We’re now offering lacquered 5 hole Garolite pickguards for teles. They’re $45 plus shipping. For those of you that care what the backside looks like, yes, they have the correct over spray ring. If you’re interested in a custom pickguard, you can see some examples here.
If I had to keep just one amp this would be the one. Produced from ’39 to ’42 it was Gibson’s top of the line. This amp has a single tone control. The earlier ones had a separate bass and treble control.
I got it on E-bay about six years ago. It was completely covered in black spray paint. I figured I would have to recover it. Surprisingly all the black paint wiped off. One quart of lacquer thinner and 20 rags later this is what it looked like. All I had to do was re-stencil the Gibson logo.
Of all the amps I’ve owned, this one comes closest to my “dream guitar tone “ that I hear in my head. Probably because the majority my favorite guitar players most likely used and recorded with a Gibson EH-185 at some point in their early careers.
The first time I made this type of seating was about three years ago when Marta and Davin Gumm wanted furniture for their restaurant Number Nine Noodles and Beer. They had a vintage bar stool they wanted me to use as a model. Constructed of ½’’ steel rod and maple euro ply, they’re prefect for Cafes and Coffee houses that are going for a minimal or vintage feel.
Even though the Gumm’s sold Number Nine in Long Beach a while ago, it has been packed since the day they opened it. I just finished a new batch of seating for the new Number Nine location opening soon in Hermosa Beach, CA. Proudly made in the U.S. of A. Contact us for prices.
Built in bedroom storage fabricated for Taalman Koch. A tall wardrobe connects to the left of this unit, all made of maple europly. It’s been installed and we will post finished photos soon.
My friend Pat Capocci sent me an e-mail today to say his pickguard arrived safely, along with a couple of photos of it on his Tele…..
I haven’t had much time to work on this thing in the last few weeks, but I have made some progress… I found a really nice piece of kiln-dried maple for the neck and I cut out the pickguard and armrest out of .125’’ thick garolite. Since I don’t gig that often anymore, I wasn’t going to put my name on this guitar, but the giant pickguard was just begging for some kind of advertisement. Here are a few pics…
This was a project that I did a few years back, nine to be exact, that took more time than money. I saw a picture of Walt Rose’s ’27 T roadster in the book “The American Hot Rod” when it came out. I knew that I wanted something similar for my roadster pickup. The foundry patterns were made using 1’’ thick poplar, polyester body filler, and 3/8’’ aluminum plate.
I made the posts longer than needed and cut them down a ½’’ to ¼’’ at a time until I was happy with how it looked. Here’s some photos of the process.
For the last few years I’ve been pretty good about not taking on any new personal projects as I whittle away at the list I currently have. I’ve been making some progress, but last month while in San Diego a friend said I could have this old Kay if I wanted to do something with it. I took a quick look and said “sure, I’ll take it!” Its a late 50′s Kay model K-161 with a screwed up neck and no hardware. I’ve always wanted to build a neck from scratch but never really had a good reason to do so. Now I do! I want it to look like a guitar Paul Bigsby would have modified.
Last Sunday it didn’t take much to get the finger board off, and the dovetail joint apart. I also made a couple of pick guard patterns. This proved to be a little tricker, trying to hide the existing holes and still look Bigsbyish. I plan on using a pair of PA1946′s for pickups, the vibrato I had in my parts stash. I’ll post as I make progress so check back from time to time. Here’s some mock up photos. I’m leaning towards mock up #3.
I’ve been getting a few request to do pickguard inlay lately. It’s kind of nice to get a job that I can do while sitting down listening to music. I’m currently on a Bill DeArango kick, great stuff, his rolled off tone and rapid fire guitar solos make me crazy! Anyhow, as for the pickguards, each letter is hand drawn and cut out using an old Delta scroll saw. They’re then carefully traced on to the pickguard and the negative area is cut out for a nice tight fit. The letters are then glued in place, sanded flush, covered with 4 to 5 coats of nitrocellulose lacquer, and rubbed out to a high gloss finish. If you need any inlay work done, contact us for a quote.
