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[bjmclean]

Samick LC650  Les Paul

One day I was musing how I’d never had a Les Paul, I mean not even a copy (which let’s face it, is much more likely, being a lefty, and a thrifty lefty at that). Then I saw this Samick in a second hand store. 

I remembered reading favourable reviews of these guitars on forums, particularly their “Artist Series Edition” models, as this one was. And what’s more, the price tag showed it had been reduced in price *four* times.

I asked to plug it in, and had a go - everything seemed to work as it should.

I paid and took it home.

The other reason for wanting something Les Paul ish, was that I’d previously got my hands on a couple of excellent pickups - but it turned out that they were made for the string spacing of Les Pauls, not my usual Fender-width spacing. More on that later.

I got home and started further researching, what I found was a minor disappointment. My Samick “Artist Series Edition” (ASE) was apparently from later years of production, and some of it’s features weren’t the same as the models being raved about online...

My Samick ASE: bolt-on neck. Headstock logo = decal. Fretboard inlays = dots.

Earlier Samick ASEs: thru-neck. Headstock: pearloid inlay. Fretboard inlays the nicer block version, tuners proper tulip shape...

...see the below three pics of a (righty) older model to show what I mean.

Well I wasn’t too disheartened, it just meant that maybe I didn’t get the amazing bargain that I had initially thought, and had actually paid about right... I still had a solid base for modding, which is what I had wanted.

First off - bye bye scratchplate, and the other cream coloured parts. Apart from the binding, this is going BLACK.

Right, those pickups...   after a proper trial at home, the stock pickups were found to be very microphonic. Also curiously were stamped “SAM SUNG” on the back. Well Sam, whoever you are -  I don’t think much of those, sorry. One of the covers fell off and revealed... zero wax. Not surprised.

Stripped down, a quick clean & polish, and a hole drilled for a 3-way mini switch.

The pickups are a Seymour Duncan P-Rails at the bridge (hence the 3-way switch, this pickup can be a humbucker/P90/single rail !) and in the neck, A GFS Dream 180.

so here we are... new pickups in, and black PU rings/switch tip/ knobs.            I’m pleased with how it turned out, how it looks and sounds. It’s not what purists call a Les Paul, by any stretch - but it suits me just fine.

[bjmclean]

Johnson Bass refinish

In a previous post I mentioned my Johnson bass. It’s a cheap, made in China, pretty plain instrument. It actually plays and sounds quite nice, but it’s nothing to look at (that headstock, I may have mentioned before, is a serious minger). So I knew someday I’d get round to a makeover.

a dark sunburst; plain white scratchplate.

uuuuuhgggh

And again, “Johnson EMG” pickups. Pretty standard passive fare.

Now, although I had decided this makeover was going to be cosmetic only, I am going to replace the bridge with something slightly more heavy gauge (this stock one is fairly lightweight), and I fancy brass saddles. Jeepers look at the dust on that, I have no shame.

So off we go to the garage boutique luthier’s workshop

goodbye headstock, I shall not miss thee

At this stage I took the opportunity to measure the resistance of the pickups: 11.67k ohms, sounds good to me (standard Fender P-bass comes in at 10.5k, I am reliably told).

Now, I am going to go for a *light* relic appearance here. LIGHT relic, I am not going to trash this thing. 

The scratchplate was rubbed all over with superfine wire wool, soaked in warm bleach solution for several hours, to soften the plastic. Then I soaked it overnight in a strong coffee solution.

When I pulled it out I was afraid I had went overboard...

...but it wiped off no problem, leaving behind an off-white shade that I thought was perfect.

After that it got a tiny rub of brown boot polish around the edges.

Headstock time! Now, there is not enough wood there to get a Fender shape (a tele shape maybe, not a P-bass though). I'll have to compromise:

We have to be careful, we don’t want to lose any wood in front of the tuners.

feels good man

new bridge: Wilkinson with brass saddles. altogether too shiny though; so it gets splashed with a water/vinegar solution and left for a day.

There is a historical precedent of not only automotive paints being used for guitar finishes (Leo Fender being thrifty), but also of ugly sunburst bodies getting covered over with nicer colours (just do an image search for “relic over sunburst” to see what I mean). I am gladly sticking with these traditions:

A couple of tips for using rattlecans - (apart from, you know, reading & following the directions on the side...)  Before use, before shaking actually - leave the can in a bucket/basin of warm (WARM, not scalding) water for 10mins. This gets the propellant up to optimum pressure. Also, when you have sprayed your guitar and have reached full coverage, do not be tempted to keep on spraying to get a thicker coat or to get your money’s worth from that can. That road only leads to ruin. Cans often get spluttery right at the end, and thicker coats run. Leave it!

I’ll spare you the sanding / priming / spraying stages, let’s get to the good stuff.

Taking shape: I’ve given it the slightest wear at the arm contour, and various little dings/scratches all over. Like I say, *light* relic is the way to go.

Here’s that new headstock

tuners fully covered. Just.

I’m liking it.

Look at that grime.

Ok, it’s fake grime. Sue me.

The knobs get rubbed with steel wool on top to remove the shine, the bridge gets a few marks too. Here are those vinegar-tarnished saddles:

Let’s string her up

I’ll leave you with a bunch of pictures of the finished article. I think it came out pretty well. A lot of people are down on relics (”uuugh so fake, I prefer to play mine 12hrs a day for 30 years to get the same effect, thanks”). I think as long as you don’t go crazy, it can put a little character into a plain looking instrument.

Ebay is full of “relics” which are simply guitars ruined with a sander...  don’t get me wrong, there are some awesome home relic jobs out there too with every spring and screw chemically aged and insane attention to detail, but they are a minority; and even the most well done relics aren’t to everyone’s taste. I get that.

And finally, don’t do it on a valuable instrument folks, m’kay?

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Hohnercaust part 2

It was the nineties, and there was time for... KLAX further guitar abuse.

This was my second guitar, a used, right-handed, Hohner JT-60, a surfy-looking mashup of an offset body with what looked like a Strat layout. But that volume & two tone knobs were apparently something special called the “Advanced Tonal Network”, enabling you to sound like any guitar! wowzers. Here’s the manual:

It seems weird that 3 single-coil pickups and a 3-way selector switch (rather that a Strat-style 5-way) was supposed to get such a wide range, as illustrated... but did I fully explore the possibilities in TONE ? Nope. Those damn knobs just got in the way. I recessed those pots down into the body cavity again. I happily played that guitar for years, it ended up with chronic fretwear. Here it is in happier times, in a line-up featuring my then-new-arrival (Hamer explorer).

Due to the fret wear, I bought a whole new neck off ebay (the old neck going onto the ikea chopper), but I decided while I was tinkering, I'd try and make a new scratchplate for it too. I bought a sheet of blue stuff and this is what happened:

I moved the volume pot downwards, but the two tones (that were rarely used) I kept in the original rout area, but lower in (and with smaller knobs) so they didn't get in the way of my strummin'.

now, the jack socket... in the first pic of the unmolested instrument you can see it was beside the tone pots. I wanted to move it down the body, but because the guitar body had an arm contour I couldn't really put it at the bottom (also I didn't have the tools). Best I could do was here:

with a right-angled cable, it tucked behind the strap pretty nice. I really don't know why I bothered. Just the urge to get creative I suppose. I should have just sold the thing as the stock right handed guitar, and started saving for a new lefty. Sometimes I get an idea in my head though... 

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Hohnercaust

Thinking back to what was my first attempts at guitar mods, I did some bad things to good guitars. Two good guitars suffered at my hands, and as it turns out they were both Hohners.

Sorry, Hohners. The knowledge I gained from your demise helped future guitars to live a better life. Maybe.

I was 17, this was my first electric guitar, a used Hohner MXJ Arbor series "superstrat", dark metallic grey, HSS pickup config with individual switches, licensed Floyd Rose trem & locking nut, sharkfin inlays, pointy headstock, a bit 'metal', but not outrageously so. A fairly nice guitar of it's type, no?

(these two pics not mine, this was from a GIS, so thanks anon Hohner owner (Howner?)

Of course, the thing is, I am left-handed. So after a period of playing this guitar strung upside down, I got fed up with the volume knob getting in my way. I was also inordinately annoyed that the lower horn of the body now extended farther than the top one. So my 17-yr-old brain hatched a plan. I was about to embark on my first guitar makeover...

First, I was going to even the score on that lower horn. To give you an idea of what I saw in my head, here's a crude diagram. (It's not much cruder than the actual cut job I did...)

So I destrung it, unbolted the neck, took a handsaw (Coping Saw?) and began.

It turned out the body was plywood, so wasn't an ideal medium for my crude carpentry, also the rest of the paintwork had to go now, so I set about sanding off the whole finish (by hand... the 17yo me had no powertools).

Finally it got finished and reassembled; and over the years it got a few different paint jobs. First there was a Nosferatu paintjob (I cut a stencil of the famous scene of Count Orlok climbing up a staircase, oversprayed with luminous paint). Here's a couple of surviving photos. You can also see I attached a metal badge of the "Danzig" skull.   \m/  yes... "Twist Of Cain" got played a lot on this guitar.

at some point later I resprayed it as below; purple and green, with large cartoon pickups and knobs for comedy effect. I was a teenager in a punk band at the time and we didn't take ourselves too seriously. The tops of the 'knobs' were coated in wipe-clean whiteboard type material, so I could write alternatives for "volume" and "tone" on them. eg ""ooh / Ahh", "love / hate", "arse / elbow" etc.

This is also the point where I unscrewed the actual vol & tone pots, pushed them inside the guitar cavity (making sure they were turned up full) and filled in the holes. What remained were the 3 on-off toggle switches for the 3 pickups (effectively killswitches, which is actually good if you have no volume control).

The strap is also gaffa-taped on there of course, as per the punk/grunge stylings of the day.

And finally, the blue period. With a rattlecan of fluorescent blue paint, a chrome licensed Floyd Rose trem (in proper left-handed format) taken off an old Marlin Sidewinder, and almost too many other dumb features to mention...

the back, lovingly smothered in stickers & warning tape.

The nut? Cracked & fell off long ago. The replacement? An off-cut of chromed metal bar, about 6mm diameter. String slots? Nope. But the allen bolt locking nut held the stings in place.

The tuner for the low E broke off. Find a similar replacement? Nope; added a wrong-sided, *acoustic* guitar tuner. It was actually excellent for quickly tuning down to 'D' for the songs that required it.

well there’s my ill advised teenage guitar makeover. Hohnergeddon pt II coming in the near future.

[bjmclean]

How many guitars do you need? A scientific answer

The correct number of guitars you need to own is x+1.

While the minimum number of guitars one should own, is three, the correct number can be expressed as x+1, where x is the number of guitars you currently own.

This equation may also be expressed as s-1, where s is the number of guitars owned that would result in separation from your partner.

some guitars, yesterday

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The Frankenstrat

I wasn't meaning to make another guitar, I swear I wasn't! But, in the process of gathering parts for my orange Strat, I won an ebay auction for about £7, for this sunburst Squier body. A few tiny marks here and there but really pretty good; I was going to try and spray it orange if all else failed. Then of course it became surplus.

I also had a Seymour Duncan Invader pickup, and an H-S-S config scratchplate, and a few other bits like knobs/pots and a Strat jackplate... there's about half a guitar already right there. What else was I to do?

I was going to get a couple of cheap single coil pickups to go with the Invader, then I found that the Invader was a neck pickup; gaaaah.

Oh well, I put the Invader in the neck, having to cut the single-coil sized slot in the scratchplate into humbucker size. Then I needed to fill the other two with suitable pickups.

The bridge pickup is an IronGear Hammer Head, the middle is a Warman "6-Gauge" (the single-coil variant of their "12-Gauge" humbucker). Both these pretty much being clones of the Invader, with their huge hex polepieces.

The humbuckers were 4-wire coil splittable, so I installed switches on the scratchplate, meaning I can go single-coil at neck or bridge if I desire.

Not even sure if there's much point - if you're going for a pickup like an Invader, you probably want your sound as brutal as possible and splitting down to one coil only detracts from that... maybe if I get more experienced at wiring, I'll update the switches to change the phasing or something.

So I needed a neck, the cheapest option at the time (inevitably) wasn't left-handed, I found a big-headstock righty going cheap online.

I also took my first steps into the world of waterslide decals. I got a custom shop ebayer to make this decal for me.

It came out OK I think, the clearcoat laquer was just from a spray can but I  somehow got it applied smooth enough.

So that's the Frankenstrat. Currently hanging on my wall. Needs a little more work and a final setup, but I'm pleased with it, for something completely unplanned.

[bjmclean]

Sonic Youth Simpsons t-shirt

Sonic Youth t-shirt:

Simpsons image from GIS

Simpsons font from some free font site

.png put together on ancient PC w/ Fireworks II or something

shirt printed at online stationery printers using free shirt voucher

fading courtesy of a few years laundry, also sweaty gigs.

Artists I have enjoyed the live performances of, while wearing this shirt include Mudhoney, Holy Fuck, and Thurston Moore (he didn't recognise himself, Ah well)

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The LEGO distortion pedal

Just a bit of fun this one; and for pedants everywhere, I'll say that more accurately it's a distortion pedal encased in Lego. Although it does have working Lego knobs and footswitch.

A little 2x2 open square on top lets you see the LED of the pedal.  I'm sure there must be some transparent canopy-type Lego piece that would be ideal there, but I don't have it.

I considered adding a hinged battery compartment door at the back, but as I only ever use mains power with pedals, I just ran the 9v connector out the back to clip onto a mains multi-adapter.

The hinged Lego footplate lifted up to reveal the actual pedal inside...

It's a DOD Thrashmaster pedal, I bought from a friend maaany years ago. It's true colour is neon pink (google it) but at some point since I resprayed it battleship grey.

A short clip of the Lego pedal in action here.

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Lego Distortion Pedal

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Orange Strat (ebay partscaster)

I've never been a big fan of Stratocasters. As the world's most popular, most famous, most recognisable guitar, they are just so ubiquitous; and familiarity breeds contempt. In a world of infinite possibilities, they seem a bit... boring. Of course I am going mostly by looks. Yes, I am that shallow. I like guitars that look cool.

So, I began to make a "Strat" which looked cool. Well, cool to me. Each to their own, eh? The resulting guitar will probably be a monstrosity to some. I'm OK with that.

It had to be orange. Yup, you heard me. So I started looking for a left-handed, orange strat body. Guess what? They aren't easy to find. Short of getting a new body primed & sprayed (and I'm on a tight budget here), I was stuck. Until ebay showed me this....

 "ST Style in Orange  - Great value guitar with a decent tone and pretty good build quality.  Basswood Body". Clearance price - £45, & free postage.  What?!

Well, come on. £45? It had to be pure trash. Well, in it's favour, it states basswood body (ie solid wood; not plywood as the cheapest guitars can often be). Also it has to be said this was an auction, starting price £45. I'm sure the retail price would be somewhat higher.

Well, I bid on it, no-one else did, 45 Pounds later I received a big cardboard box full of orange strat. It was branded Harrier; I'd previously seen Harrier selling their strats on ebay for £80-£100 (and their necks alone for £49) so a bargain was had.

Upon inspection, I found the body to be good. Great, in fact. A brilliant colour, a solid finish (not exactly high-gloss, but that suits me). The rest of the guitar, not so much. I dismantled it, sold the scratchplate (inc. pickups), and the neck (inc. tuners) on ebay. Doing this, I actually recouped most of my money back.

So now I had my orange body. (I also kept the bridge, jack socket, & neckplate.) Next I needed a scratchplate & pickups. I wanted them all-black, and ideally something different than the usual strat 3x single coils. Maybe 2 humbuckers...  so back to ebay I went. The closest thing I could see was this:

The pickup configuration I could live with, but do you spot the strange, non-standard strat feature? This scratchplate includes it's own jack socket! So not suitable for a strat then... but nothing I can't fix. I ordered it, and when it arrived I got out the saw 'n' sander.

I trimmed off the scratchplate's 'horn' that included the jack socket, nice and neatly, to make it into a conventional strat shape. Results shown below:

I also replaced the generic pickups that came with the scratchplate, with a couple more ebay purchases:

Vanson High Output Hex Pole Humbucker - 15.8k, bridge

Vanson High Output HOT Rail - 13.8k, neck

Ok, neck time. Maple please. This ebay listing caught my eye; block inlays! It's from "Eden guitars" in Hong Kong, and again relatively cheap ($45 / £29, plus $25 / £16 shipping). You can pay a little extra to get it finished; I chose a vintage-tint gloss lacquer, and a proper lefty strat shape headstock.

I'd really have liked the big, 70s headstock on it. The 1970s are seen as a dark age to Strat purists, it's when Fender was owned by CBS, who made some weird changes like 3-bolt necks, the bigger headstock, and general penny-pinching / quality reduction. But when I see the big headstock, I see 1970s mojo, I see funk, I see style. I can already hear the wahwah... but then Eden said there wasn't enough wood on their blank 'paddle' neck. Bah. Ordinary headstock for me then.

It took about 6 weeks for the finished product to arrive; and I was fairly pleased with it. The frets were well finished, the vintage tint gloss was quite orangey (this of course suited me, but might not work with everyone's project though). Also the lacquer was thick. I had to redrill the tuner holes, sand the heel a little, and file the nut slot, because of the thickness of the lacquer. Wasn't a huge deal though.

I had a set of chrome Wilkinson tuners, so everything was here!

So... after a weekend of assembly I had this:

...actually, not quite finished; no string tree yet.

The vibe is completed with an orange seatbelt-strap. (And some scuffmarks from enthusiastic strumming there too. They'll polish off :)

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Pimpin' the Johnson

Let me introduce you to my Johnson.

A few years ago, I was browsing ebay for a cheap bass. I had a couple of guitars, but wanted a cheap bass to play at home too. Among all the no-names, and usual cheap names (Stagg, Benson, Westfield etc), I found a new one: Johnson. A music shop was ebaying Fender Precision-style left-handed basses, by a brand called Johnson, "Buy It Now, Clearance price £89 !!" I had been considering a used bass, but the details on the Johnson mentioned a full set-up before despatch and "EMG-designed pickups". Interesting... I 'phoned the shop selling them, and asked if these instruments were actually any good. The gent from the shop told me he'd never seen such good value guitars and basses for the money. (Was I really expecting him to say anything else?!) But he was actually repairing a Fender bass for "a gigging pro bass player", a member of the backing band of an Irish pop legend, and he'd lent this guy a Johnson bass as a "courtesy bass" while the Fender was in the shop. The bassist allegedly came back to say the Johnson had performed so well, he didn't care how long the Fender repair took, he wanted to keep the Johnson! Who was I to question the veracity of this tale; I ordered a sunburst Johnson P-bass, but also on a whim I took a Johnson Telecaster too. They were "Buy It Now, Clearance price £79 !!", for a guitar? I'd be daft not to. Maybe...

So it arrived, nicely set up from the shop. Body: solid, looks like a 2-piece (google suggests alder, can't tell for sure). Finish: dark translucent blue, can just see the wood grain through it. Actually looks very nice! Neck: bolt-on maple neck, rosewood board... although lovely and smooth, it was the lightest coloured rosewood I'd ever seen, (actually had some swirls of grain through it that were positively pale... not sure what tone-purists would have to say about that). The neck was a bit chunky, all the way down to the nut. 22 fret with overhang, so more like a Strat; traditional Teles will have a 21-fret neck with no overhang, but as this is a budget guitar, I'm sure they just used the same necks as on their Strat copies. It's certainly the same headstock as on their Strat copies... and what a headstock. Sorry Johnson, it's a minger.

Actually, that's harsh. I've seen worse. It looks ok on a budget Strat copy. Just a little weird on a Tele. But hey, they gotta avoid those Fender lawsuits.

Tuners felt average, not perfect but not terrible. Bridge was solid enough, but the chrome looked a little cheap. Traditional 3-saddle design (chromed rounded barrels).  Strung through the bridge, not the body.

So, the pickups! Well they do look pretty cool; matt black plastic covers with silver "Johnson EMG" branding. But again, not quite the right look if you want a traditional Tele. As every guitar nut knows, EMG pickups, with their flat-black design, & no visible pole pieces, belong on shred-tastic Thrash metal Über-axes. They are usually very high output and active (requiring a 9volt power supply). These ones however, are passive, not active, completely average sounding pickups. Again, not perfect but not terrible. Upon testing their output I found them to be 6.7k ohms Bridge, 5.7k ohms neck. So pretty mild.

So I happily kept this guitar and played it now and then, but because of it's few niggles (headstock shape, pickups), combined with it's cheap price, I always had thoughts of modification in mind. But I did put it off for a couple of years, as it did play fairly nicely. Then one day, browsing ebay, I found the inspiration to get modding. It was a Fender-Licensed Mighty Mite® left-handed neck, 22 fret Strat-style, Gotoh tuners, with a Telecaster decal fitted to the headstock. Hello! I watched the auction and expected the price to go way beyond my budget. (A new Mighty Mite neck is £80-£100, Gotoh tuners about £40). But no, I won it... for a great price. How much? Oh, discussing monies is so vulgar. (oh alright then. £36.)

While I had my Johnson in pieces, I might as well go the whole way. I bought a sheet of scratchplate material (pearloid cream), and hand-cut a new scratchplate, a hybrid of traditional Tele shape at the front, and custom / deluxe Tele at the rear, doing away with the need for the control plate below the knobs & selector switch. Also got a set of brass compensated saddles for the bridge.

I received the ebay-bargain neck, it didn't feel like so much of a steal when I saw how badly the tuners had been installed! The headstock originally had 10mm holes for the tuners; these Gotohs' bushings were 9mm. What had they done? Bought new 10mm bushings for the Gotohs? Why no, they had filled in the 10mm holes with wooden dowling & glue, and drilled crooked 9mm holes. The 9mm bushings were in so tight, they couldn't be removed. I had to drill 'em out, destroying the bushings, and redrill 10mm holes.

I sketched out the outline of a Telecaster shape on the Stratty headstock (yes, with a biro, I'm classy like that). Reshaped with an electric sander.

Also the Telecaster decal on the headstock I had planned to laquer over, but the decal was so thick, it still had an ugly visible outline after several coats & sandings. So I just sanded it all down flat, taking a little of the lettering away in the process (who cares, let's call it "semi-relic"). New 10mm bushings ordered, and a new bone nut too.

Pickups next!

I had cut my new scratchplate for the same small-single coil neck pickup, traditional Tele style, but then having looked so long at pictures of deluxe & custom Telecasters, I started seeing a chrome humbucker in the neck instead. It was time for the pseudo-EMGs to go.

I bought these from SECO Guitars:

CHROME NECK HUMBUCKER ALNICO V BAR MAGNET 7.2K

TELE BRIDGE PICKUP ALNICO 5 ROD MAGNET 50's vintage lead sound 7.4K

and got out the soldering Iron. Also had to cut the humbucker hole in the scratchplate. I rubbed the ashtray bridge down with some super-fine wire wool, to hide the cheap look off the chrome.

Johnson neck/tuners and pickups all disposed of on ebay.

Then it just remained to bolt the neck back on, string it up and a bit of setup / intonation. Mutant Telecaster completed. The Johnson is pimped.

Oh and also, the Johnson P-Bass is getting a makeover in a future episode.

The only Johnson in the world that's more classy that this one, is:

[bjmclean]

Ikea Guitar - "The Chopper"

An old guitar neck. If only it had a body. Then it could live again!

But, guitar bodies are expensive. (Especially left-handed ones).

However, huge slabs of wood are only £8 from Ikea. Whaddaya mean, it's a chopping board? Not for much longer. It's gonna BE chopped. In half. Diagonally...

You see? Put the two halves together, like a big sandwich, and it's the right thickness for a guitar. Cut out a pocket for the neck, and we're on our way.

Borrow sander from brother-in-law. Make a hole for the pickup.

Underside of top layer: a quick bit of haphazard routing...

She's taking shape now boyos.

Time to oil up my wood. Keeps the fungus away, don't you know.

This headstock...  not stupid enough looking.

That's better.

Did I mention it'd be left-handed? It's left-handed alright.

Now for the guts; open up the bits box.

One humbucker, one volume knob. Then screw it all together...

and you have an Ikea Chopper. Left-handed.

And just to prove it actually works, see the below video, for a quick blast of something befitting such an instrument.