Service With A Simile

Well, it has been a funny week or three in the little kingdom of Jook, and with Crimbulmus arriving fleet of toe, I've come to the confusion that maybe I should try and finish a little something here and there before the year ends and I start to mither about being a slack get.

This week then (note the immediate lack of promises relating to daily progress) I am going to finish The Pearly Dewdrop One, with it's trendily cool Faber bridge and all, and I am going to get a shuffle on with The Old No. 7 One too.

I had a couple of people (who I'd previosuly said that I wouldn't make a custom guitar for) asking about the fact that I am, err, making a custom guitar for somebody other than them.

And I do feel a little bad about it, but there we are, but it really was something personal, it isn't that I'm indecisive or bounce along on the whim and breeze, what else can I say about it?

It wasn't me it was you.

In the new year though, I think I might do it more often but only if people want Teardrops, Jazzmasters or Teles and are willing to have little say in what it looks like. Which I would imagine narrows the number of applicants (supplicants?) from the off.

It may seem a little harsh and a lottle deluded, but I really can't be arsed doing things I don't enjoy anymore, I could go and flip burgers or something. Though admittedly, I may get paid for doing that until they realise that I'm a radical veggie and was stealing the burgers to release them back into the wild, replacing them with Tofu and generally holding my nose the whole time.

I don't know why I slipped into a past tense there, it wasn't a confession.

So there we are, a real politik broadcast on behalf of the arsey.

In other news, well, I still need to sort out loads of parts as I didn't get around to it, so I should probably do that this week sometime too.

But there is a swimming gala to attend, people to ignore, places to leave.
It's never ending, this.

La la laaaa

Katy's Killer Kustoms Komeback Special - As Sweet As Canal No. 7

Well, I've been thinking a lot about the New Year, and one of the things I fancy doing again is dipping my toe into the murky merkin depths of Katy's Killer Customs guitars.

My regular reader will no doubt remember (if the meths haven't killed all the required synapses) that it is something that has never really worked for me before, but I think I've got to the root of the problem, in that basically it has to be interesting or other things take over.

Anyway, to cut a long story titchy, a nice chap called Paul got in touch fancying an Esquire (big plus tick from me for that, of course) but one that was personal to him.

Well, a few conversations later and we've arrived at a quite traditional spec with a few stylistic twists (big Afros and bell bottomed matching suits) and so it is game on.

So it will be...a swamp ash bodied Telecaster Esquire, black stained and waxed, a nice Allparts neck, pukka hardware, Mojo Hot Broadcaster and Mojo Esquire wiring.

It will also see my dipping back into a bit of metal work for a rather interesting cool scratchplate type of thing, and there we are. More to be revealed as we poddle along, no doubt.

All of which sounds pretty darn cool... The Old No.7 One, coming soon to, well, Paul I guess.

La la laaa

Introducing The OCD One

Well, after far-too-many delays, I’m finally meeting up with Geoff today to hand over our first ever Katy’s Killer Custom guitar, The OCD One. And I think for both of us it will be a relief; as to be honest it has taken a month longer than I initially hoped and that is a wee bit disappointing. Not that it has been down to a lack of effort, more that for one reason or another – mainly my ropey hands, relying on other people and weather/kids/you name it, it kinda dragged at the end.

Anyway, I gave it a final blast last night, and it plays lovely, so it is all Jooky wrapped and ready to go. So don’t be surprised to see reports of four foot of snow hitting the M5 in the next hour or so.

The guitar itself, I’ve talked about a lot, but basically it is a Strat shaped beauty, with a maple on maple neck, big headstock and Schaller tuners. The body has an amazingly designed cartoon skeleton sort of covering in white with a contrasting black scratchplate with the same design, just in reverse. This has a thin nitro finish over the top, which I’m hoping will age beautifully over the next few years and is stunning to see, though still very much Jooky, it has to be said.

Pickups are a GFS Hot Liverpool Retroton at the bridge and a couple of Kent Armstrong Lipstick single coil pickups. These look the dog’s, but give a great range of sounds. We have a micro-switch to coil tapp the humbucker, which works nicely and a kill switch to do some odd stuff with. Which is all good fun.

Other than that, I’ve done a second loaded scratchplate, this one with more standard Strat pickups, with the design of the main body – so it will have a nice white-on-white look to it when Geoff gives it a run out. It’s a nice option to have, though how much it gets used is up to Geoff of course.

As this was our first ever Custom, I’d said to Geoff that he doesn’t have to have it if it doesn’t work for him, but I hope he will, as it really does have a lot of him in it and it would be a shame for all the effort on his part not to come to something. (Unless he hates it, of course, but there we are.) If he doesn’t like it when he finally sees it, well I’ll bring my baby home and keep her, ‘cos lets face it, there is a lot of me in there too…and there will always be a roof for her if ever she is stuck...

A Katy's Killer Custom, Surely not...

Well, I spent a bit of time playing the OCD One today (without any dodgy buzzing), and despite the fact that I probably shouldn’t say this – it is a real stunner. I was meant to be handing it over to the main man, but that turned into a complete balls-up on my part, but hopefully it will finally happen tomorrow. Sorry Geoff :(

As I’ve said before, the choice of pickups was a bit of a shot in the dark, two Kent Armstrong lipstick pickups a la Danelectro/Stevie Ray Vaughan with a GFS Hot Liverpool Retrotron at the bridge, well who could possibly have told what that would really turn out like?

But all modesty apart, it is bleedin’ gorgeous.

The sound is immense, everything I hoped it would be, and with a fantastic clarity. The maple fretboard just feels beautiful, even I felt like I was flying over it, and the finish – while still Jooky at heart, just works perfectly. I must admit that initially I was a little worried that a covered scratchplate in this case would be a bit much and even suggested a plain scratchplate, but Geoff went with this and I have to say he was bang on the money, it is absolutely perfect.

To top it off, there is a little coil-tap switch to split the humbie, and just because I wanted to try doing it proper-like, there is a kill switch too. I mentioned before, that there is also a second scratchplate – with three Fender single coils in it, in case Geoff fancies a different look and sound…

So, the first of our Katy’s Killer Customs is finished, it took longer than I had originally hoped due to my jigsaw performance early on, and the wiring shenanigans, sick kids and blizzards later, but even so, what little delay that meant was genuinely worth it in the end.

I just hope Geoff agrees when he gets his hands on it soooon.

Sooper coooool, and not a little killer.

p.s. More fotos and blurb about the girl tomorrow..)

Baby Please Come Home

Hopefully today it will actually have strings attached

Well today is the day that I finally get the OCD One back from the chap who is helping me out on the soldering front.

It's taken a week, feels like a decade, and it has been me that has been getting narky about it, Geoff has been really calm.

I'm sure I'm doing this wrong and it should have been the other way around somehow.

In the end practicalities dictated that we've gone for a mini-switch instead of a push-pull pot for the coil tap, but not the end of the world and in truth it might be more useful in those live-stress-filled-moments where you want to give it a bit of welly without changing your volume and all that.

I just can't wait for it to show up, to be honest, I just want to give it a blast and make sure it is all bang on before it gets the brown paper and string treatment and winds it's way down the M5 to it's new home.

I know I've done this a few times now, but I still get all emo-tional about it....

Anyway, when I've got it and all is well, I'll put some fotos up of our first example of Katy's Killer Custom Jookiness

Wassup, for our American Readers

Well, it seems as though the J-Bird One, that is the name for our second Katy's Killer Custom guitar, is coming along quite nicely. I think the specification is pretty much there now and I'm kinda chuffed that my scouring of the byways and airwaves for various parts has already thrown a few up, including a rather helpfully routed Jag-esque body which I should get my hands on later this week, so things are going well on that score.

While I search around for everything else we need, I'm also trying to polish off a couple of the other guitars that are in various stages of completion. I'm also hopefully meeting up with Geoff sometime this week to hand over The OCD One, which will be a bit of a buzz for me, and hopefully for him too.

I had planned to get a 'bunch' - the officially collective term for Jooky things - of cigar box amps done to capitalise on the massive pre-Christmas demand for presents made out of old junk, but soldering is still slightly beyond me at the moment and they are having to wait unfortunately. Similarly delayed are the effects pedals and the Growler project. All most annoying, but the price of being a crip I guess.

So, anyway, don't be surprised if there are a few new guitars popping along over the next few weeks. I can manage them, with a little help from my friends, if nowt else.

Saying that, this final wee crop are likely to be the last ones for a while, as I want to get to grips with a bit of woodwork and copper mining for a while in the new year. As ever then, catch 'em while you can, I guess.

One other guitar I have to have finished pre-Yuletide is for my eldest who in fact started all of this Jooky nonsense when we built a guitar together, for him, a while back. Well, he is struggling with the size of The Dragonocaster, so I managed to get hold of a decent 3/4 sized electric recently, and I'm going to pimp that up with a rather cool Pokemon livery for him...

He already plays better than me, mind you.
Maybe I shouldn't be encouraging him...

Is it a bird? Is it a rather scary cat?

Feline guitars came up with this - cool or what?

I mentioned the other day that there are plans-a-foot for a second of our Katy's Killer Custom guitars, following on from The OCD One, and I thought that perhaps it might be good to talk about it a wee bit more.

As we stand, I have got a rough spec from Andy, the chap it is for, and the mock-up on the right, to illustrate the point and I think we are 97.5% sure what it is going to work out like.

The nice thing, from my point of view, is that already it is going along the same lines as it did with Geoff. Andy had some ideas, I came up with a few more and then we've batted-them-about until we're both happy that it is achievable and gives Andy the guitar he wants.

And what a guitar this is going to be. You may have seen Andy popping up in the comments talking about offset guitars, and that is what we are going for, with a couple of radical twists.

For a start, it is going to have a Jaguar/Jazzmaster type of body.

Bolted into that we're aiming for something that looks a lot like a neck from a Gibson Firebird, complete with the 'right' kind of vertical 'banjo' tuners, though they will be the Steinberger version as they apparently work better than the Gibson originals, and look amazing.

Pickups, we're having a humbucker and a P90 for that Gibson BFG Les Paul type of rock 'n' roll-ness, with kill switches, coil taps and anything else that gives us a few different sounds thrown in on the leccy front that we can muster... This is going to be a working guitar, and is going to need to handle snarling overdrive, creamy fuzz and as well as some cutting cleans. (I read that in a brochure somewhere, but it fits...)

As for the finish, well it will only be the second ever 'Kylie' as it will have a rather cool comic book feel to it, based on Marvel's Punisher series, although done in a quite different way to The Beano One of yore.

Obviously the first thing i did was order some comics, purely for research purposes. That'll account for the first week.

In terms of timings, the aim is to have it finished pre-Xmas, which I think we should manage OK. I've decided that i'll only be doing one 'Custom' at a time, and everything else will have to fit in around it as it's only fair really.

So as far as our Katy goes, that will be it for this year, and sorry if you have been wondering whether to try one or not, but there won't be any more until the new year (though there are a few Leona's on the cards, ahem, if you have an itch that just has to scratched).

Obviously, a couple of days in and we're still finalising everything; it is as yet unnamed, but I think it will prove to be a stunner when we get there - like Geoff's OCD One, a custom in every sense of the word...

Man, I'm all-of-a-buzz

p.s. At the time I wrote this,  I didn't realise that Feline Guitars were doing a combo Jaguar and Firebird and that I'd used their foto. I wish I had as they are super cool British luthiers and they make lovely, lovely guitars. They were very nice about it, but credit where it is due, and if you are into guitars you really should... Check them out HERE

I Dunno

Since I started talking about the OCD One, it's been quite surprising how many people have asked about them.

I guess we guitarists all like the idea of a one-off, built to fit our own ideas of what a guitar should be and I have to admit that the Jooky ones are about as one-off as you can get.

Anyway, the question I've never quite had an adequate answer for is 'How much do they cost', as to be perfectly honest, it depends on so many things.

When I make them for myself, I decide what I'm going to build and then hustle around looking for parts, or as I've said before, I come across parts and that sets me off in a different direction. Cost doesn't really come into it - I make something I like or that interests me and then when I sell it, I try to get enough money for it that I can make something else. Profit and wages don't really come into the equation either. And if that means I happen to have the money to pick-up a Bare Knuckle P90 when I see one - great - and if I don't have enough, I might get a PRS one, or an IronGear, or whatever.

In terms of the Katy's Killer Customs though, it is a rubbish answer, but it really depends what people want as far as parts go, if you are verily specific, it will be a case of what I can turn up and how much they cost, If you want new parts, they cost more than second-hand etc.

With Geoff, and the OCD One, we did it the other way around. We agreed a budget, and I then worked within that, having a base spec but trying to improve on it as we went along with anything better that I could lay my hands on. For example, when I planned things initially, I was expecting to use some nice Wilkinson tuners, for instance, but then came across some (superior) Schaller ones going second-hand, and instead went for them.

Similarly, I was going to use some Mexican Fender Strat pickups, but then had some Kent Armstrong lipstick ones available, so went with those instead, and so on.

And to be honest, that is probably the best approach, with the sticky bit being the setting a budget up front. Which brings me back all around the round thing.

So, much as it bugs me in a way, as I'd much rather be thinking about making guitars than talking about money, I'm thinking that what I should do is set a price for an example Jooky Custom guitar, which can then be adjusted based on specific requirements, as was suggested in our comments section by 17FiftySeven, who obviously is more switched on than I am..

And so that is a plan, the Jooky Guitar Emporium will soon have a price-list of sorts.
How scary is that?

Katy's Killer Customs

Katy plays guitar,
and married a spider from mars,
but has nowt to do with our guitars

Well, Geoff’s OCD One is very nearly ready to hand over to him – I had to get a local tech to do the soldering again, but there we are, and it will really be nice to meet him after all this email activity, putting the guitar together.

Just hope he likes it ‘in the wood’ as it were.

I must admit, I had been thinking about the Customs idea for quite a while, but had held back for a couple of reasons –

1.    I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t work. The person wanting the guitar would really have to ‘buy in’ to the whole Jooky idea, the Rough Finishing and environmentally-sound use of second-hand parts, and all that. Oh and the strange approach to finishing guitars in paper and cloth, of course. I forget that isn’t run-of-the-mill at times.

Also, it isn’t like I am a traditional luthier who is starting with a couple of chunks of wood and a tub of nitro asking what shape you want… Saying that, the guitars are a lot cheaper too, and perhaps even more one-off than the rest of the Jooky guitars.

2.    The second reason of course, is that I’ve gotten very used to following my own path with these guitars, and change my mind – get excited/inspired and generally can be a bit of a nitemare, I’m sure.

Could I stick, more or less, to a specification then?
A big question, but so far at least, as long as it is clear and agreed up front, it seems as though I can. Which is all-good, and has been a lot of fun.

So would I do it again, and I guess more to the point – would anybody else want me to?

Well, from my perspective, I came to conclusion that I would. It was fun, it stuck to the ‘ethos’ and as long as I’m clear upfront about what I do, I can’t see that there should be too many problems…

Least, I hope so anyway.

And as it happens, it seems that somebody else does want one, and so for the last couple or few days I’ve been happily exchanging emails about what will prove to be the yet unnamed, second ever Jooky Custom guitar.

More about that soon, I expect, but it seems as though ‘Katy’s Killer Customs’ – I figured I needed a new name for these – might just have wings after all.