Wesley Venables' latest guitar [Pictures] - created 02-15-2005
Venables, Wesley - 02/15/2005.10:55:39
Burton-Upon-Trent, UK
I have just finished this guitar as a present for my girlfriend. She said that she wanted a daisy rock guitar in the shape of a heart or a flower. I suggested that she design her own and this is what she came up with, nothing like a heart or a flower though. It was all built on a tight budget, except for the pickup which came from my first guitar.
The shape is roughly based on a Ampeg Bass. We lengthened the upper horn and added the little curl on the lower bout (The curl is an idea borrowed from a guitar i built with a guy called Matt Redfern, Hopefully he will post pictuers soon because its a stunner). We decided to paint f-holes rather than cut them out just to keep everything easy, otherwise she would have been sanding the insides of he f-holes herself.
Heres the specs:
Mahogany body
Flamed maple neck
Indian Rosewood Fretboard
Cream binding
Top loading hardtail bridge
TV Jones Filtertron Plus
Epiphone tuners (not sure about the snot green buttons)
24" scale
Abalam and Green sea snail inlays (card suits), aluminium ring dots.
Rattle can finish (ford ivory, black f-holes)
here she is:
Closer view of body. Dont look at the little bit of sand thru on the upper horn. This camera is a bit unforgiving, it shows up my faults
We decided not to bother with any contours on the back for simplicity. The flamed maple neck is just finished with danish oil. It was going to have a bubinga neck with a carved scroll, but i found the it impossible to carve the bubinga into a basis neck shape. So i scrapped it, it will be a while before i try bubinga again.
Heres a shot of the playing card suit inlays, The club and spade are abalam and the heart and diamond are green sea snail, the colour difference doesn't really show up and the club had quite a lot of filler around it.
Plain and simple headstock
Very cool... Looks like a cross between an Ibanez PGM and Ibanez Talman
I can smell the Rock'n'Roll from a mile off;-)
Is your girlfriend one to wear her hair beehive-style? Or is it leather jacket and jeans? Anyway, that guitar fits the bill:-)
The neck-ending is, to me, very impressive. Is the neckpocket the same shape as the fretboard or does the fretboard extend?
I was looking at a talman the other day for quite a while but never noticed the similarity, but i suppose it is quite similar. Hey i always wanted one of those anyway.
My girlfriend wanted something she could pose with and it had to be retro.
The fretboard extends from the 22 fret and it is a standard fender style neck pocket. The 24th is more for visual effect than actual playability, i dont think she can quite reach it but i can so thats ok. The curl on the end of the body was mandolin inspired so i echoed that with the fretboard, the shape of the body didn't quite work without it. I am still not sure about the single dot on the 24th fret but i felt it needed something.
Slick! Sort of reminds me of a Charvel Surfcaster. I think I would have gone with some lipstick tube pickups and a Sea Foam green color. But TV Jones and white is cool too! I dig that body shape a lot. Great work!
I would have probably got lipsticks if i was buying them but the filtertron was just hanging around not being used so in it went. We were limited to the colours that we could find in automotive rattle cans. The original idea was for the dirty off-white colour like an old jazzmaster, this was the closest thing we could find. I think we were both tempted by a light blue that we saw.
This was my first time spraying with rattle cans and i think i will avoid it from now on. Its just so expensive.
Interestingly, an hour after one of the colour coats i made the mistake of leaning the guitar on my jeans. The denim made an imprint and i had to sand back. This left the guitar at a stage where it had a rather impressive relic finish, ok not chips and scratches but the wear pattern looked pretty authentic. I was very tempted to leave the guitar looking like that but decided i wanted to try and get the effect i was aiming for in the first place. Thats why we have decided that we dont really mind if the guitar gets the odd bit of abuse.
Wesley, on the subject of spraying, Homebase do a cheap HVLP turbine and gun set by Earlex (the obvious URL), a Spray Station 200. I picked up one in their sale around Christmas for very little as a back up. Works very well, I was using it at the weekend for clear nitro.
Cool guitar by the way!
Wow! That's one unique looking axe. Not something I'd play, but very cool nonetheless. I especially like how you extended the fretboard on the top three strings. Excellent job!
"dirty off-white colour like an old jazzmaster"
Hey Wes, maybe this is what you were after. I think this is the right paint number, but I would check a chip chart to be sure. "Olympic White" Du Pont Lucite 2818-L 1960-80 Fender 1958-62 Cadillac. I have found that many old Lucite color numbers are still used today, just have it mixed up! Ford's Wimbledon White could work too. Nice looking shape all around and I really like it, it has a "vibe" to it that just rules.
Thanks for the tip Ron, i have seen those sprayers before but just presumed they would be a little rubbish. I seriously need to get some spray equipment sorted but my workshop is in my spare bedroom and i dont fancy leaving a compressor in my rickety old shed.
I think you are right about the olympic white RP. I saw Fords wimbledon white but she decided Ford Ivory was the closest to what she wanted. Its a bit richer than in the photos. I just saw a dirty cream VW beetle in town(new model), it was almost the exact colour i had in mind when i built this thing.
Wesley, it's not a compressor (it's a turbine which is basically a vacuum cleaner motor blowing not sucking!) and is extremely portable. I generally spray outside and keep the spray gear indoors.