Tweaker Thursday

Not that kind of tweaker... get your mind out of the gutter...

First things first..
Lunch today, there's a great mexican place called Jalisco's on Pitt School Rd just
a few blocks from my house, I think I'll go get some tea and a taco and enchillada..
That will run me about $6 and anyone that knows me knows I'm all about the
deal.... ok it doesn't hurt that the food is amazing..


Non G&L.. Tweaker day... I've got way too many guitar and amp projects going. I've got two Ibanez 7 strings that need pickups both need the neck pocket lowered since the crappy stock pickups are about 1/4 inch tall and one needs a new trem, the other already has it. Stock trem is made of the cheapest metal on earth so it makes the guitar sound awful.

Then I'm about half way through bulding my own tweed deluxe amp.. nuff said..

along with fixing, stringing and working on most of my friends guitars and
amps, it's like a full time job..

The workshop I do all these things in is finished 10x20 building behind my house. It has a tile roof, matches the house, has a window, electricity of course but isn't completely weather proof and is completely un-insolated. In the next two weeks it will be insulated and all the internal sheet rock may be swapped out...

and in the effort to never have too many projects or leave well enough alone..
I come to the
G&L portion of todays program...

My recently acquired amazing sounding and fantastic playing

Silver Sparkle WR.!!!!




My buddy has an artist endorsement with Hipshot and he took a bender off
his tele when he sold it, I traded him a pedal or something for it..
It didn't have the tubing that normally comes with it, so I called the
amazing folks at hipshot and the inventor came to the phone, if I remember
right his name was Dave Borisoff. Great guy, we BS'd for a while as the place
was closed early on a friday. He sent me the tubing free of charge and I asked
him to repeat the size bit to use to drill the bridge, he remarked that I reminded
him of WR as I had him repeat it so I could write it down.. I felt very honored
to be compared in any way to such a great guitfiddler..
What would all this rambling be without a pic..
Old bender on with the new one next to it.....





1 What projects have you put off too long..

2 What projects are you damn proud to have finished....

I ate Mexican yesterday while on the road. Little hole in the wall place over in Independence, MO (Give 'em, Hell, Harry)- the kind you figure will be pretty darn good. The rice was actually pretty good. Not even sure though what the heck the big thing smothered with cheese (which was about all you could taste) was supposed to be.

Projects Put Off Too Long?

Neck resest on my 1950s Harmony Sovereign. Hey, while it needs a reset, the neck ain't all that bad and the guitar is still playable - at least close enough for me..

Projects I am Darned Proud Of? It ain't finished yet but the partial restoration of a 1950s Epiphone flattop. One of the last made before Gibson snagged the company. This guitar was a mess when I got it. It is now about 1/2 way back to its former glory. When I bought it I figured I would fix it up and sell it and make a tidy little profit. Thing is, the guitar has really grown on me so it may become a keeper. I really hope not but there is no logic or reason for this kinda thing.

I have a shelf to hang, been a few months. Guess that might be a project too long. I got a bunch of gear coming in to mod my Carvin C66 to crap. Tungsten floyd block (same dimensions double weight, very hard), Bare knuckle rebel yell pickups, and hopefully for Christmas all the pots and switches I need to make it 3 way switch, with pull lead switch volume, and a series/parallel/split switch (on a 4pdt on/on/on switch, 1 switch both pickups). This pickup change is long over due.

Yeah, I've got some bare knuckle nailbombs going in one of the 7 strings..
Over $300 for pickups and they've sat for over 2 years due to not knowing how
to route and being too scared of someone chipping my guitar...

There's that sparkly WR again!

1 What projects have you put off too long..
House project that has been long time coming is a fire pit and seating area that has been planned for a couple of years. With fall here I better get to work if we will enjoy it or it will be another..."that will be done next year".

No active guitar projects. Still have a very early Invade HSS body, floyd rose bridge and some p-ups that just need a neck for completion, but no real rush to finish.

2 What projects are you damn proud to have finished....
This is my favorite (proudest) of all projects. Built by scrounging pieces of ebay and shops then put together with help of many from GLDP! My ASAT JD5


ASAT JD5a by asatsam, on Flickr


ASAT JD5 by asatsam, on Flickr

Great looking guitar.
Here's one of my amp... not a project other than hunting down the
los lobottom sub 2

Yeah, I've got some bare knuckle nailbombs going in one of the 7 strings..
Over $300 for pickups and they've sat for over 2 years due to not knowing how
to route and being too scared of someone chipping my guitar...

I plan to get those in a 7 when I get one built. These ones are open black coils though as I don't want to route (no tools atm).

It's not that I need to make the holes bigger, just deaper for my neck pickup.
It will fit the route fine but it would be touching the strings...

Short or long legged? Typically you would want short for an axe like that. Which trem is on that Ibanez(?) model.

Nice sparkly WR, Chris!

And I love that ASAT, Sam! Are those all G&L parts?

Projects put off too long...building a small shelf to put over the stair well to hold a few plants...could do it in a couple hours, but it's been on the list a couple of years!

Projects I'm proud of...refinishing the basement at home, building some simple but nice solid oak end tables, taking a single-ended plexi-style amp that someone built for me and converting the preamp to give it a Blackface vibe.

Guts, post conversion:


In the 1x12 cab I built for it: