Tinkering

I like tinkering with stuff. Especially guitar gear. I like to install my own pickups and set my own guitars up and stuff. But that stuff is relatively boring.

Here are some projects I've done over the years.

This one is a Dual Rectifier head that I recovered with tolex. The story is that this particular head was made for Tommy Shaw of Styx, but I can't confirm that. When I bought it, the tolex covering on the cabinet was coming off. So I purchased some new tolex from Mesa Boogie and covered it using contact cement. Here's what it looked like after I finished:


This was a tricky project. I wanted to diamond plate this guitar to make it look similar to James Hetfield's explorer. I bought a piece of aluminum diamond plate on eBay. I made a template using drafting mylar and traced it onto the back of the plate. Then I used a jigsaw to cut it out. There were lots of aluminum shards everywhere. I hand filed the edges down so there weren't any sharp edges. I think the hardest part was the cutouts for the Floyd Rose bridge and the pickups. I also made a truss rod cover, a control cavity plate and a bridge spring plate. It turned out pretty neat:


This one was a star body from KNE guitars, and a Mighty Mite neck. I painted the body using a spray can. The finish came out really bad, mostly because spray can paint has so much additives to allow it to flow well, that it takes literally years to fully dry.


Here's a really cool telecaster I made. Well, I didn't really make it, I just assembled it. The body is a super light ash body with full contours, made by Warmoth. The neck is also by Warmoth and is a fat 1" boat shape, with medium jumbo stainless steel frets. I had a friend do the finishing. The pickups are Kinmans and the bridge is Vintique, while the rest of the hardware is Callaham stainless steel. All I did for this guitar was put it together and wire it up. Actually, I did hand shape the pickguard. It's a Callaham bakelite guard which had a vintage shape, that I reshaped to look like Fender's Tuff Dawg Tele. I really like the way it came out, and it makes this tele really unique.


Finally, here's my homemade guitar pedalboard. I made this one out of a spare Ikea cabinet door, wrapped with tolex leftover from the Mesa Boogie project, and fitted with industrial strength velcro (that stuff is hard to work with!!). I use two noise suppresors on this board (one for the pickups and one for the preamp), one wah, one whammy pedal, and a graphic EQ. This board makes my ENGL sound monstrous, but more defined than the Dual Recto sound. In fact, it sounds like the best, gained out Marshall you've ever heard.


Anyway those are my projects I've done over the last few years, other than some routine pickup installations I've done in my and other people's guitars. But I'm getting the urge to do another DIY project - I don't know what yet though.