Ellie Erickson's Matching Danelectro-ish guitar and Fender style Amp project [Pictures] - created 07-30-2006
Erickson, Ellie - 07/30/2006.11:44:49
The dope:
Danelectro style body, with some minor changes to the bottom curves
Construction scrap pine frame
Garbage day salvaged masonite top and pickgard
Maple neck made from salvaged futon frame
Ebony fingerboard made from some wierd long scale fretboards I got at the ASIA benefit auction really cheap
Reissue Danelectro "aged magnet" pickups, whatever that's supposed to mean in marketing speak
top loaded hardtail bridge, electronics from Guitar Parts USA
Grover open back tuners
24 inch scale, perfect for farmer chord nasty Neil Young style playing.
I painted the top and back with a gold waterbased acrylic, then attached the fabric on the top and sides with a light coat of spray adhesive, then glued the side binding tape from the fabric store to the edges and covered the whole thing with several coats of shellac.
I have spent a nasty few months remodleing my kitchen, this little electric is what I'd run out and work on when the drywalling, wiring and paint huffing got on top of me.
The Amp:
A Weber 5A40 kit, sort of a Bandmaster Reverb model, with tremolo and reverb on one channel, and a four 10" alnico magnet speaker setup.
Calling that a kit is a bit of an reach, they send you a box of parts, all good quality, but no instructions, and you have to download the schematic. I did very little of the brainwork on this one, mostly I just did the mechanical assembly and some of the soldering, and the upholstery.
Weber sells the cabinets with your choice of their coverings, but my inner Peg Bundy is an unreasonable bitch who demands leopardskin and high heels. I let her have the leopardskin fetish, but draw the line at wearing any shoes I can't run like hell in, either to or from somebody.
My partner Kori does the bulk of the electronics in our shop, and we've been building this amp as well as a Bassman clone with my bandmate Robin Davies, who just finished up a telecaster bass and posted it a few months back.
Weber sent me the wrong cabinet, so I decided to just build a head and make it look like a Marshall, rather than mess around with sending the original cabinet back.
The speaker grill cloth is the same as the cloth on the Amp head and the Ellielectro guitar.
The amp breaks up very nicely, has lots of power, and has a very responsive feel to it. Lean into the strings when it's set to about four and it gets a very creamy crunch.
The guitar sounds like the Danelectro/Silvertone it was modeled on, a short scale frankenstien thing I slapped together with parts Amy gave me a few years ago.
I'm pretty happy with both, I got to play the amp at a gig last night, then hear my pal Kat play her guitar through it while watching her band. I think she's going to build one next. It''s rewardingly loud,
Nuff' said. The photos:
Looks nice. Does the kitchen match?
Meow! How about an MP3 of the 'Cat Scratch Fever' lick?
You know, by the description I was fully prepared to hate this setup sight unseen. But I am truly impressed, there is little or no interest it seems in the Female-oriented rock group vintage market, or recreations/ interpretations thereof, save a few big time performers personal guitars. What I'm trying to say is this looks like a setup from the garish period of rock and roll if there had been the Female equivalent to Bowie. Maybe there was and I don't remember Her. Joplin, as well as my Daughter, (who I'm trying to get into playing) would freak to have a cool setup like that. Heck, it's a killer tube amp, I'd play it and blow off the Gary Glitter comments. I'd have to put some Fralins in that axe, though, I'm sure he offers lipsticks.
I've had more than one manly fellow lust after my pussycat amp, there's no shame in it, far as I can tell. No one seems to have been emasculated yet, at least not by my amp or guitar.
When you think about it, rock is a very girly thing. Page, the guys from Poison, all those hairbands of the 80's, the whole glam era and the Motley Crue axis of bad eyeliner, all fine examples of girlymen with loud guitars.
Everybody does tweed. Or black or vinyl. Even I have been guilty of the tyranny of flamed wood, the alure of the birdseye maple, albeit sans blue tints.
But of late, I prefer to boldly go where I think only Peg Bundy and Cyndi Lauper would have the huevos to go.
That may not be balls to the wall enough for the flameheads of the world, but when you get right down to it, that whole wall and ball thing sounds very uncomfortable, making me wonder why so many people with them would like something that pushes theirs against the aforementioned wall
WOW, Two more great pieces of Ellie-art. I have been collecting parts & info. to build a very similar Danno-Silvertone clone, minus the kitty skin. I would like to use a cokebottle longer scale style neck on the silvertone twin pickup style body. I am not sure how close the long scale neck with a couple extra frets would match up to the original short scale bodys bridge saddle position. So it would probably be easier to build what I want from scratch. Ellie, do you have any pictures of the pine frame with the bridge and neckblocks in place? The only interior Danno pictures I have been able to find was a convertible model on the (GOOGLE-Subway guitars) website. Please, Please, Please, post a picture if you have one. If not, could you roughly describe the interior framework and blocking? How thick was your masonite? Did you wire the pickups for series or parallel? I understand when combined, they sound great in series. Thanks.
Cool job Ellie! But I agree with Jay, more specifics on the guitar if you please.
I would do a wiring mod that will put both pick,uips in series, too! that would be great. There is a wiring schematic on the DGB Studio website that will show you how to do that using a push/pull pot- I have used that on lots of two pickup guitars and it really works well.
Hey Ellie, I rarely read this section of the forum, I glad I did now. The guitar and amp looks great, but not in a '80's hairband sort of way, more "Kill Bill" style! I'd love to play them some day.
These guitars are about as minimal as they can be. I made mine old style, with a solid wood frame, but the new ones look like plywood, not that it matters.
It's classic 60's cheese-mo ultra budget guitar time, so don't get fancy, or you're missing the point.
1: Glue up a slab of well seasoned wood, I used some construction grade two by four scraps from a pal's shop, some small knots are ok, since we're covering it with something like wallpaper or fabric.
Avoid oozing pine sap leaking knots, and keep your nice edges on the outside of the body as much as you can.
Make the body blank just a little bigger than your widest outside curve.
2: Cut out the body shape from the blank. Leave enough so you can sand the sawmarks off the edges and smooth it on the spindle sander.
3: Take a pencil and compass, whatever you have that works as a spacer and mark a line about an inch in from all the edges.
I leave the body solid from the bottom of the body to about a half inch in front of the edge of the bridge I'm using, and I also leave the area a few inches back from the neck pocket rout solid. Just far enough that I can get my neck pickup where I think I want it.
4: Take a jig saw, drill press with forstner bits or whatever wood munching tool is your weapon of choice and remove everything inside the inner line.
5: Buy or scrounge some masonite, 1/8th inch is my choice, take your two by four body frame and trace it onto the top and back masonite panels. I use a pencil and a small washer, that gives me a nice even line about 1/4 inch outside the pine frame to rout off flush later.
6: Using copious amounts of crappy discount store F clamps, I glue the masonite top and back on. I do them one at a time, but your chocies can be more adventurous, if you're in a hurry.
I put a few brad nails in to lock the masonite in place during glueing. They go where the neck pocket will be routed away, and under where the bridge sits. On the back I use two where I think I'll have a neck plate or ferrules.
To do this, I usually just chuck the nail in the drill, use it as a drill bit, and then tap it in enough to hold the top or back plates.
7: Let glue dry, remove clamps, pull brad pins, slam the router into the router table with a flush cut bit, trim masonite to pine edges.
8: Find the center line you put on the end block, transfer to the masonite top and back, then sand the edges smooth on the body.
9: Mark out the neck pocket area and the bridge area, at the same time I run lines where the outside edges of the strings will go, so I can figure out my side to side placement of the pickup routs.
Lay out top to bottom areas to route or machine for pickups. On this one I just marked it, grabbed a forstner bit and the cordless
electric*
drill the right size and cut the corners, then used a small hand saw to cut the rest of the pickup opening. I leave enough so I can clean up the edges with a file or sandpaper.
I usually use a router template, but didn't have one for these lipstick pickups. Sometimes it's just faster to do handwork.
The rest is pretty standard, aside from the goofy back mount dano style pickup adjustments. Rout your neck pocket, make a pickgard you like, and you can paint, cover in fabric or glue monkey dung on it.
The sides on the originals had a fabric wallpaper, the newer ones have a vinyl feeling edging. I used fabric tape from the craft store, and made my pine blank and masonite fit the depth of it.
Any questions?
*note: Mark Swanson prefers to use a cordless drill dating from somewhere around 1922, I do not suggest that style drill for making big holes. Also, any incoherent ramblings here are the result of a lack of coffee, so feel free to point out any errors or alternative methods.
Thanks Ellie!
And I only use my cute old drill for small holes anyway.
Very, very cool. Both the guitar and the amp are oozing with vibe, and when you put them together it makes for a knockout combination. Lots of eye candy. I'll bet it's a huge hit on stage. Awesome!
Very groovy Ellie!!! Reminds me of the Leslie I re-covered back in the 80's... it had pink tolex with black hardware!
>This is a hand-cranked drill, baby.
Would that be called a "bit and brace"?
At first I thought post number 5 was a shot of the headstock leaning against something soft, squishy and white (my overtired brain was thinking Marshmallow Fluff - a dead giveaway I'm from New England). But after way too much squinting, I'm thinking it's a mannequin.
Nice stuff. Now I know what to do with all of those masonite cutoffs I've been tripping over.
Someone gave me a mannequin once. I put it on my porch. Now I have four, and I usually find them on my front porch. I've tracked down two of the donors. As for the rest, who am I to blow against the wind?
Oddly enough, since I put all the deer skulls, mannikins, wig heads and the baby doll hanging by a noose on my front porch, those nice people in the black suits and white shirts no longer stop to give me copies of their literature.
This is a hand-cranked drill, baby.
Would that be called a "bit and brace"?
No, Mark is (I think) talking about what some call an eggbeater drill, which is a different beast than a brace and bit.
Eggbeater drills work really well with twist bits of 1/4 inch or less.
Hal's got it right! I love that old thing.
A Bit and Brace is a lot bigger, I think.
Eggbeater drills work really well with twist bits of 1/4 inch or less.
That's right for the small single speed ones. I've got an old chest eggbeater with a 1/2" chuck and two speeds that easily handles larger bits. I don't use it much for guitar building though I do use the small one quite a bit.
Love the combination Ellie! Should definitely get the audience talking
In an effort to maximize my time playing guitar in front of the television, I just use a regular hand held electric egg beater, and super glue a pair of drill bits where the beaters usually go. This allows me to drill twice as many holes in half the time!
Sometimes I hook it up to ten thousand volts of stepped up AC using hot glue mounted router bits to carve my necks.
(As a disclaimer, I must admit I hate having to pull those metal shards out of my frontal lobe, and that burnt flesh smell that you get when your wiring job slips can cause an expensive day at the drugstore buying gauze and moisturizer. Don't try this at home unless you can regenerate sensory organs and have nanobots for blood clotting and brain reassembly.)
Power tools are simply a girl's best friend, and I don't know how I managed to live a full life before I got a big tablesaw. Golly!
I like your new toys, Ellie. I enjoy the idea of using something drawn from 40 or 50 year old designs and updated to make music today. I am willing to bet they sound as good, or more likely better than the gear they were inspired from. I think I can assume they purr like kittens and roar like a jungle cats at the very least.
"Eggbeater drills work really well with twist bits of 1/4 inch or less."
I have an old one and plan on keeping it.
Neat-o, daddy-o. (Or mommy-o...as the case may be)
I built this one with no neck angle, almost no headstock angle, and made sure it had a nasty buzzing nut and a few bad frets, just to make it like the originals. It felt good to do shoddy work for a change.
>what some call an eggbeater drill
Oh, with the crank. I remember those.
>a nasty buzzing nut and a few bad frets, just to make it like the originals.
My Dan-O's nut doesn't buzz. I like those aluminum nuts! The frets weren't too bad, but I refretted it once because it suffered a fall...
Were you able to get by with a single piece of the futon frame maple for the neck ?
Nice work, recycling like that.
Those look great. I like seeing amps that are something other than black tolex or tweed.
Wow!! That's too cool. I just bought one of those old Silvertones a few months ago. Your is cooler though. Wana trade??
I have an old amp that needs recovering I'm thinking of going full funk. I just can't decide on what... Maybe pink-camo.