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My new guitar!

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Hi all

Haven’t been around much recently as I’ve been busy workwise and with life in general and also, if I’m honest, I got seriously wound up over something and decided I needed a break. Anyway, it’s nice to see the old place creaking along if slightly deprived of some well-loved contributors. But hey ho, here’s one of the things I’ve been doing…my new guitar! I’ve been working away from home for months and decided a toy was in order and had the idea to get a guitar custom built. Thing is, I am hardly short of our fretted friends already, so specifying something from scratch was rather tricky since pretty much all my needs are already met. But….but…. as all guitar lovers know, the right number of guitars to own can be calculated by the formula N+1 where N=the number you currently have, so what the hey. Anyway, I had a think about my requirements…. (more nerdiness in comments)….

http://i1094.photobucket.com/albums/i449/charlieboy14/Afterword/20160521_103326_zpsfriqql4t.jpg

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Comments

  1. Requirements…
    Two cutaways
    Bare Knuckles Mules humbuckers (hand wound in Devon – growly!)
    Coil tap
    22 frets
    Tremolo
    Two knobs
    No silly paint jobs

    The difficult thing is if you have something built entirely from scratch it costs an absolute packet as all the jigs and tooling etc have to be set up specially…..enter Bailey Guitars of Ayrshire. They will build pretty much what you want, but they also have a standard range of really well designed guitars which you can tweak to your heart’s content. I immediately spotted the Bandmaster , which met many of my requirements out of the traps, and the eponymous Chris Bailey is flexibility itself in changing anything else you like, from switch colours to suggesting a cute little reverse cutaway on the lower cutaway. Chris also suggested the Rothwell ACT coil tap circuit which makes a humbucker sound like a single coil by electronic wizardry rather than the traditional splitting approach which always sounds a bit weedy to me. It has the look of the 70s Dan Armstrong guitars which featured a sliding pickup and also were produced in Plexiglas, sported by Keef amongst others. And also the Les Paul Junior double cut.

    Thing is, do you buy a guitar you’ve never played? I mean, half the fun is prowling the guitar shops with a mate, sucking teeth furiously, enduring the Saturday guitarists knocking out the solo from Stairway or the intro from “Sweet child of mine”. I was restricted to looking at pictures….until help arrived in the form of seasoned plank spanker El Hombre Malo who nobly nipped down to the workshop in the Ayrshire countryside from his Glasgow hideaway and took one for the team by playing guitars all morning and being bribed with tea and biscuits to give a favourable report back. Trusting Hombre’s recommendation (the word glowing is an understatement) I placed the order….

    Weeks went by, tantalising pictures emerged of the native block of wood, the rough carve, the glued neck/body with jigs etc…then finally a large box arrived. Frustratingly I was trapped away working so didn’t get to it until the weekend, but anticipation being all it was a real thrill to open it up and finally hold what had started as a list of ideas on a bit of scrap paper. Is it all I hoped for – yes! Would I do it again? Yes! Do I now have enough guitars? Remember N+1…..

    If anyone is still reading, at Twang Jr’s instance we made an “unboxing” video, as is the thing amongst the yoof – see here for more than you ever need to know…

  5. Hi Twang, good to see you back. By strange coincidence I was playing a Jeffrey Foucault album yesterday that you had recommended to me.

    Am not a guitar player or owner but love the sound they make but your account largely went over my head sadly. One regret from my youth is that I never continued with the guitar past the rudimentary couple of songs it took me months to master.
    Clearly a labour of love and hope it provides hours of endless fun.

  8. Looks fab. No scratch plate .. but then who would want one with all that lovely wood in place? Would commission a luthier to make one tomorrow, but as I play with all the finesse of Ranulph Fiennes after a particularly frost-bitten excursion into the wilds I’ll probably stick with my plain but serviceable Yamaha Pacifica.
    Hope you have many hours of pleasure with ‘her’ (It is a her isn’t it?)

  9. Yay, good buddy! Was about to send a search party but here you are, large as life. I’m trapped at work right now, so can’t give the vid a spin – will investigate later. Been too long.

  12. How wonderful. I know nothing about guitars but have a brother who has been a guitar nerd since we were kids, so I’ve picked up a bit. That also means that I completely understand what that unboxing was like. Great stuff. And it looks and sound gorgeous.

    Glad to have you back, as well. I’ve been a bit absent myself, although the last thread I started was one of my favourites I’ve ever done. So my enforced time off work has done me some good.

  15. Yo @Twang! How’s the Bailey guitar getting on? Did it live up to expectations? What’s your “long term” review? The only guitars you’ve mentioned recently have been Telecasters, so I thought I’d enquire!

    • Yo @fitterstoke!

      Pleased to say I remain really pleased with the new guitar. I think of it as my SG – mahogany body (well, it’s cedrela, a sustainable version of mahogany), no poncy maple cap, twin humbuckers. Mean and snarly through an overdrive – great for Angus licks. The Wilkinson trem bridge is a joy for daft showy dive bombs and other flashy tricks. The neck has stayed perfectly set and it went for a 3 month (free) setup back to Mr. Bailey and has been lovely ever since.

      I have used it for recording, usually on rocky/bluesy stuff, and always for playing live with my band Oldskool who have been sadly on the bench since the pandemic but we ought to get out there again. It’s true I have been playing the Tele a lot as it just records so well, and for the sort of stuff I usually do it sits nicely in the mix.

      Here it is in action on an instrumental I wrote for my Mum a few years ago – she always liked me playing the blues. Especially poignant currently of course. It’s a bit of a wing and hope, mostly one take, but I like it.

  17. Like a forgotten jungle temple, this thread slumbered undisturbed for six years.

    And then formidable fitterstoke, the Indiana Jones of the Afterword, hacked his way through the vegetation and restored it to its former glory.

    What a remarkable tale.

    Let’s wake a few more sleepers!

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