Tie-Dye

Occasionally I am asked to donate a guitar for local fundraising events. “Sure. I can part with one more guitar”. Maybe. So, I started going through some standard bolt-on parts in the shop and found this deep blue American Made early 90’s Fender Stratocaster body. I decided that I would remove the blue lacquer and refinish.

The first shocker was that the original finish was not nitrocellulose lacquer. It was epoxy and damn near impossible to remove even with the best of epoxy remover. And then shocker #2; as I sprayed remover, waited, scraped, sprayed, waited, scraped,the clear top coat came up and eventually the blue. And then a layer of silver, and a layer of aqua. Then another layer of silver and the red which was on top of yet another layer of silver primer.

What in the hell is this? I have no idea why all the layers as epoxy is very dense and not translucent so doesn’t bleed through. The guitar certainly didn’t need this thick coating.

The end result was a ‘go with the flow’ grunged up American relic. I installed the original Willy Wailer neck, an antiqued pickguard, some old knobs and three Abigail Ybarra, Fender Custom Shop late 60’s pickups. ‘What a strange long trip it has been’.

Plays great and kind of cool,ah? Not sure what to do with this junkyard dog.

Now, I still need a guitar for the fundraiser. Back to the shop.

Princess of Barkness

So, here is the current incarnation of Princess Bark (and my buddy, Critter the Tabby). The P-90 has been replaced by a terrific Pete Biltoft Vibetron Humbucking pickup. A first for me, I have installed a switch to ‘split’ the twin coils into one if desired. I also added a removable black panel to cover the unused area of the ‘vault’.

The final mod came out of nowhere when I sensed that replacing the harsh metal bridge with a custom wood and bone bridge would really bring more of the infused richness found in acoustic guitars. It did just that. Really enhanced the unique sound this guitar produces. Very bluesy, yet spunky as hell.

This project will never be done as I have still kept the original design goals of reconfiguration flexibility and ease. After all, I have this 3x6 inch hole in the top for anything I conjure up.

What’s next? I am going to replace the standard frets with Stewart McDonald’s Wide/Pyramid fretwire. Also, thinking about installing a removable speaker cone that might simulate those resonator sounds. Could modify my Danelectro Hodad mini amp to fit in the vault. Maybe build a three single coil mod that could change Bark into a Strat in a matter of minutes. Got any cool ideas?

Got to love this

Check out the piece on Basket Weaving 101 on the Ramblin Willy link above.

Magical Mystery Ride

In luthier parlance, a mule is this guitar thing that can be beat, reconfigured; an experiments platform to you rocket scientist. ‘Bark’ began with that in mind. But something happened along the way to the ball. Well, not exactly on the way to the ball, actually in the dressing room before the carriage ride.

Looking at the picture in the prior post, you can see that Bark is only a neck mounted to a sculpted body. At this point I had to make choices like “How would I accommodate experimenting with pickups without taking off strings?” Decision number one; route out a ‘vault’ from the neck to the yet to be chosen bridge. Once this was done other choices fell into line. I routed for and installed volume and tone pots and a Gibson style bridge. Cable jack was some extra Tele part. This all happened very quickly and BAM I had a working guitar after stringing up.

Now comes the ‘on the way to the ball’ thing. I started playing the mule and it magically changed into a Princess. It sounded terrific and played smooth. Now I had an essential dilemma to confront. Was Bark truly a ‘mule’ or do I start treating her like the Princess she was under the disfigured spalted maple and hodgepodge of cast off parts?

The Green Machine

Back about a year ago I looked at some spalted maple lumber in my shop that was just left over junk. A big piece of great wood but with some exposed bark and a big open knot. But it was a big piece and I thought about a ‘green guitar’. Escape from the landfill. A guitar that plays well but is somewhat the ‘ugly duckling’. Thus began the creation of ‘Bark’.

The deliverance that the next guitar will be ugly makes for some interesting ‘freedom of thought’. Can’t really screw up the appearance; it is suppose to be ugly. ‘Go for it, dude!’

What could I do with a guitar that doubles for a kayak paddle in times of need and my favorite ax? First, I would make it so I could change pickups easily without removing strings or changing electronics. Hell, why not change pickup position by simply sliding the pickup back and forth? That is exactly what I did.

Bark is the perfect ‘camping guitar’, the perfect ‘mule’ and as it turns out, the perfect storm.

Introducing ‘BARK’…but there is more. Much more in this yet again adventure in luthierism.

China Connection

Well, number nineteen is finished; the ‘hot-rodded’ off-shore strat. Here is what I did.

• Bought a made in China three color sunburst strat for $99
• Bought tortoise shell pick guard $50
• Bought Fender ’57 Strat reissue pickups $120
• Upgraded the internal electronics and tuners $30

I then refinished the headstock and applied my Willy Wailer logo.

Worth it? Yea, it is. For $300 and maybe 5 hours of work, I have my own very nice version of Fender’s classic three pickup rig.

Looking into 2010

I am looking forward to building a semi hollow body using the shape I came up with for Sweet Sixteen my latest Spanish style guitar. The concept is to use the forms and jigs for that shape, which is actually a reduction of the 16 inch Archtop. I also want to use a bolt-on neck such as a Strat Rosewood.

Hopefully, the guitar will turn out somewhat like a red version of this.



Ah, but that project must wait as I have another project the fell into my lap last week. I was in a great little guitar store in San Luis Obispo and they had Fender Strat knock-offs from China for $99. They are very nice guitars with really crappy pick-ups. No problem, I bought a new tortoise shell pick guard and Fender '57 reissue pick-ups. With very little effort, I should have a 'hot rodded' screamin’ 57 reissue Strat.

I’ll get 'before & after' pictures posted with some costs in case you get inspired.