Smith’s Ranch Boy’s ’94 or ’95

 I was recently asked about a guitar I used to call the Frankencaster and thought I’d post some pictures and tell its story. Mainly as a brain exercise to see if I could remember.

 The guitar started out as an early eighties ’52 reissue, one with the super thick urethane finishes that I couldn’t stand. I bought it used around 1990 and shortly after, I striped the paint off the body and re-sprayed it copper with a spray can. I used the guitar that way until I left the Fly Rite Trio in ’92.

Work in progress 1993

 The body was one of the heavy ones and I was always thinking about chambering it to make lighter. Plus, I had been thinking about putting a guitar together that matched the Summertone amp I had built a few years earlier. So at that point, I took the guitar apart. I started by milling 5/16’’ off the top of the body and then cut four chambers to shave off a few ounces. For the top I used a piece of knotty pine because I loved the look of  Gretsch Roundups and added a piece of 1/4’’ rope for binding which seemed like a good idea at the time, hahaha. I finished the body and the neck with shellac. I later found out that shellac wasn’t the best finish for necks because I wore through it in less than a year.

1993

For pickups I used a set of old Carvins that I had and made some Bigsby looking covers for them. That’s when I discovered that the cover has more to do with a pickup than just appearance. I used a B-5 for the vibrato. I ended up cutting the tension bar off shortly after I put it together and went with the neck shim angle/ bridge height that I still use today for my tele conversions. I played it for number of years with my band Smiths Ranch Boys during the mid nineties.  I was constantly changing pickups and experimenting with pickup covers.

Temple City 2000

 In 2004 I needed something to test out an original Charlie Christian pickup that I had so I took the guitar apart again, planed the pine top off, made the chambers larger and glued a new top on. I got a lot of play out of that guitar. Below is a photo of the remaining parts and a video of one of the first Smith’s Ranch Boys shows at Linda’s Doll Hut (it looks like a DeArmond  for the bridge pickup).  Who knows, maybe some day it will get put back together for the next phase of its evolution. On second thought probably not.

What’s left of it 2014