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This post is a massive thank you to all here. Its also just plain massive.
On the 9th of May I won an ebay auction for this neck
It was a strat neck signed by one of my favourite players, Mr Joe Satriani
But that had little bearing on why I wanted it so much.
Thats right, a Jackson strathead neck! And it was less then $150au delivered. After a quick verification on this here jcf, I thought about the possibilities for this thing. Flip it? Nah, its too rare and collectable. And its gotta be played. Its also my first USA Jackson bit ever! So off I went to the custom shop generator.
That seemed nice. The top of the line Satch signature guitar at the time was the JS2000. A light gold satch shape thing. Gold and guitars mightnt always work, but theres a reason it clicked with me.
Clicky
My pride and joy. 1967 HR Holden Premier X2. Bought for $5.5k. Got offered $15k whilst putting air in my tyres a few months back.
No brainer, I make a gold guitar, homage to my car, and homage to one of my favourite guitar players, whilst remaining totally Jackson! Upon further creativity....
From idea to ideal! The generator friggin' rules! So its off to make my first project.
5th June I bought the body from ebay. Warmoth was gonna cost an arm and a leg, and ebay wasnt throwing me anything suitable. Mahogany, Floyd, 2Hum, preferrably vol/toggle layout. Then this popped up.
Neck hum added no extra charge. us$175 delivered to my door. Things are going great! Now to finish the body....
First up, grain filler. Mahogany is a very porous wood and this was going to be done properly. This is after the grainfiller dried and I hit it with 220 grit sandpaper.
Next up is the Sanding Sealer. Slap it on thick, and take two full coats. First pic is the first coat dried, rest are after two coats, 220, and then 320.
Next up was the primer. I used a shellac based primer, mostly following the awesome guide at guitar reranch. I wasnt happy with the finish after the first two coats. I had some runs, some rough patches and after all the finishing it was too thin in places. So I bought an extra can and layered it on nicely. After a careful sand (and only a couple of slight sandthroughs this time) it was ready to go. Or so I thought....
While this was all happening I was hitting up the JCF Classifieds huntin' for parts. I managed to snag the pickups I wanted, Custom Trembucker (thanks to Joe) and the Full Shred neck (props to travis). Also, the chrome floyd for a fantastic price thanks to nandrewjackson. During this, I found an item on ebay I just had to get for the guitar. After debating whether or not to go for an original neck plate, 3d import or what not.....you'll see. The rest of the parts I got from Guitar Parts Resource and Guitar Parts Depot. Speedy delivery and excellent prices. I went with CTS and Switchcraft. USA quality items all the way.
So everythings set....except for the paint. Dad has a compressor, several guns, and a kickass respirator. I had always planned on painting it myself, doing as much as I could. But time was running thin. I had the parts, cash, but nowhere to spray. Running up the bare minimum of material to paint came to about au$120. I went to an airbrushing place nearby to see what they could do. Apparently they could shut up shop the week beforehand. Luckily a nearby bodyshop said they'd do it. They did a blue strat only a couple of months back. Sweet! But how much? au$160. Bargain. So after some discussion I cleaned up the sand throughs (very minimal bits) and then hit the body with 800. Took my car up to get the colour matched (very close), then drilled the holes for the neck and controls. I took a long time with the neck, dad and I devising different ways to get the bolt hole locations, and somehow we ended up at the same spot. Heres a progress pic, body primered, bits all there.
Next afternoon I dropped the guitar off at the smash repairers. 7:30am the next morning phone rang. I barely woke. A couple of hours later I get the message that my guitar was ready to pick up. Thats quick! And here it is
Beautiful finish, sparkly paint, orange peel. The only drawback, though not too difficult to take care of. So I whacked it with 2000grit.
Does it take balls to scrub up a 18hour old perfect finish? Is it lunacy? All is fair in the search for perfection...
Well perfect enough. I left a bit of peel on there, and polished it with my random orbital, pads and compound. Its automotive stuff, but so is the guitar. Now lets let it cure for a week.
Man that was a long freakin' week! Those nitro spraying guys are nuts! So its time to put it all together, heres the insert install done. Done with a rubber mallet, and a lot of patience.
The neck needed shimming because of the non-recessed floyd, dad made one from wood, we took three goes to get the thickness correct.
So whats that neckplate I alluded to earlier?
The master. The man. The 40buck neckplate I got from Thailand. It was on ebay, the seller uses a jewellary machine to etch the image into the plate. Stunning in the flesh as you catch the light at different angles, showing different depths to the colour. My favourite guitarist and hero now immortalised on my special guitar. RIP
Wiring
Stage 1 of the build comes after a test fit of the hardware showed the archtop being very thick. Long shaft pot was needed. The switch wasnt long enough either, jackson archtops usually have the controls routed out. I wasnt about to do that to the primered version of the guitar. So instead, the long shaft pot and temporary chrome pickup rings were ordered once again from Guitar Parts Resource. The switch was routed from behind [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] in the control cavity. It was a 7 hour process to get to this stage, totally worth it. I got home about 10pm and played for a couple of hours. Amazing....
Two days later, the extra stuff arrived. Rewiring the previously backwards volume pot let loose the massive sound of this beast. The chrome rings finish it off perfectly. Now to get some budman special back plates and pickup rings.
Goldenboy is born!!!!
I cant get over how awesome this thing plays. Notes ring out by themselves, all I've gotta do is think about playing them! Its an absolute toneshredder! I like this pic, the body screaming pointy, but the shadow says different....
And there it is. Is it USA enough for this forum? A massive thanks to all here that have helped me in my project, you guys rule [img]/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img]
Now its 3:30am and I'm scheduled for wisdom teeth removal surgery at 10:30, better grab some Z's. Atleast I'll have this marvel to stare at whilst I recover!
And to close, some artfag shots.
On the 9th of May I won an ebay auction for this neck
It was a strat neck signed by one of my favourite players, Mr Joe Satriani
But that had little bearing on why I wanted it so much.
Thats right, a Jackson strathead neck! And it was less then $150au delivered. After a quick verification on this here jcf, I thought about the possibilities for this thing. Flip it? Nah, its too rare and collectable. And its gotta be played. Its also my first USA Jackson bit ever! So off I went to the custom shop generator.
That seemed nice. The top of the line Satch signature guitar at the time was the JS2000. A light gold satch shape thing. Gold and guitars mightnt always work, but theres a reason it clicked with me.
Clicky
My pride and joy. 1967 HR Holden Premier X2. Bought for $5.5k. Got offered $15k whilst putting air in my tyres a few months back.
No brainer, I make a gold guitar, homage to my car, and homage to one of my favourite guitar players, whilst remaining totally Jackson! Upon further creativity....
From idea to ideal! The generator friggin' rules! So its off to make my first project.
5th June I bought the body from ebay. Warmoth was gonna cost an arm and a leg, and ebay wasnt throwing me anything suitable. Mahogany, Floyd, 2Hum, preferrably vol/toggle layout. Then this popped up.
Neck hum added no extra charge. us$175 delivered to my door. Things are going great! Now to finish the body....
First up, grain filler. Mahogany is a very porous wood and this was going to be done properly. This is after the grainfiller dried and I hit it with 220 grit sandpaper.
Next up is the Sanding Sealer. Slap it on thick, and take two full coats. First pic is the first coat dried, rest are after two coats, 220, and then 320.
Next up was the primer. I used a shellac based primer, mostly following the awesome guide at guitar reranch. I wasnt happy with the finish after the first two coats. I had some runs, some rough patches and after all the finishing it was too thin in places. So I bought an extra can and layered it on nicely. After a careful sand (and only a couple of slight sandthroughs this time) it was ready to go. Or so I thought....
While this was all happening I was hitting up the JCF Classifieds huntin' for parts. I managed to snag the pickups I wanted, Custom Trembucker (thanks to Joe) and the Full Shred neck (props to travis). Also, the chrome floyd for a fantastic price thanks to nandrewjackson. During this, I found an item on ebay I just had to get for the guitar. After debating whether or not to go for an original neck plate, 3d import or what not.....you'll see. The rest of the parts I got from Guitar Parts Resource and Guitar Parts Depot. Speedy delivery and excellent prices. I went with CTS and Switchcraft. USA quality items all the way.
So everythings set....except for the paint. Dad has a compressor, several guns, and a kickass respirator. I had always planned on painting it myself, doing as much as I could. But time was running thin. I had the parts, cash, but nowhere to spray. Running up the bare minimum of material to paint came to about au$120. I went to an airbrushing place nearby to see what they could do. Apparently they could shut up shop the week beforehand. Luckily a nearby bodyshop said they'd do it. They did a blue strat only a couple of months back. Sweet! But how much? au$160. Bargain. So after some discussion I cleaned up the sand throughs (very minimal bits) and then hit the body with 800. Took my car up to get the colour matched (very close), then drilled the holes for the neck and controls. I took a long time with the neck, dad and I devising different ways to get the bolt hole locations, and somehow we ended up at the same spot. Heres a progress pic, body primered, bits all there.
Next afternoon I dropped the guitar off at the smash repairers. 7:30am the next morning phone rang. I barely woke. A couple of hours later I get the message that my guitar was ready to pick up. Thats quick! And here it is
Beautiful finish, sparkly paint, orange peel. The only drawback, though not too difficult to take care of. So I whacked it with 2000grit.
Does it take balls to scrub up a 18hour old perfect finish? Is it lunacy? All is fair in the search for perfection...
Well perfect enough. I left a bit of peel on there, and polished it with my random orbital, pads and compound. Its automotive stuff, but so is the guitar. Now lets let it cure for a week.
Man that was a long freakin' week! Those nitro spraying guys are nuts! So its time to put it all together, heres the insert install done. Done with a rubber mallet, and a lot of patience.
The neck needed shimming because of the non-recessed floyd, dad made one from wood, we took three goes to get the thickness correct.
So whats that neckplate I alluded to earlier?
The master. The man. The 40buck neckplate I got from Thailand. It was on ebay, the seller uses a jewellary machine to etch the image into the plate. Stunning in the flesh as you catch the light at different angles, showing different depths to the colour. My favourite guitarist and hero now immortalised on my special guitar. RIP
Wiring
Stage 1 of the build comes after a test fit of the hardware showed the archtop being very thick. Long shaft pot was needed. The switch wasnt long enough either, jackson archtops usually have the controls routed out. I wasnt about to do that to the primered version of the guitar. So instead, the long shaft pot and temporary chrome pickup rings were ordered once again from Guitar Parts Resource. The switch was routed from behind [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] in the control cavity. It was a 7 hour process to get to this stage, totally worth it. I got home about 10pm and played for a couple of hours. Amazing....
Two days later, the extra stuff arrived. Rewiring the previously backwards volume pot let loose the massive sound of this beast. The chrome rings finish it off perfectly. Now to get some budman special back plates and pickup rings.
Goldenboy is born!!!!
I cant get over how awesome this thing plays. Notes ring out by themselves, all I've gotta do is think about playing them! Its an absolute toneshredder! I like this pic, the body screaming pointy, but the shadow says different....
And there it is. Is it USA enough for this forum? A massive thanks to all here that have helped me in my project, you guys rule [img]/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/notworthy.gif[/img]
Now its 3:30am and I'm scheduled for wisdom teeth removal surgery at 10:30, better grab some Z's. Atleast I'll have this marvel to stare at whilst I recover!
And to close, some artfag shots.
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