Weird guitars and instruments,Robots Enigma machines what else do you want?

Skylab Digital Is a company in the US That seems to specialize in design and animation for the TV and DVD market however there is also some quite bonkers stuff on there website. Check out the impossibilitron below.
It would keep me entertained for hours.
Anyway the site is a veritable treasure chest of delights with more crazy guitars made from aluminium. cartoons, robots, Enigma machines into which catagory the impossibilitron falls into and some slightly dodgy remixes of tv themes and some other stuff.

Napoleon

He is small but domineering This was originally a Spongebob Squarepants 3/4 size Guitar with a built in amp and speaker which had broken. I bought two repaired one and sold it on this one I kept for experimenting with various paints and finishes. I think it has had enough now so I've put him back together in a Frankenstinian way. First the Body was stripped and the speaker and battery cavity filled. I handpainted the face and headstock front a really nice marbly effect using metallic enamels. The back and sides I started to sand off the previous layers of experimenting and thought the half sanded distressed looked alright so decided to leave it. It is mainly a deep red with copper showing through and a bit of primer. I smoothed it out a bit with finer sandpaper then a few coats of lacquer  over the whole guitar to offer some protection. It retains it's orignal hardtail bridge and machineheads which work ok. I have replaced the scratchplate with a handcut one from an aluminium offcut. This has been rough brushed. It now has two single coils from an unknown manufacturer. The Bridge one is an Alnico Staggered pole magnet type with nice clear tones the neck is more a import type strat single coil with a bar magnet which gives more of a thicker tone. There is a 3 way switch and a volume control. The jack socket is situated next to the switch. I have also lacquered the fingerboard as this was bare wood originally. There is no truss rod in the neck and I don't know if it is even re-enforced with a bar but it is straight and the action is pretty good with minimal fret buzz and it's suprisingly nice to play. SOLD

The Copperhead

Another recently completed shonkification

I will post a more detailed blog on the trails and tribulations of making this one at a later date

Heres the page copied from my Website

COPPERHEAD

(CLICK ON PHOTO'S FOR LARGER VERSIONS)

Body and neck is a re-used Strat Style Body From a virtually brand new Axl guitar Not sure of the wood the original body was actually very heavy.

It has been extremely chopped and treated to a unique  textured and aged copper finish. The neck is finished in satin black with the face of the headstock matching the body.

It features a hand cut  aluminium scratchplate and stainless steel backplate both of which have been given a rough brush and the rust effect was achieved with acrylic paint.

The Pick up arrangement is HSS with brand new pickups

The Bridge Is a super hot 12 Gauge Humbucker -  Overwound to 14k producing 9.96 Henries.

The neck and middle are two super hot  6 Gauge single coils  wound to 6k which produces a very powerful 4  Henries

The Pickups have been painted to match the theme of the guitar

The control knobs are made from real spent 12 bore gun cartridges.

The switch tip is machined from an Iron bolt.

The tremelo arm has been constructed from bits from my metal bits and bobs box.

The bridge and tuners have been aged and distressed.

It has been fully set up and plays and sounds great.

Buy it Here

Lag Splatter Jet

Last weekend was a very creative and productive one. the weather was good, and Rachel (My partner) had a week off work so I had no childcare duties which enabled me plenty of time in the workshop (Shed :-) )
I bought the Lag Jet some time ago off a gigging musician near Glastonbury. It came with a Dean Markely 75 watt amp and a vintage Boss Pedal and a hard case.
The guitar was in a pretty bad state still playable, just, but the frets where very worn and the neck was extremely grubby, the tremolo bridge was very badly corroded,  and there where a few heavy chips and scratches on the body all testament to hard gigged life. Ignoring the wear and tear  I was very impressed by the quality and originality of the Lag Jet for what is essentially a entry level guitar. Its beautifully routed inside. not a rough edge anywhere. I love the fact that the back cover plate is recessed into the body so it fits flush. A 24 fret neck with a very cool 2 level headstock and marker dots that recede in size either side of the 12th fret. and two blank control knobs which I think are great as I've always thought that having the numbers on control knobs was pretty pointless. I mean it's either loud enough or it ain't. I never use a tone knob anyway so they are always surplus to requirements.

Any way back to the guitar! I thought a cool Shonky paint job was needed to give this old girl a new lease of life.

It is obviously inspired by Jackson Pollock, I have done many a splatter/drip painting in my time as an artist and it is by far the most satisfying form of expression for me.

Any way back to the guitar again.
I stripped the original finish off. and primed it. I then gave it a backing coat of slate grey acrylic. I used acrylic paints for the splatters then coated with several coats of Poly Varnish.

The finish is quite textured as the paint was very thick. It has to be the right consistency i.e to thick and it just ends up blobby too thin and it runs like crazy. so if you like your guitars with a super smooth finish your going to hate it.

As the Bridge was corroded I Have given it a nice new modern roller Tremolo Bridge.

I have also dressed and polished the frets. The action is low low

The electrics and pick-ups are the original ones which work perfectly well. so I'm not going to change them.

It still has it's original cover plates which have aged nicely.
It also has It's original machine heads with white plastic buttons.

The fret board is still a bit grubby but I am going to leave that as it's only cosmetic and plus it's a bit of history.

SOLD

Mensfeld Iron Cross

Wow! Whilst browsing I happened upon
this Mensfeld Iron Cross. I'm not really into "Metal" guitars which family this so obviously belongs to but I love it because it's just so damn  radical. I mean look at the headstock! I can't much information about mensfeld so if anyone would like to enlighten me.

Hohner Guitaret

This Hohner Guitaret on Ebay is an Intriguing instrument.


Read more about it it here on wikipedia
and here is a video of one.


I love the sound it makes. Personally It's obvious to me why these were not as popular as they perhaps should have been. Why would anyone want to play anything that looks like a 1950's cheese grater?
It has a starting price of £50 but as these are truly quite rare things I'm expecting a reasonably high end price.

Update:
The final price at the end of the auction? £620. now that's a lot of money for a cheese grater. I would love to happen upon one of these at a car boot sale!

Royal Wedding Commemorative Paper Plate

Being a loyal subject I thought I would make some paper plates as an alternative to all the other tacky shit wedding commemorative stuff


Theres ten altogether Numbered and signed

Alternative Royal Wedding Paper Plate Ltd ed No 6/10 on eBay (end time 17-Apr-11 20:23:48 BST)
Click on sellers other items for the others