Bloody Les Paulish Guitar

My pal Mark gave me a stripped to nothing but wood Roland Synth Guitar with a cracked neck and a ton of funky pickup routs.

I filled all the routs, stuck a bigsby clone on it and a few custom P-90's from my pal Clint at www.searcystringworks.com.

It weighs a ton, and screams like a dying pig being eaten by a giant flying vampire bat.

I stripped it down to bare wood and added the bloody looking paint job using tinted shellac, and stabbed on a coat of nitro lacquer with a nasty old paint brush to make it look like dried blood.

I added some of my own blood by accident, too.

Sometimes you really get into your work in ways you don't expect.

Copperhead Road

Steve Earle - Copperhead Road

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc86_Weoye0

I fell in love with this dude when this song came out back in the 1980's.
Damn, he's dangerous and lovely in this video.
And the older and uglier he gets, the better his songs are, and the more I love him.

Orange, Rotten Copper and Lacewood Tele-ish things

Sometimes I just need to build something colorful and quick and funky, because while building acoustics is rewarding, taking a break from it and getting your tele-ish freak on is nearly instant fun.

Cartoon Guitar

I draw a lot of strange things down at my favorite coffeeshop. I drew this guitar shape one day after a lot of cofeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I drew it about two inches tall.

My pal Robin blew it up for me at his graphic art job, I transformed it into this oddball thing.

I gave it to my buddy Erick Coleman, rockstar, madman and luthier genius, because everybody needs weird ass guitars around.

It's got a Searcy P-90 in it that honks like a mac truck.

Dreadfull Eva and Her Acoustic Guitar

I played in a band with her Dad, a very handsome and fine fellow who gave me the Les Paul Copy I play most of the time now, in spite of having over a dozen electrics I built.

Something about cheesy Japaneese guitars appeals to my dumpster diving side.

Anyway, this lovely and talented young woman is Doug's daughter, and she came over to my shop and I helped her build this little Martin Clone. It sounded pretty damn good, too.

Steampunk Flying V

My buddy Clint Searcy at Searcy String Works sent me some whackjob pickups last year, the one in the glitter silvertone clone and this one.

It spoke to me and said, make me a steampunk pipebomb guitar heart.

So I did, just in time for Halloween, or Devils night.

Basswood body, with patina paint and hardware and surplus store junk all over it.

It sounds pretty good.

Three more electrics things, one a mandocellocaster

New effects pedals

One's based on the vintage Dallas rangmaster top boost. The other is just an A/B pedal. Both are painted with refractive paint, the A/B pedal was doused in lighter fluid and burnt till it bubbled funky, then painted again.
Howl/Snarl = Volume/Tone. Very Stevie Ray/ Brian May sounding pedal.

More fold leaf fiddle

Gold leaf electrified fiddle

Made this for Sheila, our violin player so I could hear her over the rockin' band I'm in.
Filled with expanding foam, coverd in varigated metal leaf, hacked to have an acoustic guitar pickup and preamp in it. It started out as a horrible sounding 69.00 fiddle.
It sounds funky good, and doesn't feed back at shows. Or not yet anyway....

Woodcut Gutiar, Detail Headshot

Woodcut guitar, close up

Naked Women Woodcut Covered Archtop Electric

I didn't make it, but I did cover the top in early 20th century German Expressionist Woodcuts, and replace the generic pickups with Stew-mac Golden age humbuckers. I wanted a different guitar to record with, and hate generic instruments when I'm playing them.

Close up, Peter's Bubinga Six string

Peter's Bubinga Six String

I started it, my sometimes bandmate Peter Fee rescued it from my shelf of semi finished projects and gave it a home.
We distressed the hardware to make it look funky beat up. Bubinga top, butternut back. Mostly hollow.

Detail Shot, Birdseye Gutiar

I didn't want to make this one a perfect flat surface, so I left some of the figure unleveled.

Redwood/Birdseye Maple Guitar

The top is some wild birdseye maple, the back is salvaged old growth redwood timber from a deck I tore down a few years ago.

All Three Instruments

Another Bling-o-caster

Made this one for my pal Erick, who plays in an Athens, Ohio band called The Speed Knobs. It's gold leaf over a semi hollow poplar body, rosewood fretboard and maple neck.

Spalted Walnut Bass Guitar

I felt like building one in case our bass player quits. Not that I have a clue about playing bass. But it never hurts to keep one around.

Double Neck, Ocatve Mandolin, Six String Guitar

Got sick of doing quick changes between songs in the band, so I built one that does both. I'm too lazy to want to move that fast. Pine body, maple necks, my own hand wound pickups. It weighs less than your average Les Paul, and balances pretty well.

Blue Electric and Flying V lap steel

Leopard Amp and Guitar combo

Matching Silvertone influenced guitar

Of course, no outfit is complete unless it all ties together. I built a Silvertone style body in matching leopardskin. Short scale, two genuine lipstick pickups, with an onboard preamp/booster made by Mark Swanson, who makes pretty cool guitars himself.

The New Amp Head

I just got a thing for leopard print, must be my inner Peg Bundy tacky streak...

New Amp build

A classic amp design, based on the 40 watt Fender. We built if from a box of parts that Weber Amps sells as a kit, although they have no directions and you have to download the schematic.
Reverb, tremolo, four ten inch alnico magnets. It's rewardingly loud.