Introducing the ShonKy Novus. designed and handbuilt in the UK

If you read this blog regularly you may remember my Novus prototype..  I didn't post it but I made another one for myself with locally scourced ash and a zebrano top. Ebony fretboard with stainless steel frets and square fret markers.

 It turned out quite nicely although I don't think I'll do the square fret markers again as they are very hard to get straight being so small.

Anyway I have now built the first commercially available model which is a bit more simple with a solid and heavy Ash Body (none of that poncey swamp ash!)  22 fret flame maple and rosewood neck
and 2 p90's. This is designed as a workhorse guitar for the gigging musician. although the body is quite heavy it is also a bit smaller than an average guitar so the weight is kept down. You may notice that that the bridge is set quite far back on the body. (Not so much on my own model above as it had 24 frets and 25" scale.)
It has simple 2 pickup layout with 3 way switch and 1 volume and 1 tone control.
The pickups I decided on where Wilkinsons with the aim to keep the selling cost down and still offer a decent quality.
The Bridge is a Gotoh hardtail and the Machine heads are great quality Korean locking tuners.

The finish is a very thin antique tobacco burst and will wear nicely. nothing worse than having a new guitar with a thick shiny lacquer finish then putting a dint in it. Also if popular belief is true a thin finish is better for tone. so here it is in all it's glory and for sale right now on my newly opened Etsy shop. Here

It is signed dated and numbered 001.
 No 2 is on it's way as we speak and will feature a P90/ strat size single coil/ P90 layout which will be interesting.

 

ShonKy SS6 Sunburst guitar with piano black neck.

Remember The S3

I bought two of those gloss black necks and aimed to make two black and white strats. Just out of curiosity I tried the neck against a Sunburst body and wow! so it's been a while waiting for the finances to allow me to get the parts to build one but eventually here it is.

 

This one has actually a used squier sunburst body which is in pretty much mint condition It's a real beauty too in fact one of the nicest looking bodies I have seen. For some reason when you take a picture of a sunburst body the camera never seems to pickup the graduation very well in the flesh it's much more graduated. All the other parts are super quality and new. Great Pickups from Voltage guitar pickups. Staggered Locking machine heads from Sperzel. etc etc.

 

 

 

 

For sale on my Website Now

ShonKy Novus electric guitar and a New 3 String cigar box guitar

Whatever people may think of my work one can never say I'm not diverse enough that's for sure.
Over the last couple of years I've been working at a few designs for electric solid body guitars.
Most of them end up on the firewood pile but there are a couple that end up as finished guitars.
I could sketch them out first or even do them on a cad program (I would have to learn how to use one first) I prefer to get on and make it up straight away. the latest one is this:

The ShonKy Novus. It's made from a Pine Body with a rustic Whitewash finish. The neck is a re-used maple/maple. I think it's pretty cool although the next version will be slightly different and will be made with hardwood. This one is now for sale on my Website where you can also see more pics.

Also recently finished is this lovely little 3 String CBG with a great Vintage Royal Peer cedar box and a handcrafted neck with decorative carving in a naïve style  and finished with my Antiquing process to match the box. I made an error with the machine head holes however and the vintage style ones with white buttons that I would normally use for this wouldn't fit so I had to use the Covered type. I left the covers on but I actually prefer them open but they are easily removed if the new owner requires it.

Yes also available from my Website

Firewood special No2. Recycled art guitar for monster slide blues

So here is the second Firewood special. that I mentioned in my Previous Post
I really like the multi level designs and might utilise it in a proper guitar in the future. It really opens up the possibilities of what raw wood you can actually use to build a guitar with rather than being stuck on the idea of having a big chunk of ash or mahogany. Believe me this is as solid as a rock and sustains as well as anything. I believe there are 12 separate pieces of wood that make up the body.
Everything on it apart from the strings and the glue, paint and solder of course, is recycled. Even the pots and wires. The knobs are of an old hifi.and the machine heads are counter fit Grovers which work ok but are not the quality of genuine ones.

 

Shortscale Bass and 12000 views

I am quite happy to realise that I have managed 12000 views so thank you all for visiting.
Heres the latest guitar from me which is  a shortscale bass made from the neck of an encore shortscale.
The original Encore bass is aimed at the child student market, the body feels like it's made from papier mache although it is some sort of wood.   It's so light and distinctively wobbles when you play it and I am the least fussiest person when it comes to what material a guitar body s made from but in this case!. The electronics are not up to much either and fitted with cheapo strings makes for a horrible instrument. It's one saving grace is it actually has a reasonably nice neck. so I parted out the body. The pickups I'm going to use for four string cbg's.
With the neck and an oddball shaped body from Mahogany offcuts comes this creation.
Yeah it's pretty ugly but that was the Idea It's a bit reminiscent of those old Russian guitars.
It doesfit into a standard size gig bag and is pretty easy to play sat down. On the strap it suffers from neck dive due to the lack of upper horn.
Any how here's some pictures.

you can read the spec and maybe purchase a rare ShonKy bass (Only the 3rd bass I've made)
from HERE
 

New Guitars

I have had a little busy spell in between the commissions I have had. so here's a quick update on the latest instruments from ShonKy.


There's this big ole Box guitar made from an old oak box and a Kay neck and pickup.

There's also this nice little tenor cigar box guitar

And the latest is this smiley little fellow.

You can click on the pictures to be taken to the web album
or go to My Website where you can see the full details and prices.

New Cigar box tenor guitar

I actually finished this tenor cbg last month.

made with an antique cedar cigar box with a Mahogany neck.
The neck is tenon jointed to the body to maximise the acoustic volume and tone.
It has a wenge fingerboard and aluminium and wenge marker dots.
traditional vintage style machine heads with bone effect buttons.
Walnut floating bridge with a brass string retainer.
Triple piezo pickups.
I have just received a couple of nice boxes one of which I think may become another tenor guitar.
This one will be on sale soon.

 

ShonKy custom Strat No 3

 

 

 

I don't often do normal shape guitars or customs these days but here is my latest.

Strat style custom guitar with a unique finish created by applying several different layers of different coloured acrylic paint by dripping, splattering, spreading, throwing, painting etc. The paint is then rubbed down through the different layers to reveal random multicoloured patterns.

 

The guitar itself is all made from re-used parts apart from the electronic controls which are new but some of the wires are re-cycled from old stereos and tools. The Capacitor has been recycled from a defunct phone socket.

The body is a good full thickness lightweight alder. It came to me with a nasty crack through one of the neck socket screw holes. I took the damaged area on and bonded a piece of hardwood to replace it.

 

The neck is a very nice maple with maple fingerboard. Slim D profile with a fairly flat radius. It's quite wide (57mm at the heel) The neck came to me as an unused with a blank headstock. It was going to be used for another guitar but I changed my mind so it does have some filled holes in the headstock for different machine heads. I cut  a quite funky headstock shape reminiscent of some eastern block guitars that I can't quite think of.

 

It is fitted with a Blade type humbucker at the bridge and two ceramic single coils in the middle and neck. I think the neck one is from a squier. sound wise quite unique. The blade humbucker has that stratty honk but with a bit of p90 grit thrown in. Overdriven it growls like a rabid dog. the middle and neck deliver a good honest strat tone with a raw bluesy edge. I'm pretty sure the phone socket capacitor really gives this guitar it's sound as they are fairly generic pickups used on a multitude of guitars and I have never heard any that sound quite like this. If you open up a phone socket you will be surprised at the amount of capacitors you will find. I also gutted out a broken CD player the other day and It's chock full of them, great for experimenting with.

 

The other thing I have done on this guitar and the Cohiba 6 string cbg I finished recently was my own hand made nut. made from a piece of Sheet brass bonded to a thin slice of ebony. I like the Idea of a brass nut as the guitar saddles are metal. the frets are metal then the nut is usually not metal. Also no matter how stunning the guitar looks the nut is a fairly boring piece of white stuff so I thought i would experiment with making them a bit prettier. don't get me wrong this one is still a bit rough but They will get better. Works perfectly well though. when I have perfected them I might make them available for sale.
 

The guitar is now available for sale Here

 

If you like your strats then in the next couple of weeks I will have something very special for you.