Welcome to our blog! Here we share our projects and ideas, and also the tutorials and guides to accompany our listings on our e-bay shop.
If you have any questions about building or customising guitars, as well as restoring vintage guitars, please contact us and we will do our best to feature it here.

Monday, January 16, 2012

An earlier project from 2005

This is one of my very first projects, which provided a steep learning curve. Thanks to it I have learned a lot, which goes to show that you don't know anything about making guitars until you are actually making guitars.
I picked up the Hofner neck in Denmark Street for peanuts in 2004. I made the body from solid maple, which I thought would be cool at the time. In fact the body is far too heavy and being maple gives it a sharp clucky sound. Having used it a few times, I realiced that the bridge is slightly too far forward, making it very difficult to get the intonation right.



It has been sitting around in my bedroom not doing very much for some time, but the time has come for action. Watch this space.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Squier Precision Bass restoration project. After Shots.

At last, a finished project. Here are the before shots and a bit of background. I have gone for a classic 70's look with a red tortoishell scratch-plate, that I got from e-bay, which I think gives it a bit more character than the standard white.
After reassembly and rewiring (star grounding) a bit of tweaking of the truss rod was done and a good set-up on the bridge, ending up with a nice playing clean bass with the traditional P-bass sound and feel.





Sunday, October 16, 2011

Aria Strat rebuild, BEFORE

This is an Aria Strat copy with a slightly suspect home paint job. The guitar is all complete, including electrics and hardware, so it was just requiring a good sand, a paint job and reassembly.


I started ussing paint stripper, which saves a lot of time but is a little messy. Once the majority of paint is off is a fairly easy job to clean up and sand, working down through the grades of paper.
As you can see, the body and neck are clean now and ready to start spraying.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Mike Collins' Cock-Rock Guitar

 This is a guitar I made recently for Mike Collins, from The Mike Collins Experience, formerly (for the time being) lead singer of Jeffrey and the Scarabs. Actually, the guitar debuted live on their last gig (for the time being!).
Mike's only requests were the interesting shape (based on one of his doodles), and no scratchplate. Otherwise I had free reign.
The body is made of tulip wood, completely hand-cut. I got the Stagg neck off E-bay, for about 30 quid, and altered the headstock to resemble another doodle of Mike's.

Love at first sight.
 It has a basic strat set-up (three single coil pick ups with the standard volume tone tone and a three way switch, and a trem bridge), which was a bit tricky, as it had to be all routed in from the back, as it had no scratchplate. In the end it worked up really nicelly, So maybe Mike is onto something with his scratchplate phobia.

 After an undercoating and rubbing down, a pleasing shade of pink was added to the whole body and headstock. After a considering amount of polishing off, both Mike and I were completely satisfied.

The satisfied man.
 The final asembly all together and set up. As you can see, the pick up covers were also sprayed pink, as was the toggle of the 3-way switch.

 A perxpex cover was made for covering the internals.
 Here are a few more detailled shots of the finished guitar.





The money shot.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Squier Precision Bass restoration project. Before Shots.

I have just been given this bass by a friend to see if I can make it a bit more presentable for its lucky new owner. There is quite a lot of dents and loads of stickers. It is missing the scratchplate and all the wiring.

The first step has been to take of the stickers and give the body a light sand. I am gradually filling the dents with laquer, which is not difficult but it is incredibly long winded. Will post more pics when it looks like I have done something.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Custom Bass for Gareth @ Mind Overtime

This bass was made for a friend of mine, when he was playing for Mind Overtime (the band is no more, but you can listen to their stuff here).
He picked the parts and I made the body and set it up. The neck is an old Eko from Brandoni, which I refaced in walnut and branded with a W.
The body is totally hand carved from solid walnut, finished in a natural soft laquer.
The scratch-plates were all hand cut to match the lines of the body.
It has a Jazz bass bridge pick-up and an Epiphone humbacker by the neck.
The wiring was a bit tricky, as it has a separate volume and tone for each pick-up, a three way switch and a pick volume mix on the top horn.
All in all, a striking looking little short scale bass.






Thursday, August 11, 2011

Mini Bass

Here are a few pics of a finished project. Unfortunately it did not ocurred to me to take photos while I was building it.
I accidently bought a short scale Squier Bronco bass neck on e-bay for £30 after a few beers. It sat around for a couple of years while I was waiting for inspiration. Eventually, I decided on a little cross between a Mustang and a baby Jazz Bass.
The body was hand carved out of a slab of sapele (wich is practically the same as mahogany). This was sprayed surf blue, to which I added a hand-cut brown tortoishell scratchplate, and fitted a Jazz Bass style bridge pick-up and bridge.
After a few more beers I decided to add a Fender decal on the headstock. Very naughty, I know, but this bass was never meant to be for sale.