Wall Of Sound In Gold

[ap404]

My name's Anthony Paine.

I have a 'one day a week', 'one man and one dog' workshop here in sunny Melbourne.

A certain 'Gratay' pointed me in the direction of this forum. So here goes ...




Here's number 10 from my 'shop ...

The 'Wall Of Sound In Gold' ( some sort of Jazzmaster ) currently undergoing testing at my house before a little more buffing and tweaking and delivering to it's new owner.

[Bob Connor]

Hi Anthony and welcome.

Very cool looking guitar.

What pickups did you put in it?

Bob

[gratay]

Hey , don't blame me fella
Welcome. Its good to see you here.

Great looking guitar too...I love the colour. It really suits .

[joel]

Nice. Very nice.

[ap404]

Hi guys, thanks for looking, I wasn't trying to build any dramatic tension before posting the rest of my photos or telling you what this thing's made of, I was cooking pasta and got distracted ( and hungry )

err ... specs :

Body : Basswood
Neck : New Guinea Rosewood
Fretboard : Sheoak
Scale : 24"

The headstock shape is a straight tracing of one of my favourites, my 1967 Guild S100 Polara ( one of those crazy guitars with a magnetically retractable chrome kickstand in the back ).

The neck joint is pure Gibson ( except with a 4 inch long tenon ) that I've got into the habit of building since I made a batch of non-reverse ( gumby ) late 60's style firebirds.

Truss rod is Gibson style single steel rod.

The parts are all bought to budget for this one. It's a one off for a friend.

Kluson copies, tune-o-matic copy, Chinese epi rivoli style ( deniz tek ) pickups from Eastwood.





I had to splurge on a B5 Bigsby though, for one of my favourite combinations : mini hums with Bigsby trem ...

And looking at the Bigsby alloy made me start cutting pickguard parts from alloy to match. The truss-cover is a miniature Non reverse firebird shape again.

[ap404]

This wasn't going to be the official photoshoot, that's still a temporary, ugly nut, and there's buffing compound goop on the headstock ( and a Cheap Trick guitar strap artfully hiding a buffing burn-through on the upper horn ) But I got carried away playing the thing and emailing shots to friends.

The 24" scale bends nicely with 11-49's on the guitar. The B5 holds the strings down at a good angle on the bridge, all the geometry is SG angles which feels like home to me ...

I can't play more than one chord on a real Jazzmaster or Jag without stopping to reposition all the strings after they pop off their little saddles.

The cheapo pickups sound fine and feed nicely, they can be swapped out later if needed as interesting mini-hums turn up. The timber is all light weight ( which with the short scale was part of the plan for a female player ).






This was a quick build ( and a quick paint job ) for me and an excercise in getting on with things. I've started 14 instruments and completed only 9 in 6 years of 'making'.

Thanks Bob, Grant, Joel for the words ... Grant, the colour is what I call 'Very Gold' ( in acrylic ), in the flesh it's almost like the old Danelectro copper colour.

Cheers guys, A.P.