Harmony H44 Stratotone Inspired ShonKy TH44 comission Oh and Happy Xmas!

This is possibly my last post of 2013 so I would like to wish all my readers a Happy Xmas and I hope Santa brings you all a nice guitar.
So I would like to end on a high note with this my latest guitar. a commission from a Gentleman in Norway who contacted me requiring a guitar like a Harmony Stratotone H44.


Pic From http://harmony.demont.net/model.php?id=131

Small body. fat wide tapered neck the originals have 25.25" scale length. The neck is a maple through neck with two wings glued either side.
I sent a couple of sketches and I set to work on the agreed design. and here is the finished product.

Like the Original Maple neck through using two pieces of maple laminated together along the length for added  stability. Sapele wings. Neck is a slightly shorter 25" scale.

My trade mark antique finish

The customer wanted a basic utilitarian look, a workhorse guitar

The original H44 fret board joins on top of the body which doesn't leave much room for adjustment. and doesn't leave much string break angle on the bridge.  I reduced the body part of the maple approx. 4mm lower than the neck (not including the fretboard). It looks like a glued in neck but it is all one piece.

The legendary Dearmond moustache gold foil pickup supplied by the customer. Neck has real mother of pearl marker dots and  mother of pearloid binding. along with pearloid scratch plate.  The Pickup is wired up to 50k pots and a 0.1uf oil in paper capacitor like the originals.

The whole guitar has been given the ShonKy Antique finish looks great against the pearl.

 Standard Korean tailpiece and unusual Bullet control knobs. Also a recessed tele type jack cup rather than a plate.

hand carved Bubinga Bridge with hand carved corian Compensated saddle

The neck is fat. really fat the dimensions are pretty close to the original stratotones I had to guess the neck profile though so I went for a round C. A real handfull but surprisingly comfortable.

Hand Carved corian Nut. No reason for the bumpy shape I just like it. Yes that is a truss rod cover. I put one in however as the neck is so massive I don't think .. A/ it's ever going to need adjusting B/ the truss rod would actually be able to move the neck. however the cover is a nice decorative addition.

 Kluson 3 on a plate machine heads with white buttons. The only ones that where going to look right. The Customer wanted the basic square headstock which I had done on the firewood special.

This build went incredibly well. the only problems I had was applying the finish as the temperature had dropped considerably during  November and I had to wait longer between coats for the stain to dry and I had promised the guitar to be finished and delivered by mid December. It was good in the end and I just managed to do it. the great thing was when I first strung it up it was almost perfect requiring only a slight fret dress and lowering of the bridge. I had a concern that the neck being as fat as it was would be too straight but somehow (luck rather than judgement methinks) it had perfect relief.
Soundwise as soon as I played this before even plugging it in it had a bluesey tone which was a good start so I plugged it in. and wow! again spot on. wow pure Blues tone. Lovely clear syrupy on clean. put some gain and it growls. I now have to make one for myself.....one day! 
The guitar now lives in it's new home in Norway and the owner is very happy (Phew!) He has been kind enough to write an extensive review which can be found on the Archive pages of my website Here

See you in the new year.

 

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 S3. custom black and white Strat

For a long time I have wanted to make a guitar inspired by the aesthetic quality of 2001 a space odyssey. I think with the S3 I have come quite close.

 

I actually found the necks for sale and thought oh yes! it has to be done. The only thing was I was not going to get away with using recycled parts. It is about time a made a nice spanking new guitar anyway a change is as good as a rest they say.  

The hardest thing was to find pickups to suit the look of the guitar. I first thought Lace Alumitones but that would have pushed the build price too high and I would have to be selling near £900. I then thought maybe lipstick pickups. Although I love them they have a not entirely accurate "Surf" tag I then found these awesome looking pickups from http://www.voltageguitarpickups.com/ They are the Chaos model and are hand wound from 5.8 - 6.2k  They are odd pickups. The covers are bonded on to the main body but looking from the bottom there are is no magnet on the bottom or any pole pieces. I assume the magnet is on top of the coil just below the mesh. any way they sound as good as they look. Not particularly stratty but wonderfully clear and pure without being sterile.

The bridge and tuning machines are courtesy of Wilkinson.

 

It is now for sale on My Website for £590 With an Aluminium Hard case and Free UK postage!

 

New ShonKybox 6 string cigar box guitar

Happy new year
Just completed the latest ShonKybox guitar
This one has the obligatory Cohiba cigar box. A little different is the neck from a First Act Sheena CE 220. This is a 25" scale length. very nice and well made neck. I've also used the pickup from the same guitar which is a single coil and has that old school blues sound.
I've kept things simple with a single volume control.
The neck is attached to a central block of mahogany which runs the length of the box.
The  added bouts are also from reclaimed mahogany and hand carved.
It has re-used tom bridge and tailpiece.
It has been given my signature aged "oil stain" finish created using wood stains.
It has new Wilkinson ez lock tuning machines.
 

Very old Primitive handmade american guitar. Hopefull price tag!

On Ebay right now and for a very hopefull $78,520 (£48,736.89) is this charming little primitive handmade guitar with primitive carving. As a guess I would say this was either built as a love token due to the abundance of hearts or for someones daughter as it's a small guitar.  I wouldn't like to estimate the true value of this but I'm fairly certain that it's a little bit overpriced considering that it's incomplete and would be very hard to restore authentically.  An old primitive Cigar box guitar that I featured on the Blog Here went for a couple of hundred dollars as a comparison. 

Wesley Zephyr

 

Check out my latest acquisition.

It's a Wesley Zephyr.
Wesley where a company that sold budget guitars on Ebay for about 10 years. but are no longer in business. John Wesley is still operating a guitar tech business.
From what I can gather they seem to have been reasonably good quality for the prices they went for.

I saw this one on sale on Ebay a few weeks back and I just HAD to have it. 
Having found no information about it I wrote to John Wesley at Wesley Guitars who kindly replied telling me this is one of "about" 12 they did as a test run but never proved to be very popular.

I have also found out they did another model called the Doppler. (pictured below) which had the same body shape but with 2 humbuckers a standard hard tail strat style bridge and a less snazzy Scratch plate.

It plays as good as it looks. It's very comfortable and easy to play. It has a slim neck with a very flat radius. The Pickups deliver in every respect. I haven't had it apart yet but will do when I change the strings. If the pick-ups allow it I might install some push pull pots for coil tap and phase options.
It's also a very well made guitar. The Inlays are Tidy The neck socket is tight and the whole guitar feels solid and resonant. There are a few flaws in the paint work like some bubbles and a touched up bit in the carved ledge just above the bridge which isn't very noticeable and seeing as they where test models one can forgive them of these shortcomings.

I love it. I'm chuffed to bits I have a very rare guitar (for peanuts) and I'm going to have to sell something else to make room for it! (I only have room for 8 personal guitars at a time. I don't need any more as I always have guitars I'm making or refurbing and customers guitars in for setups and repair so as a guitar lover I'm generally satisfied.

Update 27/03/2013 I have now sold this on. (I'm going to regret it.)