Taking Stock Again

I Could Be Yours

Well, well and quite well in truth, it seems we have three guitars for sale, something that has happened only once before I think. And then not for long.

In a way it is quite nice as I have three new guitars to play with a clear conscience, but in another I always get lazy once there are some in-the-bag.

You Can Have Me

Moving forward then, I'm still missing parts for The Old Burny One, waiting for pretty much everything for The Porn Shop One, and searching for inspiration as far as The Bye Bye Buy One goes. As for The Drip Dry One, I've kinda lost track of that somewhat. What did I need? Ah, a humbucker, bridge, tuners, that was it. I remember now. Is it me or are the names getting ever sillier?

Other than those nearly-dones, I've reached the bottom of my parts mountain now, and have no more bodies or necks lay around waiting for me to decide what to do. Well, there is the Parquet Tele Body, but I'm ignoring it for now. That is a good thing as I had had a bit of a spree and then got snowblind.

Me too
For Money or Favours

Going forward then, it is going to be more of a one-at-a-time thing I think. I like the idea of getting Simon at Fusion to make me another body or two, and maybe to start stretching things a wee bit in terms of what we do. The Telemaster set me thinking and there are a few other things I'd like to explore apart from Strats, Teles and Offset guitars.

As it happens, I finally got my finger out and have ordered the bits I was missing for The Old Burny One so there can be no more excuses really.

I do need to flog something again though to carry on this journey/crusade/dalliance - so if anybody  fancies making an offer or wants to do a part-ex, now is a really good time :)

La la la

Sort of Introducing The Grecian 201 One to the Family

Well it was a spurt, a late spurt, but a spurt that nonetheless saw me drag my act together and finish The Grecian 201 One last night. I blame Sky+ and a greater than average rainfall in the local area.

The Tripadelic, Grecian 201 and Moulin Rouge Ones

Anywaysup, in between swearing at couriers yesterday, I'm pleased to say that my lovely antiquated bronze baby is all together and sounding rather neat. Proper fotos will follow when the light shines again, but here are the unholy trinity...

But The Grecian 201 One, from the top then, let me introduce you to my latest trick, featuring or maybe even revelling in the mud of the glory that is having:

1. An Alder Strat body, but not just any Alder Strat body, this is

2. An Alder Strat body ladled with reactive bronze enriched paint. In fact it is

3. An Alder Strat body ladled with reactive bronze enriched paint that has been tortured with acid, varnished, corroded and generally mistreated in ways too evil and vile to comprehend.

4. A maple neck with a rosewood scratchplate. Left handed for your pleasure, flipped upside down for your delectation.

5. Gotoh tuners, Wilkinson bridge/tremthing

6. A raw copper leafed scratchplate

7. A GFS Retrotron Hot Liverpool humbucker at the bridge, coil taps being provided via a mini-switch thingie

8. Two Hot Lipstick Kent Armstrong Lippy pickups

All of which means that The Grecian 201 One jangles as well as grooves and generally has lots of cool, hot and interesting tones for you to extract, if ever you get to play with her.

So there we are. And man is she fotogenic-like.
What a girl
What a battered babe.

Three little Jookies, standing in a row

Sold: The Tripadelic One

The Tripadelic One is a classic Jooky design and pays homage to the ‘90s bigging-up of the Beatles nod to the ‘60s West Coast hippiness of free love and lickable postage stamps.

It has a single pickup, a quite gorgeous Bare Knuckle Stormy Monday humbucker, and an in-built NOS Germanium-based Sophie’s Filthy Boots Fuzz. The body and scratchplate finishes are protected by first coats of poly and then nitro lacquers.

The guitar is of course based on a pimped-up Fender Stratocaster that we all know and free love. Tuners and bridge are both takes on traditional parts and work perfectly, with the locking tuners proving to be rock solid. It should be played very, very loudly.

All in all, it is a unique looking and sounding guitar. Verily groovy indeed.

*

To be clear, The Tripadelic 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 pleasant night checking your shoes. There will genuinely never be another guitar like this and past experience suggests that it won’t be around for long.

The Tripadelic One comes with a Tweedy Hardcase, and will be delivered to your door for a quite stunning £399.  SORRY IT HAS NOW BEEN SOLD


Technical Stuff:

Type: Leona’s Groovy Guitar, Sophie’s Filthy Boots Fuzz

Electrics: Bare Knuckle ‘Stormy Monday’ Pickup. Sophie’s Filthy Boots Fuzz

Guitar Type: Fender Stratocaster

Construction: Alder body, Maple neck, Rosewood fretboard, Fabric covering.

Strings: Nickel 10s

Output: ¼” Guitar Lead

Controls: Single Volume, Fuzz Knob

Special Stuff: Certificate of Authenticity, Builder Signed and Numbered, All Wrapped with our Trademark Jooky Wrapping.

Serial Number: JGE#36

RSP: £499

Chicken Headed Fuzz...Nice

Saturday is Tiswas Day

Well, family bobbins hopefully out of the way, a new soldering iron to be heated and things might even get back on track in the Jooky Republic.

Plans for the weekend are to first of all sort The Tripadelic One out. I still can't decide whether to put it back to a normal tone pot or whether the fuzz will sound better once the ground buzz has disappeared....

Decisions, decisions, but only one way to find out...

Once that baby is ready, I'm hoping to move on to The Moulin Rouge One as of course that is just missing a bit of wire to get it going. I'm looking forward to playing that one. I love Tele Customs, and the PRS P90 plus Bare Knuckle Stormy Monday promises to be a seriously cool combination. My attempt at a Les Paul BFG-with-a-better-finish.

After that, I've been thinking about what to do with the Telemaster body I'm getting, and the plan at the moment is to have a Tele pickup at the bridge, maybe a Bare Knuckle Brown Sugar or a Boss, while at the neck I'm going to have something more Jazzmasterish hidden beneath the scratchplate. There is a little Curtis Novak overwound Jazzmaster pickup nestled on a shelf somewhere, so that could definitely be a runner. If the stealthiness proves too much for the tone, I may do something different though, in which case I have a couple of hot humbuckers which might get the nod instead. Other than that, it is pretty Tele-like. Ashtray bridge and cover, Tele neck - probably Rosewood, but I'm not totally sure on that, we'll have to see. As for the finish, I was thinking a verdigris copper and bronze combo could be quite striking.

My first thought was rust, which would be kinda nice, but I've done a few now and feel the need to stretch my plumes as it were. We'll see though, bit of R&D needed before I decide.
So in truth not a lot to report until I get my finger out.

In other news I'm waiting for a Boss Compressor/Sustainer to arrive, as that plus the Boss Stereo Chorus I got recently should let me fulfill my long held ambition of making noises like the Cocteau Twins.

I know there is more to it than that, but the chap who first made me want to play guitar and opened my eyes to guitar effects, a chap called Ian who then lived in Bristol - back in the mid-80s, I remember having a Chorus plus a Compressor/Sustainer and it sounding amazing.

So closing on thirty years later I've finally gotten around to trying it out for myself. No doubt he also had a long delay, masses of reverbs and a full rack under his bed which I don't remember, but we'll see. Actually, he must have had a delay thinking about it, as I remember him impressing me by playing the ding-ding bit of U2's Bad around the same time. Hmmm... Maybe I'll get there for the fiftieth anniversary.

Of Mice and Men

She looks so goooood

Well, as ever real-life intervenes, and not a lot gets done.

More family bobbins in the main, but yet another soldering iron packing-in didn't help, and I still haven't had a chance to get my act together and buy a new one.

The Tripadelic One is pretty much there now.

There is a slight buzz from a dodgy ground I need to sort out once I can solder on, but it plays and looks beautiful, even if I do say so myself.

Which I do and generally have to.

From every angle...

I have to say I'm not convinced about The Sophie's Filthy Boots fuzz with this pickup, so I might go au natrel and change it back to a tone control, but there we are.

Other than that, the Bare Knuckle Holy Diver is lovely, I'm well impressed. And the Wilkinson Ez-Locking tuners are a joy once I remember to put the strings thru both holes...


Other things are equally not moving and probably won't be until next week in truth.

Best planned lays of mice and men, as Casanova once said about his bad luck with guitar related soldering and general bestiality bobbins.

La la la

p.s. If anybody wants 174 left footed trainers, I know this geezer...

So close I can taste it. Kinda...

WIP: The Tripadelic One Part iii

Well, as I was saying, I decided that a plain scratchplate would set The Tripadelic One off best, a note of subtletiness among the chaotic peace 'n' lurve iconography.

It is the artistic thing to do,
the tastefilled thing to do and basically
the grown up and
mature thing to do.

I know that.

So obviously, I've gone for a piece of tye-died material, as lets face it, it isn't really a guitar that was ever destined for a life of subtlety and taste.

Other than that, I've wired up the Sophie's Filthy Boots Fuzz, with the nice chickenheaded knob to twizzle. As I said before, she is quite an undemanding, yet game chick is our Sofe, but certainly addictive.

My Frère Jacques has never sounded so lewd as when Sophie has been involved..

As for the kill-switch, well it is an omission at the moment as I couldn't get hold of a switch of the right type. (Do I admit I bought the wrong sort? Nah), but I may or may not add that after.

Depends how I feel and whether I can bring myself to go to Maplins or somewhere equally dreadfilled in the meantime.

From the top then, it is:

An Electric Kool Aid coated Alder Bodied, Leona's Groovy Guitar

An Aceeeed Fried Maple/Rosewood Neck

A Charlie-boy Manson Bare Knuckle Holy Sinner Humbucker

A Horse Come Down Sophie's Filthy Boots Germanium Fuzz

A Free Lovin' Group of Wilkinson Easy Lock Tuners, Black for the classy among us

A Free Thinkin' Wilkinson Bridge

OK, I struggled for a typically period-correct name for the bridge.

Oh and, Wire, Strings, Strap Pins, and a couple of knobs from, err, Woodstock or maybe Spike Island to play with...

And that is about that.

It looks absolutely mad ferrit and I just wish Northside were still going as I'd probably give it to them.

Things left to do are a bit of wiring to the Jack socket and trem block, and then some strings need to go on and a bit of a set-up. And that will be that.

Can't wait to get it finished...

Cue Northside's Classic...

Let's take a trip, down memory lane...

Rather Sad Natural-light-thru-blinds foto

Bye Bye Blue Bird

Ah well, The Blue Moon One is off to pastures new, bless it. It'll seem odd not having an offset guitar around the place again, though the Telemaster one is here soon so normality should be resuming pronto like, methinks.

Still, The Blue Moon One...on it's way. I never thought I'd finish it, never mind see it off on life's twosted journey, but there we are. All things change.

But with a tear in the old eye, and back to reality - well, I finally got to the bottom of what to do with the Tripadelic One's scratchplate, and figured that a contrast would be good, and copper leaf  could be just that without looking overly boringesque, like black or white.

And there she was...
Gone

Alternatively I might go back to Plan W and paint it, but something more abstract rather than the initial Rocky idea. Though paulski73 suggested a mirrored one in the comments, which I have to say is a pretty good idea too.

So in summary, my decision is made,
it is just that there are a few options to consider.

That are all totally different and discrete.

So you could say I haven't made any kind of decision whatsoever.

Which would be cruel
however accurate and
basically true.

On a plus side, it is soon to be wired with a Sophie's fuzz and a killswitch if I can find somewhere in Bristol that stocks such exotica, the tuners are on their way, so there is only actually the scratchplate left to do. Which is most odd. This is normally the bit I work out first. In fact this guitar has been a bit backwards from the end and as we approach the start, well, it leaves me perplexed.

Anyway, I also plan to wire-up The Moulin Rouge One, which just needs tuners now and it is ready to go. Well, ready to have strings and be set-up, but that is close enough.

In summary then, those two should be finitoed next week sometime, which is all good, and the Drip Dry One may well follow shortly after. I think I've sorted the missing pickup out for that, but we'll see later-like.

So today/the weekend - hopefully some soldering, a lot of sleep, tuners to fix, strings to put on and well, no doubt different directions to spiral off and into.

More WIP: The Tripadelic One, But Not Much More

Well, it is likely to be a bit slower for a few days - I can't handle the high octane adrenaline rush of so much partial achievement, so many nearly done but not quites. I need to step away, take stock and generally kick back.

The Tripadelic One
Now boasting the right pickup and scratchplate...
But black?
Nahhhh

Or so I try my best to convince others.

Today's special treat should be the arrival of a shiny new, or slightly more olderer and batteredish, Bare Knuckle Holy Sinner pickup, for the Tripadelic One. I won't see this of course, but there we are. It's a pickup, I pretty much know what they look like by now.

Still, sad though it might seem, I can easily get excited about such simple pleasures. I still haven't decided on what I'm going to do with the scratchplate - I was thinking/plotting/planning to hand paint it a la a Magical Mysterious Rocky, but with Zvex and everything, it is kind of 'familiar' and they are only useful if you are a vampire. Which I'm not. So there. Despite my recent operating hours.

But what to do with the 'plate? The simple answer is that I haven't decided yet, so time will have to tell it's own dirty tales. Like the rest of us.

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ Short Interlude With Incidentless Music ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

Well, as it happens I did get to see the BKP Holy Diver pickup, which is very exciting, especially as it came already wired to the scratchplate courtesy of Bare Knuckle people themselves, by the looks of things. It has a sticker and everything, so it must be true.

As it happens though it isn't 4-wired, instead being vintage type, so I can't coil-tap it, but such is life. I always end up burning my fingers when I try to wire push-pull pots. To give it an option in the sonic stakes then, I am  going to go for the Sophie's Filthy Boots Fuzz after all. It is fun and I like a bit of a buzz. A bit of understated yet fuzzy germaniumness. And you can turn it off if it simply isn't you. It is no big deal. So why wouldn't I?

As for the scratchplate, well I can't quite bring myself to leave it black with a black pickup, so I will need to sort something out there. Suggestions on a postman, to the useful dress.

S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G, We're Shopping

Well, this not-doing-much-in-the-school-holidays is going well. The only one of the Ones I haven't touched is The Old Burny One, which was of course the only one of the Ones I was meant to be paying attention to.

Four little Jookies
standing in a row

As for The Drip Dry, Tripadelic and Moulin Rouge Ones, I have an ever-growing part list I'm-a-needing before I can make their selves complete:

1. Three sets of tuners. I'm a new convert to locking ones, as I may have mentioned here and over there somewhere so they will probably each have different examples of these as I try to decide which ones I love best.

2. A bridge/trem thing - for The Tripadelic One. I like the Wilkinson ones. Like the tuners, I've finally found ones I like that don't cost an arm and a leg. I've also started to buy these new more often that not, as I've had too many 'name' ones second hand that basically have probably been changed for a reason in the first place and who needs unexpected third-party-grief when I am perfectly capable of creating my own?

3. Two push-pull pots for the coil-tappicidity on The Tripadelic and Drip Dry Ones

4. A momentary Lapse switch (if I go kill-switch-crazy) on The Tripadelic One

5. A pickup - preferably something hot and coil-tappable to go with the P90 on The Drip Dry One.

6. Lots of strings as I seem to have run out rather than lost them, which was my natural assumption, I quite naturally assumed.

7. Three hardcases. Needed but always a pain as they can take ages to arrive.

8. Six bottles of Grolsch, as I'm coming around to the idea of strap locks after the Gordo nearly broke my foot last time I swung it around my shoulders in front of the mirror.

And that is just for these three.

On top of those I need shed loads of parts for the Telemaster, Little Red Charvette and another Strat I'm looking at strangely, once I get around to them. And a bridge and tailpiece for The Old Burny One, now I come to think about it.

Hmmm...

Think I should be able to scrape together the shrapnel  to get a set of tuners and strings for The Moulin Rouge One, which is 'pleasing', but the others will have to wait until cashflow improves somewhat... I blame the American Senate problems. Why can't they just love each other?.

All of which means I am open to offers on The Blue Moon One if anybody is pondering a potential purchase...'

WIP: The Tripadelic One

Well, middle of the night again, but my little trip down memory bliss meant that I actually got to fabricify The Tripadelic One with it's beautiful multi-coloured message of peace, hope and err, rainbows.

Yes, it is very similar to The Peace Train One, but that was blue and this isn't and the guitars are quite a bit different. So my conscience is clarity itself.

As for the pickup bobbins, as I said it is going to be a single humbucker in the shape of a Bare Knuckle Holy Sinner, with a push-pull coil-tap thingie and a germanium Sophie's Filthy Boots built-in, instead of the tone knob. (I realise this may not be to everybody's taste, so when it trundles it's way to the block, I will of course offer to change it back to a tone control. Which to be fair may be useful on a single pup guitar after all. Maybe I should do that anyway, hmmm. Have to think about that.)

So please ignore the mundanicity of an aged white scratchplate with three single coils. It will never happen that was, all is illusion.


As for the neck it is a big headed rosewood/maple jobbie, and when I get around to finding them it will probably have a Wilkinson bridge and some sort of locking tuner.

I know sound-wise it is nothing like, but I see this as a bit of a George Harrison 'Rocky' kind of thing, so may have to come up with something suitably trippy for the scratchplate. I could use the same fabric, or like The Peace Train One go for a plain scratchplate, but nah, be nice to do something different.

Tripping Alight Fandango

Well, I'm back to waiting for parts as far as The Moulin Rouge and The Drip Dry Ones go. Tuners, a bridge, lots of plastic bits, the odd pickup, nothing drastic but progress-halting it has to be said.

I'm also scrabbling around for screws to hold scratchplates on, springs and yet more screws for pickups which are always annoying to have to buy and lots of finishing stuff. Basically I've 'run my stocks down' which was the aim, but I forgot that some of them come in kinda handy-needed. Still, moving-and-a-grooving for a couple of days again so it isn't like I'll be doing much anyway.

I mentioned I have a mentalistic Bare Knuckle pickup showing up this week, and that is destined for a single pickup Strat I've got in mind. It almost feels a blast from the past at the moment as my single-pickup-guitar addiction has been unsated for months. I've got a nice Strat body and my favourite big headstock ready to go, so all I need to do is decide on the finish.

Again for a change I thought I'd go forward to history and do a Leona's one. I've got something hippified that is actually a companion piece to the one I used on The Peace Train One. So it should be particularly groovy with a nasty in-your-mush underside.

Just to make it crazily ridiculous I'm going to build in a wee Sophie's Filthy Boots fuzz, and maybe even have a killswitch and something else I've forgotten for now. Could have been a lava lamp, but I might be making that up. The Tripadelic One, well that should be dropping-and-a-popping soon.