Project - Gretsch cool

So the Gretsch pickups arrived, I installed them (keeping the super cool chrome covers too) and not only do they sound great but they look cool too. 

As you can see from the pic below I decided to install the bridge Gretsch too. Got a few quid back from the original via eBay but nowhere near as much as the Kent Armstrong (what a discovery that was!).

Super cool Grestch pickups

The Grant semi with Gretsch humbuckers installed.

Not sure if I noticed this before or after I replaced the pickups but the strings pull to one side via the bridge tailpiece. I've been looking at a replacement on eBay anyway to finish the guitar off.

So the other day with some money in PayPal via all the bits and bobs I've sold I decided to finally purchase the new tailpiece.

I had to create new holes and it looks as though I over-compensated a little as the strings now pull to the other side, not as much as before though so it's bearable and the tuning (particularly the G string) is much improved. Plus it looks so pretty!

New tailpiece

Looks even prettier in this pic!

Just ordered a scratchplate and some control knobs which will add the finishing touches (although I would like to replace the jack input plate and pickup switch disc at some point). Pictures to follows as and when they arrive.

Project - Pickups

Last night I bought a pair of Gretsch humbucker pickups from someone on Ebay. I was quite surprised I won the auction and at such a low cost too. I know the Electromatic is a Gretsch budget line but still these are from a GRETSCH guitar!

As I tweeted at the time this new acquisition has made my guitar project all the more interesting. Now we're moving deep into customisation territory waters and I for one am excited at the prospect. I mean the sound from a Gretsch is amazing and when combined with the punchy dynamic sounding pickup I have in the bridge (though I'm now tempted to rip that and have a pair of Gretsch's) as well as the hollow 335 shape body I'll be creating a very unique sound indeed.

I knew right from the off that this guitar project would definitely be a customisation job (unlike the Squier) as I had the neck problem as well as the bridge pickup having no cover over it and standing out a mile - though I suppose I could purchase one of these from Ebay the fact is it is not the original pickup. Other considerations include the brand name. Although this guitar is far more superior in build to the Squier Tele the name Grant isn't as recognisible as Fender or even it's budget line Squier therefore meaning that this guitar may be harder to sell when complete or may not command the price it is worth therefore would it even be worth replacing parts such as the 4 control knobs when I could just get another 2 that were similar to the remaining 2 just to finish the job off. Or is it even worth replacing the pickup switch knob which was melted by a stray soldering iron years ago? I mean it still does its job and is merely a cosmetic fix. Pretty pointless restoring an already functioning guitar when you'll probably get the same or similar price for it as it was. Like I said I knew what I was getting myself into.

With this in mind I've been looking at a replacement neck pickup for a while now as after plugging the Grant in the other month I liked the sound of the two humbuckers together (combined with the sound of the hollow body) but thought the neck pickup on its own sounded weak. Have to admit I wasn't searching as actively this last month due to other financial priorities but after sorting that out and making a few quid selling bits & bobs on Ebay I had a quick look and found myself watching the aforementioned Gretsch pair and a single Seymour Duncan humbucker. Last night with the Gretsch minutes away from finishing and the Seymour Duncan suddenly leaping in price (with still a day remaining) I decided to make a move. I was plesantly surprised to say the least that I got one decent humbucker at the price I paid nevermind two of them!

With the seller informing me that they will be posted the following morning I decided to prepare the Grant ready for their arrival. Cleaned up the no-nails as best as possible (as can be seen in the below post) and removed the neck pickup. Herein lies the next exciting instalment of this tale.

I was expecting the current neck pickup to be the original one (maybe it is?) but was shocked to find that instead of some cheapo no brand stock humbucker I found a Kent Armstrong! I have a pair of Kent Armstrong humbuckers in my Jim Reed PRS copy and they do an amazing job so to find one here is an exciting discovery (as it means I can probably sell it and make back some money I spent on the Gretsch pickups). My initial thoughts are that I bought and installed this years ago (when I replaced the bridge pickup), knowing that Kent armstrong pickups kick arse. Funny how I thought it sounded weak? I haven't tried it for several weeks though (since I first dug out the guitar) so am relying on memory. All I know is that I wasn't happy with the combination. Oh well this name on the rear of the pickup means I should be able to make a few quid off it rather than just binning it off.

For now though I'm just sitting tight waiting for the next exciting chapter of this project to unfold (ie arrival of the Gretsch's). As ever here's the pics, enjoy.

Project - Stiff Neck

To fix the neck alignment problem I took a drastic measure - glueing in the neck. Of course it would've been more cosmetically pleasing if I'd used some proper glue and not no-nails! That aside, a day or so in a vice to dry seems to have done wonders for it. It's now re-aligned and does not shift easily from side to side any more, in fact it doesn't shift anywhere as it's quite solid.

Today I took it out of the garage once more as I last night bought a new humbucker to replace the neck pickup and decided that I wanted to prepare it for the arrival. As I said above the glue has set and is quite solid it's just a shame I didn't use a better type of glue (what can I say cost plays a part as usual!) as I'm now left with a white strip around the neck. I have tried to clean this up as best as possible. Am also toying with the idea of painting over it with a similar red paint but I'm pretty wary that this will actually work (or at least not work as well I'd hope).

Job Centre tweet

Had to share this with anyone not following me on Twitter. Probably one of the funniest things (IMO) I've ever tweeted. Enjoy:

"Job centre still smells of sick, beginning to think it's an ambient scent designed to help the drunks feel welcome."

Pointless trying - Might as well be a doley for life!

Amongst a whole plethora of things that have annoyed me over the last day or so I guess the whole job situation is the one that's p'd me off the most.

Yesterday my brother got a job I'd applied for. Whilst this is great news for him it really irks me that they gave it to someone with absolutely no experience in the role and who lives 10 miles further away from the place than me. Saying that I was doomed right from the start as the stupid cow I sent my CV to replied to me using an incorrect spelling of my surname as a forename. She also asked a few questions, which I thought I answered pretty well but I was dismissed on the slightest remark I made in them ie mentioned something about wanting a job that was not stress inducing and she replied saying I'd be unsuitable as the OFFICE (not the actual position!) can sometimes be stressful.

Of course this is all neither here or there as it happened weeks ago, I guess it just acts to a prelude to more recent events and how I currently feel.

Last Monday I went for an interview. I thought it went really well, I had bags of experience and was well suited for the position. Today I found out I hadn't got it. Maybe someone better came along, maybe I'm doing something wrong I don't know (would help if the agency actually provided some form of feedback seeing as I requested it at least twice prior to this afternoon!). 

What's really annoying is that the last 2 interviews (and I haven't been on many since finishing uni last July) have been via agencies. I must be doing something seriously wrong but I just don't know what.

I've been to the local skills centre in town several times, so far they've been useless. Last week I booked myself in for this skills health check thing to tell me where my strengths lie and to suggest suitable jobs. I have to go back tomorrow morning to complete it. Have a good idea what it will say and to be honest I think it will be totally useless in helping me.

In my head at the mo I think I'm stuck in a place where I don't have enough experience to actually get one of the very few media lecturer jobs out there and for any other job I've got teacher labelled allover my CV and they won't touch me with a barge pole as I'm either over-qualified (what a stupid term!) or they think I'll disappear at the slightest hint of a teaching position - it's been over a year and the new term's started so they won't be anymore jobs now (apart from maternity cover) til next March; it's never going to happen!!!

Add to that the fact that at the mo I have no car due to it failing its MOT in style and I'm beginning to think what's the point?

Which leads me to the conclusion that I either start lieing on my CV/interviews or I just give up.


And to add insult to injury I have to go to the Job Centre again tomorrow morning and will no doubt get some jobsworth who will scrutinise and interrogate me to his/her full extent.

Project - Pain in the neck!

This morning I had a decent look at the Grant semi especially around the neck area as I knew that I had a problem with it for some reason. Bleeding obvious now!! lol

Seems I have a slight neck alignment problem, a little more than just a simple truss rod adjustment! Anyway I did a bit of Googling and came across an idea called 'shims', which are basically splints (usually strips of credit cards, best use for them!)  which prop up the neck. From what I gather they're predominately placed underneath the neck either at the front or the back to adjust the height of the strings (well the height of the neck in correspondence to the strings really) not at the sides to push the neck in one certain direction.

After many, many, many failed attempts I got to this stage:

The irony here is that there are no shims in place here! At this point I decided to remove the plate at the back for some reason and lo and behold we have my most successful attempt.

Unfortunately I didn't stop there. I tried to replace the plate thinking there must be a way that I could have both a correctly aligned neck and be able to keep my plate in place. Didn't have much success and I also bust my 1st string in the process so now I can't even tell how both E strings line up on the neck.

I think at this stage I'm either going to have to remove the plate once again and then see how it copes with 6 strings worth of tension or I take it to someone that actually knows what they're doing.

If I do go down the repair route I think it will be a few weeks as I can't afford to have it professionally repaired just yet (plus there may be no worth in it). In the meantime I've put back the bridge tone and volume controls (which was a lengthy and awkward experience in the end using string to form a noose!), jack (as best I can seeing as it's bent out of shape) and pickup switch. I've also for now put back the crappy knobs which I'll eventually replace.

For now I've hit a point in the project where I'm going to have to spend money (which of course leads to which decisions do I make). Do I remove the plate, restring it and hope for the best? I would probably get my new humbucker sorted first too so I don't have to mess around removing strings then adding them again. 

Or do I just call it quits now and take it to a professional. This of course means spending a decent amount of money (I'm guessing at least £30 as that's the cost of a setup) but if I did this I'd prob want the guitar to not have wires hanging out which of course means replacing the humbucker now or sticking with what I have and putting the controls back in place (also purchasing a new tone knob too as I had to cut the last one out!). 

As I said earlier because there's now money involved any progress on this project is now going to be slow.

New project!!

After spending a few days restoring the abandoned Squier Tele I kinda got the bug for it. So much so that I found myself looking on Ebay for guitars in need of repair (wasn't much worth looking at to be honest, no surprise there as Ebay sellers have a habit of just forgetting to mention things that may need repairing and just sell the item as in working condition!) and even thought about going down the build your own guitar effect pedal route via clone pedal kits.

Before I spend any of my own actual money (which I lack in!) I thought I'd check out my own old abandoned guitar.

This is an old Grant semi acoustic which I purchased from Crime Converters around ten years ago. For some reason I never took to it, think it was something to do with the neck being wrong and despite a little tinkering with the pickups several years ago (replacing the bridge pickup) I've pretty much left it to rot in the garage for years.

So I brought it in from the cold, dust it off a little and went at it with a screwdriver to see what I had.

At this point I found that the screw/bolt on the bridge tone controls was threaded and I couldn't remove it. Also had trouble removing the jack input plate too.

But with a bit of brute force, a screwdriver, hammer and a hacksaw I did manage to get in.

Removed jack

The guilty culprit (tone control)

After that (well actually between removing the jack and going at the tone knob with a hacksaw) I tried it out and was pleasantly surprised.

The neck does need adjusting (not that much of a job really after my foray into truss rod adjustment with the Scrapocaster) but all the electrics (with the exception of the bridge tone) work perfectly.

Also the neck isn't too bad to play and is much nicer than the Squier neck. I'm thinking that new this might have actually been worth more than the Squier as it is much nicer to play.

The bridge humbucker which I fitted a few years ago is awesome (well in comparison to the neck humbucker at least!) and is a complete contrast to the neck one which now sounds pretty cheap so it looks like I'm going to rip that out and replace it.

Other adjustments I fancy making at this point are:

• A Bigsby bridge if possible
• Addition of a scratchplate (screw holes are there so one must've existed at some point)
• All new tone and volume knobs (this is also kind of necessary as I only have one of each at the mo instead of 2)

I would also need to purchase a new tone pot and jack plate.

This is definitely a custom project and although in reality it may just be a simple restore and add a new neck humbucker it will end up being one of my own personal guitars as the sound it produces already is amazing and unlike anything I actually own (including the humbuckers on the Jim Reed PRS copy).

Also as Grant isn't an easily recognisable guitar manufacturing brand I can't see there being much re-sale value in it so wouldn't even be worth fixing up and selling never mind fitting a half decent pickup to the neck.

Can't wait to get started on this next project although with there being more cost involved (ie that replacement humbucker) and it not being as simple as a clean up, sand down and replace parts job I can see this being more of a longer project maybe taking several weeks or even months to complete.

Be worth it in the end though. Especially as I get to rescue a long forgotten guitar that I originally purchased for myself. :)

Scrapocaster update

So last Mon eve after shopping around the guitar shops (and seeing an identical model for £170 brand new) I decided that there was probably no worth in spending time and money customising this guitar as it would still be nowhere near as nice as my Baja tele to play (there is a reason why the Fender Baja is three times the price after all!) therefore it would prob be best to restore it to it's original specs (or near at least) and sell it on, what my old marketing boss would call 'an easy win'.

With this in mind I mentioned it on my Facebook status and got some interest almost instantaneously! After a few messages I set a price (a seriously low one but the buyer is a friend, there's no hassle in ebay/paypal or postage fees etc and there was some serious bumps and cracks to the paintwork that I couldn't (and wouldn't be doing so anyway) fix - besides it adds to that cool beat up look!

With this in mind I finished up cleaning the guitar:

Purchased a new jack input plate, tone knob, saddle and nut:

Jack

Tone

Finished bridge including new saddle on the right

Nut (after filing down)

And here's the finished product:

The Scrapocaster - The project begins!

After finding a perfectly fixable Squier Telecaster last night I could hardly wait to begin working on it, despite the fact that it was late and the shops were shut (it being Sunday as well as evening!) I managed to contain my excitement til this morning (even managing a lie in til 11am to boot). After giving the whole thing a proper scrub down using just a steam cleaner and a scouring sponge I got to see the true feat of what awaited me.

Looks quite good without that horrible white scratchplate and those tacky stickers!

On closer inspection though:

Can't really see it here but there's some serious damage to the wood as well as the obvious missing input socket and plate!

Also:

Nice little crack just above the neck pickup which was covered by that shitty scratchplate.

Various scratches such as this:

Was originally thinking of a vintage bridge like the one on my Baja but it seems I would have to drill into the body as they have 4 screw at the bottom unlike this one which only has 3.

What I'm thinking initially is to replace all the fittings (ie bridge, controls and tuners) with gold ones and fit a black scratchplate to it. Should look nice.

In the meantime I went into town to show it to the local guitar shops. My favourite one is shut for the week due to it being a small family business and they need time off. Didn't have much luck acquiring a scratchplate or anything else really but I did purchase a new socket which I fitted and am happy to report that all controls and pickups are intact (just a shame I'm going to rip them out and replace them!!

Finally I took the sander to it and got rid of (or at least tidied up) those big nasty scratches.

Guessing the next thing to do now is go shopping online and purchase the parts I want to upgrade it. After installing those it's a matter of choosing which pickups I want in it then having the guitar professionally setup. Will keep you all informed on the progress.

One drunk's trash is another man's cool new guitar customisation project!

So I went to throw out an old bottle of water left in my car boot for a few weeks after a warning from my Mum about drinking bottled water left in the car (Wouldn't have drunk it anyway as it'd be warm and nasty but thought it's a good time to get rid whilst I remember) and I see a guitar head poking out from a wheelie bin (it's bin collection day tomorrow). Decided to pull it out, see what' it is exactly. Thought it might just be a cheap guitar with it's neck in two but what I found was pleasantly surprising. A Fender Squire Telecaster in half decent nick, totally salvagable and best of all the parts that need replacing are all relatively cheap to do so. As I'm getting a new guitar for nothing (or virtually nothing with the cost of replacement parts) I think I'm going to customise it big time, thinking either a Jeff Buckley tribute tele or something with kick ass pickups (poss a humbucker at the neck), a different style bridge and a nice scratchplate (probably a chrome one).

Here's a list of things that I need on initial inspection:

• Input jack w/ plate
• Nut
• x1 Saddle (6 saddle type bridge)

List of possible replacements/problems once I plug it in (once the jack is fixed):

• Neck pickup
• Bridge pickup
• Tuners

Parts I think I'm going to replace anyway whether necessary or not:

• Neck pickup (poss a humbucker)
• Bridge pickup
• Scratchplate
• Input jack w/ plate
• Nut
• Saddle (most likely the whole bridge)
• PU selector knob (prob get one like the one on my Baja Tele)
• Tuners

Will track my progress on here along with pics but for now he's a glimpse of it in it's original state.

Ashes to Ashes - Dust to Dust

So the Gene Genie's final hurrah has come and gone and I for one was not disappointed. In fact I think it was a fantastic end to a fantastic series and it even made me want to go back and watch the disappointing second series!

Of course Ashes to Ashes (ATA) has never really lived up to it's predecessor Life On Mars (LOM) and many would argue that in fact that there was no need for a spin off in the first place, tarnishing the perfect memories we had of  DCI Gene Hunt, DCI/DI Sam Tyler et-al but after 2 years and 3 series we finally got the big answers. Who is Gene Hunt? And what was this place? Were Sam and Alex mad, in a coma or had they travelled back in time?

Many had probably guessed after 2 series of LOM and a further 3 of ATA that the place they inhabited was somewhere between heaven and hell or some variation on it at least. The biggest shock (to me at least) came from the fate of the support cast, I'd already correctly guessed that Alex was dead before the end of series 1. Even better was the fact that the Guv himself had died as a young rookie cop and had decided to dedicate his (after) life to helping other dead coppers reach the pub (the implied heaven).

Did anyone else notice the massive references to the Wizard of Oz in the final scenes? Alex as Dorothy in her ruby red shoes, Shaz, Chris and Ray as the Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man respectively. Then of course you've got Gene Hunt as the Wizard and Jim Keats as the Wicked Witch. Life on Mars played massively on references to the Wizard of Oz (Sam being transported to another world, Frank Morgan etc) so it's good to see the writers/producers etc pay one final nod to their influences.

One other source of possible influence that I picked up on is The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. I had heard that the LOM/ATA writers were influenced by Lewis's Narnia series so wouldn't be surprised if this isn't a total coincidence or just me reading too much into this. For those not familiar with The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis (the guy who wrote the Narnia books) it's basically a series of letters between a trainee devil (Wormwood) to his mentor (Screwtape) updating him on his progress to tempt a man into sinning and therefore straying him away from the path to heaven. Sounds just like the role Keats plays trying to split up the team and transfer them to his division (via a descending lift!), telling his 'boss'(?) via his phone that he's got 3 new recruits/souls!

Luckily we've got good old Nigel Perkins, sorry Gene Hunt stepping in at the last min via Chris's walkie talkie to save the tortured souls of Fenchurch East CID and after one last successful bust (resulting in the symbolic death of the Quattro!) he delivers them safely to the pub, 'our boozer' The Railway Arms from LOM complete with St Peter himself Nelson the Jamaican/Bury accented barman.

To end it all LOM/ATA comes full circle as another confused modern copper comes bursting into Fenchurch shouting the odds demanding his iPhone and his desk back ala Sam Tyler leaving our hero to put down his Mercedes brochure down and mutter the immortal words, "A word in your shell like pal".

Long live the Gene Genie!

Rock bottom

Today it seemed I'd lost all hope, I've started applying for warehouse jobs. It's got so desperate now that I've lowered my standards so low that even with two degrees to my name I'm looking for work in dirty old warehouses for minimum wage with a bunch of inbred smackheads for workmates.

To add insult to injury few of these jobs actually exist, the ones that are actually advertised online are just ploys by local recruitment agencies to get you to sign up with them (and they'll let you know when work comes up).

It appears that I will actually 'work for biscuits'!!