recently stocked up on P90 soapbars, a couple of Gibson ones out of an old SG and a bareknuckle Nantucket one just for good measure.

So many guitars, so many pieces of guitars around the place...better do something with them all really instead of just talking the yip.

I Wouldn't Have The Soup

Well, I've nearly got all the parts together for my Gibson Golden Topped Tribute (really must think of a proper name - actually I just did, The Golden Shower One), and I have settled on how I'm going to do the effects too, which I have to admit was the fly in the aqueous cream.

Basically, to be a bit different, I've found my inspiration from a cockroach and am intending to put the exoskeleton on the outside, in the shape of a small multi-fx unit I've managed to get hold of within my budget.


Well that was the plan anyway, but when the FX showed-up this morning they didn't work *sigh*.

Never simple, life around here.

Besides that though I'm pretty happy with the idea now, so it is just a case of finding a proper replacement and then starting on it come the 1st of February.

Before that though, I do intend to get back to both The Daisy Jook One and The Twangy One, which are hanging around awaiting my attentions and really do deserve to be finished before I start on something new. The Crowley One too, has been sprayed and is dry, but I'm still pondering that one. I've got the PRS Tremonti pickups, but am wondering if I should have a go with something else.

I've recently stocked up on P90 soapbars, a couple of Gibson ones out of an old SG and a bareknuckle Nantucket one just for good measure.

So many guitars, so many pieces of guitars around the place...better do something with them all really instead of just talking the yip.

This week in Jookyland...

Well, I've been having a think about my Gibson Tribute, and I've pretty much got a plan now. First up, I've got an old '70s Satellite Les Paul copy I picked-up a while back for £40. First thing I did was flog the humbuckers for £20, so basically in terms of the challenge, it owes me £20.

On top of that, I've got two PRS Soapbars I picked up for £20, some PRS tuners (the Satellite ones are scrap) I got for a tenner. So all in all, I figure I can make the guitar usable for £50 all in.

In terms of the finish, I'm going for the gold top - initially, after a bit of good advice - I'm going to spray using some gold poly. I've got the end of a can somewhere in the garage, so that is pennies. After that I'm going to get some 24K Gold Leaf and finish the top with it, before giving it a Nitro 'thin skin' finish. Never used this gold leaf before, so it could be fun. How much gold leaf is, I don't know, but I'll go hunting tomorrow and see what I can dig up. Hopefully though, the finish could be about a tenner all in.

All of which means I should hopefully have £30-40 left to buy some sort of multi-fx that I can gut and include in the body somewhere. It will have to be small, though I'm really tempted to go for the klunky angle and have it 'integrated' externally, so that all the wiring is outside of the guitar and maybe the effect unit is kind of surface mounted. Depends on how big it is, I guess...

Saying that, I fancy a trapeze kind of tailpiece so I might have to jiggle my change in my pocket a bit somewhere down the line. Hmmm..

This week though, I'm going to get my finger out and finish something, and as I have a deep, mostly submerged, need to play a guitar with red dicey knobs, it is The Daisy Jook One that is destined to get my full attention.... I'm going to twang-that-thang in a big way.

A yeee and a hawww.

Amen sister.

Jooky's All Gold

Jooky's All Gold? Nahhh...

Well, I've been thinking about what I can do for the Music Radar £100 challenge, and my first thought was to go the Matt Bellamy (of Muse fame) route and do a tribute to him. He famously uses a rather spiffy guitar with a built-in Fuzz Factory, and funny midi controlling pad. OK, the midi would be pushing it for a hundred quid, but I figured I could come up with a Sophie or something (well, until I remembered how shaky-handed-soldering isn't ideal.)

Naturally, two other people who are planning to get involved have already talked about 'Doing a Bellamy', so that kinda went off the agenda.

More to the point, it was hardly original, and it would be nice to have a different slant on it.

So then I got thinking about Gibson. Now Gibson, despite what everybody says about the old 'uns being better than the new ones, for me, are still the benchmark. Fenders I love, but they are still the Ford to the Gibson Cadillac, but they do amuse me a wee bit as they seem intent on making everything they do into a Limited Edition, or instead something totally off the wall that nobody wants.

Now innovation, I'm all for and some of their recent stuff is great on paper, but putting effects into guitars (and I know I do it, but I only do one at a time) seems odd. One thing guitarists spend a lot of time doing is trying new effects, worrying about what order they go in and generally mythering around the place looking for something they probably traded for an obscure eastern European transistor years ago.

The other thing they do (Gibson I mean) is mine their own heritage and keep releasing 'Tribute' models that are basically tributes to themselves, I guess, as well as the odd artist that used to play their guitars - and a few that didn't.

So coming back to the original point, I thought it was about time that somebody did a tribute to Gibson, in all it's incongruous and often clanging mixture of historically inaccurate and modernistic klunkiness.

So that's what I'm going to build, a tribute to the old - a gold top Les Paul - with a nowhere-near-seamless integration of something modern effects-wise. I'm thinking P90s and multi-fx, and maybe a few flashing lights. I'm thinking klunky and stitched together. Most of all I'm thinking it should use real gold. All for under a hundred quid...

Sounds like a plan, don't you think?

So, What can you get for a Hundred Quid?

Well, I have to admit I'm a little disappointed that I'm so predictable. I did indeed spend what 'Jooky' time I had yesterday creating a homage to Japan/My Bloody Valentine/Fugazi/Talk Talk and anybody else that makes weird beepy noises. God Speed My Silver Black Mounted Plastic Zion, and all that. That was using that there Line 6 Pod Studio thing, and it was a whole lot of fun.

(Don't worry I won't inflict it on you.)

Other than that though, the only news of the day was that The Crowley One got it's first coat of lacquer, and more of interest the Music Radar annual £100 Challenge is now officially a go-er.

This I did last year, and the basic idea is that you have to build a guitar spending no more than £100 on parts/finishing materials and all that bobbins. This year it is running between 1st February and 1st March, so I need to get my thinking cap on.

My entry last year (and only two people actually completed I think) was of course the Velvet and bling covered Pretty In Pimp One, with it's twin Gibson P100s, gold painted 10" record scratchplate and jazzy tailpiece.

This year?

Well, I don't know, but it should be something different to my Jooky norm I think.

Hmmm...what to do, what indeedy to do?

I don't know actually.