I said before that when I got the body for the J-Bird One, I also got a second body to play with too.
Anyway, bored as I’ve been, I’ve been thinking what that little treasure is going to do with it’s life too, and have come up with a plan.
Firstly, I have a quite lovely Strat neck. Biggish headstock, so a lot more trad Jazzy-like than the J-Bird will be, but there we are. The neck is a handmade, nitro finished jobbie, which is all cool. Lovely in fact.
In terms of pickups, I got a couple of P90 Soapbars out of a PRS SE Soapbar which I really want to try in the Ash Jaguar body. These are the pickups I used in The Paisley One, all those months ago, and that sounded beautiful, so I have high hopes.
I’ve never really been that grabbed by PRS guitars, but their cheapo SE range seems a lot more interesting to me, and they seem to have an attention to detail whatever the price when it comes to the pups. I also got some from a PRS Tremonti, which is cool. Whoever he is.
As far as tuners go, this isn’t a Jazzmaster clone trip, but I do have some Kluson-esque tuners, that I might use, which could be good. I like the split pole thing, even if they can be a pain to string-up.
In terms of the finish, I have some fine purply pink paisley I’ve been looking for a good place to use and I can feel a bit of glitter sneaking in somewhere too.
Only fly in the ointment for all of this is that like the J-Bird I need to route out some wood to fit the P90s in…and still no router to play with.
Still, I think Katy's Killer Customs apart, The Purple Turtle One will fill an hour or fifty over the coming weeks.
Well, I've had a grim day. I was meant to be going to see Geoff and handover the OCD One (finally), but a combination of sick kids, knackered car - which still got nicked - and visits from health 'professionals' to sort out my crippledness kinda put the mockers on such delights.
Instead then, I've managed to do zilch of interest, watched Harry Hill, Pokemon, Fireman Sam and some other things I can't even name and, well, there we are.
I did realise that Jooky is pretty much one year old now, though the first guitar didn't come along until February in truth. It took a while that one, lots of chiseling if I remember rightly.
There are others I could have included, but they haven't been finished, have been abandoned, or like Geoff's I haven't gotten around to taking a final foto...but will do soon (when I can find the camera).
Anyway, as a Jooky Advent Calendar - that makes no sense at all, here is the guitar story so far, in no particular order, and as per, not making any kind of sense...
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.
Sometimes you just want dirty. Nothing flash, just grimy, seedy, hot and sticky, need fulfilling instant gratification. Sometimes you just want to plug-in, hit it hard and feel your pulse racing as endorphins start to cook, testosterone shoots to your brain and the need, that aching, criminal, sick and twisted urgent need just takes you over. You live in a bubble on the edge of a moment, working for that single jarring explosion, face gurning, lung torturing satisfaction.
And that is what The Fat Pussy One is all about a single, beautyfilled horrible sick and twisted judder of a pickup that goes straight for the jugular. A simple yet infinitely possible sound that lets you plug in and play.
And that is what it is all about. A single pickup guitar, a hand scattered Catswhisker P90 Fat Moggy pickup, coil-tapped to give you a second sound, a second moment. A kill switch to judder those highs, turn the gut wrenching lows into something primal, something deadly. The Fat Pussy One has a need, and delivers straight from the start. No need to do the chocolate and flowers thing, it’s a raging certainty.
*
To be clear, The Fat Pussy 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 hot night in Balsall Heath. There will genuinely never be another guitar like this and past experience suggests that it won’t be around for long.
This Guitar Has Been Sold - Sorry about that :)
Technical Stuff:
Type: Leona’s Groovy Guitar
Electrics: Catswhisker P90 ‘Fat Moggy’.
Guitar Type: Fender Stratocaster Style
Construction: Cloth over wood. Fender USA Tuners
Strings: Fender Stainless Steel 10s
Output: ¼” Guitar Lead
Controls: Single Volume, Push-pull for Coil-Tapp, Kill Switch
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...
One thing I've been threatening to do for a while is buy a router. This might be quite an admission for a 'Guitar maker', and if I were a traditional luthier, it would either be commercial suicide (on the basis that I must be buying the woody bits in) or a massive selling point, as the alternative would be that I am hand chiseling everything out of old tree stumps.
In my case of course, neither is true as so far my 'approach' has been to buy pre-Mojo'd parts (second hand to you and me) and turn them into something new. In the poetry/art world this is known as 'found art', and is seen as very clever. In my case it is probably because I am cheap.
But a router I am getting as basically, there are jobs that would be a lot easier (I need to fit a soapbar P90 and a full sized humbucker in Andy's J-Bird One, when the body is routed for three single coils, f'rinstance), but also because I still want to make a couple of types of original-ish bodies myself. Not through any need to be seen asa 'real' luthier - just because I'm wondering if I can, and to be honest I am limited to some extent by the bodies I have available when I sit down to make something. I'm nowt if not pragmatical-like.
I do see Jooky as something different though, and it is nice that a few people seem to get that too. I've said it before that there are loads of really talented luthiers in the UK - people like Wes Venables, The Creamery, Feline, all of whom I've mentioned here, and I'm quite happy to not be one of them. Jooky is a bit more punk than that, I think, and all about the 'What if' rather than the 'what sells'. The fact that people do buy them here and there means I can carry on making more. If that makes me a hobbiest to be sneered at, well, I've been laughed at before and still got on with what I see as cool and not done or felt the worse for it. I've been in the art and literary world for years, trust me them there people can sneer to Olympic standard.
So this is me, off to buy a router this week, for better or worse. This is what I do and all is cool as far as I am concerned. Join in, watch or ignore me as you see fit, it is all the same to me, sugar. But I tell you want, nobody makes guitars like I do. La la & laaaaa ;)
Well, I'm pleasured to introduce you to the latest wee Jooky guitar, the rather fetching and very delightfilled beauty that is The Fat Pussy one. And I have to say, I'm really rather pleased with myself over this one.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I've long fancied trying a Hand Scattered (isn't that a lovely phrase?) humbucker sized P90 pickup from Allan Price at Catswhisker. Allan is one of a few top notch 'winders' of pickups in the UK and an utter gent to deal with. Makes a nice change to be able to talk about somebody doing exactly what they say, earlier than promised and then that the end product happens to be better than you hoped, but this is it. A golden moment.
No, the irony isn't lost on me.
But the proof is in the stuffing it down your throat, after all, and this pickup really delivers in spades. It is quite simply perfect.
To put that into context, The Fat Pussy One is a single pickup guitar, so you always worry that it will be limited, but the fact that the pickup was set-up with the option of switching out-of-phase, means that you get two great tones for the price of one little chrome topped hunk of magnet and wire. And what you get are two amazingly raw and somehow 'real' sounds, that just make you want to play more and more. And even with my dodgy hands at the moment, I can't help but keep going back to this guitar - it just sounds 'proper', without any of the muddiness of humbuckers. I just love it.
When James Sant bought the P90 equipped Jazzmaster-esque The Psychedelic Surf One a while back, I remember him describing it as 'it sounds like sex in your face' and you can say the same of the Fat Pussy One, there is something primal about it.
I am a bit of a P90 nut, as you probably realise reading this blog, but I'm happy to say that this is the best P90 I've ever had the joy to play. And I like to think I've at least played most of the ones around these days, and quite a few of the 'originals' too.
But the guitar - well, in simple terms it has a single P90 with a single volume knob. This is a push-pull pot though, which changes the 'phase' - and the out-of-phase 'mode' is a joy, on a Strat you are getting that BB King/Peter Green hollowness, which is amazing for blues and Jazz, while the straight P90, well, take your pick.
As a bit of fun, I also put a red-topped Kill Switch on, which is great fun and a must if you like your effects laden noise-ville sonic architecturey...
What else? Well, golden USA Fender tuners are a joy to use as ever, and I can't quite believe I've got this far in describing an entrant to the Jooky academe without mentioning the cool black and red Paisley finishing combo...which just works perfectly. And I need not say more, for once.
But there we are. As you can tell, I'm a tad chuffed with this one, especially since I rewired the Kill Switch so it works the right way around..
Confucius - a fan of the traditional
Kill Switch wiring approach
Firstly, The Catswhisker 'Fat Moggy' P90 I've put into The Fat Pussy One sounds incredible. I would heartily recommend them to anybody.
2. The Out-of-Phase sound on the previously mentioned pickup, is absolutely brilliant. Instant Peter Green
apart from the playing.
c. If you wire a Kill Switch up the wrong way around, it works fine,
but you only get any noise coming out of the amplifier when you are pressing the little red button.
iv. It is very hard to play a guitar for long when you have to constantly press a little red button.
Finally. It is probably best if you wire Kill Switches up in the traditional manner.
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, everything is going J-Bird at the moment, but it is the finish that is taking a bit of time to work out. The scratchplate was the final piece of the jiggysaw, but I think we've just about got that 'designed' now, and I'm sending it off for somebody else to cut it.
I could probably do it myself, but as there is so much going into it, and my wobbly hands, it made sense to get a pro to do it. (Am I selling out? No burning holes with a soldering iron anymore? No pyrography tools, burned '78s and everything getting a little twee and pristine? Dunno. can't see it yet mind. Wait until you see the Jangly One finished before you decide.)
The finish is my next concern as we are still at the R&D stage, but I've been picking brains and I think we've got a plan now.
Basically, the idea is for the body to be covered with pages from a 1980s Marvel 'Punisher' comic or three, with this being stained a blue colour before having a logo superimposed over the top. It should make for a stunning looking finish and as per, I can't really wait to see how it turns out.
Silly as it sounds, it is the staining that has been the problem, as trying acrylic, water colour and even ink looked to work initially, but disappeared once the lacquer went on. Anyway, I've been picking them there brains and am going to try a spirit based stain now, so fingers crossed that will sort it out.
Other than that, I gave the OCD One a high volume test and really annoyingly the buzz resurrected itself. I was rather err, 'angry', but luckily didn't go Townsend about it. As the only parts that haven't been changed in the last week are the output jack socket and the mini-switch for the coil tap, I'm going to swap them out too, and hopefully....
(If this turns out to be my mobile fone interfering with the guitar, a thought that woke me up at 4am, that really will get kicked into the estuary this time).
Despite the fact that I'm pretty full-on with the customs right now, having one of the brats home sick from school means I'm a bit limited on what I can do, so I thought I'd bolt together the Fat Pussy One today.
This is the one with the Catswhisker Fat Moggy P90 pickup and a lovely neck too. My only problem with this baby was that the tuners I had available weren't the greatest, and more to the point were chrome, when I really saw this one needing a bit of gold to bring out the red/black paisley and the laughter in my eyes.
I didn't want anything else gold mind, just the tuners as they are far enough away, but still...blah blah blah. I can't explain what I mean.
Anyway, luckily for me I spotted some Fender USA tuners going begging, which solved the immediate problem, but better still they were goldenised.
It is all fated this Jooky bobbins.
So there we are, I've plonked it together, neck on, tuners to be replaced when they show up, everything apart from the wiring in place...can't be bad. Oh, the neck needs some serious lemon oil tenderness too, of course, and strings. I always forget about the strings, and a few of the screws. (I'm avoiding any obviously crude puns at this point, hope you appreciate my restraint, it would be far too easy to start talking about screwing fat pussies at this point, but I like to think I can rise above such things..)
As for the wiring, I must admit I am for once making life simple for meself.
A P90,
a volume control
and that is about it.
Oh, a kill switch, just for those RATM Morello moments.
And I'm using a push-pull volume pot as Allan at Catswhisker had kindly wired the P90 so that it can be put out-of-phase, which is nice of him and I can't wait to hear it...
So maybe not sooo very simple, but it will at least look that way.
Here is the WIP of it anyway, hopefully I'll get the wiring done at some point too, being as the pickup wire is peeking out from under the scratchplate on the fotos, I notice now it is too late.
I must admit single pickup Strats are something I've really begun to love doing and playing. My signature dish, somebody said the other day - though I think they were trying to say I was simple - but there we are. Simple is as simple does. That's me.
Well, Geoff's OCD One is finally done, bar a little high volume testing, so I thought I'd get going on the prep for our second Katy's killer custom - the J-Bird One.
I know I repeat the names a lot, and it isn't an attempt at brand awareness, just that I forget them otherwise.
As I picked up a quite beautiful neck for t'Bird the other day, I thought I'd sort out what I'm going to do about turning a leftie Strat headstock into a Firebird kind of shape.
Well, first of all, I haven't got a Firebird to copy, and though it would help (if somebody wants to send me one please shout out ;) as the headstock sizes are different and therefore I figured I'm kinda on my own anyway.
What I've done then is find some fotos of a FB headstock and play with them in Photoshop to get them sized sort of close. There is no point trying trace them on as basically they don't fit, but they are a good reference point.
Next, I drew around the Strat headstock onto a piece of paper.
After that, I've used my quite awful sketching skills to draw a Firebird shape onto the Strat picture. Which is the crummy picture over there.
As it hasn't scanned too well, I'll explain that the hatched areas are wood that will be removed and the shaded are the parts that will be thinner to give the right shape and depth.
Next, I guess I keep repeating the exercise until I actually get a bit closer (the sonnet writing simian that I am) and then I'll do a cardboard cut out, draw it onto the headstock and reach for the sharp things.
Gulp.
So there we are. Hopefully you'll agree it looks somewhere close to where we want to be, and that maybe I should go to nightschool or get my 4-year-old to draw it next time...
I've been talking about The J-Bird One - the mixture of Jaguar and Firebird we're putting together for Andy, and even showed a nice mock-up foto (I thought) and all the time I didn't realise that I was not being quite as original as I thought...as the mock-up was actually a WIP image of one being built by the quite wonderful British luthier-types, Feline Guitars.
I was rather embarrassed when this was pointed out (very nicely) by Jonathan the chap who owns the company. I'm still a bit on the lobster side of things as I type this...
So to be clear, it was obviously a complete cock-up on my part, and all credit to Jonathan and Feline for a great idea. Obviously, there was no sleight or credit-grabbing intended and all that, and I hope no hard feelings.
Saying that, I'm going to totally push my luck now and point you at a later foto of the Feline guitar as it is bleeding stunning. Click Here and see what I mean...
Blimey - fotos to follow later, but I finally got the OCD One into a buzz free state at 10.30pm last night, which is a relief as I was beginning to think I'd lost it big-time... But it is done, finally, and a blast thru the Ye Olde Vox later today will be an absolute pleasure.
Fotos and 'reaction' to follow then...
In other news... the J-Bird One is also moving in the right direction after a few false starts with people not being entirely accurate in their descriptions of things they are trying to flog.. I said before we want it done pre-Xmas, and time is already shooting past so now that Geoff's magnifique guitar is in the land of the living, nothing gets done before this baby, baby.
Well, nothing gets done until I hit a wall in every direction, is perhaps more like it, in truth, but there we are...
Anyway, all the parts are now ordered bar a custom scratchplate. Which is quite a job in itself wondering where to put everything, and man I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the wiring job with coil taps, kill switches and everything else. Actually, it should be fun (must find that multimeter).
Other than that, the finish has started to be tested on another body. I think I said before it is a Comic book look with a bit of a twist, and it is based on the Marvel Punisher series (top film, I watched it last week for research perps - well worth the effort.) It's a bit trickier than normal, but should be worth it, I reckon. Just worth practising up front, I feel.
All of which is good, but the one that's on the list that is haunting me at the moment is the neck. Now, as I said in the first place, what we are trying to do here is come-up with a guitar that has a Jaguar/Jazzmaster kind of body (and we're close man, we're pretty damn close), but rather than ape Fender's finest (and have they ever come-up with a guitar that looks that cool since or before - nah).
Where was I?
Oh yeah, rather than go for a straight Fender-esque headstock, Andy wanted something even cooler - one from a Gibson Firebird.
Now as you no doubt realise, Firebirds have fixed necks and Jaguars have bolt-ons, which gives a clue about a potential problem. Also of course, no bugger is likely to be selling a Firebird neck and so - what do you do?
At this point I'd have probably gone Hmmm and got a bit lateral, but Andy had already sussed it and had got a wee beauty of a plan.
So basically, what we have done is find a very nice, hand made, left handed Strat neck, with a CBS-esque large headstock, and I'm going to shape it so that it does good impression of a Firebird.
How cool is that?
Tell you what, I wish I’d thought of it.
Into that we're going for the bestest vertical banjo tuners we can lay our hands on - the Steinberger gearless ones that everybody bangs into their Firebirds if they want to stay in tune (as Gibson’s - shhh - aren't very good, I'm told)....and there we are.
So all in all, quite a bit of work to do, and I need to dig out my whittling knife (last used on a tent peg in the scouts, circa 1980) and see what I can do.
I have to say, I'm really enjoying the custom side of things, just as much as my usual Jooky fare, but for a different reason - both Geoff and Andy have turned-up with ideas that are stretching me in a different direction and making me think a bit more. And long may it last..
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...
This looks sooo much better with strings. And screws.
Well, I finally got the OCD One back from my mate the soldering tech last night, but unfortunately we're only 86.349% there, which means that today, if I manage to do anything else, it will be to finally finish it.
I started talking to Geoff about the guitar on the 6th or 7th of October, so in real terms it hasn't been ultra slow, but man it feels like it has.
And to be perfectly honest it is doing my head in.
Not a great foto, but a lovely piece of wood, methinks
We've been having a fun old time trying to find a Jaguar body for our latest Katy's Killer Custom guitar, the J-Bird One, and it is starting to remind me why we seem to do so many Strats - it is a lot easier to find the parts.
Anyway, we've got a couple of options, with one of them being an old custom made guitar being broken up by a friend-of-a-friend. Actually, there are two guitars being broken up, and two bodies, if I'm being specific.
These aren't exactly the right shape and I'm not sure that we'll use them for the J-Bird but I've decided to grab them either way, as they look a bit fun and as I said, such things are hard to find without importing them from the U.S of A and paying the tax man far too much for the privilege..
Andy is yet to see them (actually so am I), but either way I think it is about time we ventured into offset territory again anyway, and this is a chance too good to miss. It's been a long time since The Psychedelic Surf One - which is with James Sant still, of course - and features on a lovely new recording of his. I keep forgetting to mention that; I'll put a link up later.
But anyway, where was I? Yes - so whether Andy goes with one of them or not, the other is going to be for me and it will turn out to be a bit of a one, I think. It is practically begging for a single P90 soapbar, let's face it, and as I've already got a neck or three lay around that will fit (hopefully) it could be an easy put together.
(I always think that and it never is.)
We'll see when they arrive anyway...
Later that night, in the Jooky Kingdom...
I fell over taking this 'shot'
OK, the guitar bodies turned up before I had a chance/got around/stopped eating/could be bothered to post this on the blog. And they are really very nice. lovely sparkly finishes, Blue and a sort of old Red colour. They've been left with three single coils in them and a bridge, so I figured I should really bang a neck on one of them and see what they are sounding like.
First impressions, the body is heavier than I expected. Not anything Gibson-esque, but a good Strat weight. Actually, it is similar to my Jazzmaster, which I guess I should have expected.
Nice offset shape, so it is comfy from the off - slightly thinner than a Jag or Jazzmaster, but it feels fine. Verily nice in fact.
Strumming it acoustically, well it totally sings. I'm really surprised. The bodies are swamp ash, and the sound unplugged is nice and vibrant with a good sustain.
Plugged in, well three single coils, a five way switch and Fender American Strat pups, it was only going to sound like a Strat wasn't it. Very nice tones, good and responsive, bit of a twang, all the right in-betweeny noises and I love it when a guitar starts to break up more the harder you 'pick'. Bit of overdrive and everything is sweet, and then all out mayhem ensues without any unwanted feedback. I think the middle pickup must be reversed too as the 2 & 4 positions are quieter still.
All in all, very nice. the bridge is a crock of something smelly, but I am guessing it wasn't the original as everything else has been sold.
Sooo, a bit of a treat to find this and now that it is at my tender mercies...lovely.
Does it get me further forward with the J-Bird,
I'm thinking possibly maybe - tis upto Andy.
Will I get to make a bit of a jingly guitar or two in my favourite shape of all, oh yes.
