I'm not sure whether this is the third or fourth time, but the great Teflon non-stick Jooky is up for grabs again, if anybody was interested the last time but didn't take the plunge..
I just noticed it up for a flogging at MR again HERE
This was of course The Jangly One I made toward the end of 2010 and has the only blowtorch enamelled copper scratchplate known to man (I still have the scars from that one), Kent Armstrong Hot Lippy pups and a fine paisley finish.
It is up for £140 which is rather stunning, but there we are.
Well, blimey. It's rare that Jooky guitars get moved on (I'm, sadly, quite pleased about that), so when I find out that one is up-for-grabs, I tend to mention it.
Anyway, you may remember the rather joyous The Jangly One, which was my paisley Danelectro, complete with the hand crafted copper scratchplate, that I enamelled using powdered glass and a blow torch, amongst other things.
Anyway, the chap who had it off me - we'll call him Alex - is looking for something more humbuckery, and is willing to trade it or sell it for a rather silly £150 + p&p.
Now, if I didn't have silly rules about my guitars, it would already be here (actually, it would never have left), but you aren't bound by such arcane conventions.
Of course, it may be the last chance to get your hands on a paisley Jooky too, as there won't be any more.
Well, it doesn't happen very often - as I'm not that organised, let's face it - but for once we have two of our finest Leona's Groovy Guitars up for grabs at the moment...which would make lovely Christmas presents (ahem).
First up in the hot, sticky and seedy The Fat Pussy One. This little baby is sleaze incarnate, with a single Catswhisker Fat Moggy P90 pickup, coil-tapped and a kill switch to boot. This is a pure rock machine, in the truest sense and you won't be able to keep your hands off her.
Secondly, is our wee Dano inspired The Jangly One. All the sounds you'd expect with a bit more besides, and the first example of our new and exciting Lulu's Copper Tops, in the shape of a hand enamelled (well blow-torched) scratchplate. There hasn't been a Jooky guitar anywhere near close this one before, and probably won't be again.
Picture the scene, you step onto a stage surrounded by white rabbits, slip your square, purple shades onto the end of the bridge of your nose and breath in the fumes of a field full of flower haired free lovers. It’s quite a sight, you look around and realise, yeah, it’s time to Jangle in the sun.
The Jangly One is pure and simple, ‘60s psychedelia, from it’s jingle jangle roots, to the acid fried paisley design – like an explosion in a batik mill - all the way down to the hand crafted and enamelled scratchplate. Based on a Danelectro ’59, it has all the sounds you’d expect, but with a bit more oomph thanks to Uncle kent Armstrong, who is probably missing the fun in a workshop near Dudley. Who knows?
*
To be clear, The Jangly One is an utterly unique guitar, and there will never, ever, be another made. It is signed and numbered, entirely hand built and finished cooler than a Maharishi in shades. There will genuinely never be another guitar like this and past experience suggests that it won’t be around for long.
Technical Stuff:
Type: Leona’s Groovy Guitar
Electrics: Kent Armstrong Hot Lipstick Pickups
Guitar Type: Danelectro ’59 Re-issue
Construction: Cloth over wood. Special ‘Lulu Copper Top’ hand enamelled copper scratchplate
Strings: Fender Stainless Steel 10s
Output: ¼” Guitar Lead
Controls: Two Volume, Pickup selector
Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered, All Wrapped with our Trademark Jooky Wrapping.
Well, The Jangly One I told you I pretty much finished the other day, but I forgot to go back and upload some fotos...so let me introduce you to my latest babba.
As mentioned many times before, she is based on a Danelectro '59 Reissue, and has been upgraded in the pickup and tuner departments, to give her a bit more stability on the tuning and oomph where it counts.
As well as that, I've gone for a totally in-yer-face paisley finish, and topped this off with my very first bit of Lulu Copper Topping, with a 'hand crafted' (cut out) copper scratchplate that has been enameled to within an inch of it's life. (covered with glass powder and melted in an oven and with a blowtorch)
And god does she play?
Does she?
Does she?
Yep. she is stunning, in a Danelectro kind of way and the fotos really (truly and madly, but rarely deeply) do any kind of justice to either the finish, or the scratchplate, which has a couple of kinds of glitter in there too, just to really catch the light.
Anyway, I've talked lots about this before, so here are the fotos...nuff said.
I'm really looking forward to getting on to my full copper topped Tele now, mind...
Well, it was always going to be another day waiting for things to either dry or turn up on the J-Bird, so I figured I might as well put the Jangly One together as well as the Fat Pussy One.
As I may have mentioned, this little baby has got one wild paisley finish, and a couple of Kent Armstrong Hot lipstick pickups to turn it into something a wee bit special. On top of that, there are some Golden Gotohs to sort out the traditionally dodgy Dano tuning, and the first ever Jooky copper excursion, in the shape of a quite beautifully enameled scratchplate.
A Lulu Copper Top, as they shall henceforth be known.
The only downside with it at the moment is that it is more a pile of bits than a guitar right now, and so....I needed to do something about that.
Well, first things first I put the tuners onto the neck. Easy enough and amazingly I didn't even have to widen the holes or look for bushes to make them smaller. I must remember that, these sort of Gotohs fit a Dano. Lovely. I kinda expected everything to be none standard for this kiddy, so it was a nice surprise.
Tuners on, I figured I might as well put the neck on to the body. I'm never sure whether it makes more sense to sort everything out on the body first and join the two bigger bits together as late as possible, or if getting the neck on is as good a place to begin as any other. I do like to think that it starts to look guitar-like sooner rather than later, and if I'm going to break a screw in the neck I'd rather not have done everything else first and wasted my time.
Either way, I put the neck on; it still fitted, not having grown since I took it off the other week, so no big deal. It looks like a guitar now.
After that I remembered that I had forgotten to drill the screw holes in the scratchplate. Wasn't fancying this at all to be honest - drilling copper with a hand drill on a wobbly imitation Workmate, isn't any kind of cool, but it only needed three holes, thankfully, and I didn't kill myself. So happy days.
On the 'Full' Lulu copper tops - where most of the top will be covered with the shiny stuff, I'm planning to nail it on with copper nails, apart from of course any scratchplate areas which need to be removed. But this is Lulu-light, so it just needed screwing..
.
After that I couldn't hide from the wiring any longer, but thankfully even with my shaky mitts, it was only a couple of wires to de-solder and then re-solder to swap the pickups. Pity they aren't gold coloured and in fact they are almost exactly the same to look at as the originals, but there we are. Can't be helped. Maybe I'll touch them up with some nail varnish or something (now there's a thought).
Now for the bit I was really dreading. Trying to put the wiring together with the pickups, pots and everything else, back into the body.
As this is the first Dano I'd taken to pieces, it was a kind of a finger in the wind experience, working out how to even take it to bits. Obviously, being clever I took lots of fotos and notes along the way. Well, I would have if I had been clever. I had certainly meant to, but...well, things get in the way.
Anyway, once I'd managed to get the pickups thru the body and into place, luckily I remembered that I’d had to unscrew the bouncy spring things beneath them. On a normal guitar, you have normal springs, on a Dano they look like those amazing blades you see people running on in the Paralympics. Still, as it happens I think they are a great idea. and they went one without too much wobbling or finger-bleeding.
After that, the rest wasn't too bad. I did have to adjust the potholes slightly, which was a ball-ache, but there we are. Pretty much done.
Obviously, as per there are still things to do before I can put some strings on and give this baby a good strumming, but it's 90% there now. Just got to find out what I don't know I've done that I shouldn't have, I guess...
The Jangly One, uber cool, with the copper coloured top.
Sort of.
Well, for all my high hopes of getting the OCD One complete yesterday, after far-too-much-pain, it turned out that one of the 'pots' was knacked, and it occurred to me far too late in the day to get a new one, so that is the job for today. Get a pot, fix the guitar. Simple.
And then that will really be it.
End of.
Honest.
(Hopefully.)
In the mean time, I stripped the J-Bird One down so that it is ready for finishing and ordered what remained of the parts - minus the pickups and scratchplate, of course, which I'm still sniffing about for.
Never simple in the Jookydome, telling yer.
A guitar loses an Orca, gains a Seal
Other than that, I started to lacquer The Fat Pussy One and The Jangly One (must remember to use really short names in future to save on the typing)
As far as The Jangly One goes, last night I girded my loins and then dipped them into the hot water that is cutting a scratchplate out of copper and then enameling it. OK, as the body is quite a busy design, I should probably have gone for something simple, and I did thank that for a moment, but then thought - stuff it - and dived headfirst into something impressionistic with two types of glitter...
This took quite a few layers and 'firings' - god I am sooo very arty - and still has to have a clear top put on it, but what do you think?
I have to say, drilling the holes was a complete bitch, but that will no doubt come with practice, or maybe the right tools, but the cutting out the shape only cost me minor blood loss. But I get that every time I change a string, so nothing new there. (All those people who have a Jooky guitar are looking carefully at stains that assumed were intended for Jookiness purposes.)
It is really a bit glittery, but you can't tell. Sneaky huh?
If nowt else it has fired me up (a tee and a hee) to get on with the proper copper topped Tele, but the Customs come first so I'll have to fit that in when and as. At least I know what a usable thickness is of copper now, that was a voyage of discovery.
One drawback mind you, I forgot to drill the screw holes (ahem).
And so back to the OCD one today... Must remember to buy Geoff a pint after all this...
I was quite pleased with myself yesterday as I managed to pick up a couple of Kent Armstrong Lipstick pickups for the Jangly One to replace the 'Stock' reissue jobbies. They are the slightly hotter than normal ones, which I'm thinking will keep 'that' sound, but maybe give a couple more tricks for the olde one-trick-pony too.
They are the same ones I've put in the OCD One, of course, which should be as good a recommendation as you can get, if I ever get it back from the soldering-chap and find out for sure, but different bodies, wiring and everything else, well you never can tell.
I am chuffed with how the wee beasty is coming together. I've done the body work, and the paisley is quite simply gob-smacking, but I had a bit of a dither with the scratchplate as initially I was going with a trancy rave kind of thing, but it looked horrendous and now I can't even begin to think why I ever thought it would work.
Instead then, I'm going to break my duck and dip my toes in the enameled copper water and have a scratchplate like nothing else. I am still doing the copper-topped Tele, but this seems to be a good time to try it out on a smaller scale, so we shall see.
If you look at the comments, John - the proud owner of the Funky Spangled One - who part ex'd the Dano in the first place made a suggestion I like, which was a copper banding that runs around the edge and overlaps onto the front and back. To replace the traditional Dano cheapo vinyl tape 'binding', if you see what I mean.
Well, I'm not sure if I am up to the job, but if I can find some suitable copper, I might just give it a go. I also like the idea of nailing it down using either copper or zinc nails if I can find some small enough. Against the paisley I think it would look amazing. So cheers John, much appreciated.
As for the tuners, as everything is getting a bit gaudy at best, I'm going to see if the gold plated Gotoh tuners I picked up the other day will work. The Dano ones were OK-ish, but, I'm never one for half-measures if I can go ferret, as it were.
By the way, here are some veeerrryyy early WIP fotos of the Jangly One and the Fat Pussy One.
Well, I think I've got to the bottom of what it is I should be doing with the Danelectro '59, and in some ways it is making me a little sad.
It has a name now, by the way, The Jangly One.
I'm feeling imaginative today,
it probably shows...
OK, but back to the point - what am I planning.
Well, it is obviously going to have a killer finish, and the slightly dodgy bits will be upgraded - that's fine.
And I think I'm going to replace the pickups with something more 'original Dano authentic' if I can find some that work for me, which I'm happy about too. My biggest concern is keeping the Dano sound really, so we will have to see.
Anyway, I've started to dismatle the Dano and am already up to my neck in gubbins putting the rather tastefilled finish on it and I have to say, I almost feel bad about it. It means I can't jingle around the living room like a floppy fringed indie boy. Better do the vacuuming instead, I guess.
I'm not sure whether this is the third or fourth time, but the great Teflon non-stick Jooky is up for grabs again, if anybody was interested the last time but didn't take the plunge..
