couple of new guitars's experiments

[ankh]

yearsa go i was ina flea market and i did pickup an old Egmond guitar from the 60's.The neck was fenderish,but completely warped so, unplayable.Yet the body had an inusual structure.It was soloidbody on the sides but in the middle the top was carved and hollow underneath.That made me curious to discover how it could have sounded.
So i did pickup a Gibosn style neck off ebay.I had some gold tuning pegs and also a jazz suspended pickup,also gold.A friend of mine gave me the old style bridge.
The luthier helped me with the neck joint,the original one was a one screw affair,with a sort of helix attached to it,sort of microtilt.The luthier did shape the neck pocket and the enckplate,made of brass,a nd also fixed the tune o matic bridge in its prtoper place.
Another friend stained the neck and i did design and shaped the pickguard, out of perspex that was painted black underneath.
Last thing i did was to find the correct spot for the pickup that was put in place using silicon glue-it is easier to remove.
All the electronics-one volume,one tone,plus the jack socket- have been put underneath the pickguard.

The guitar plays and feels nicely, it is brighter than i thought, and has a very niuce attack.
I'm happy with the result:



[/img][/img]


Another salvage/ smart project:[
after watchign a few vids of the glissentar(http://www.thomann.de/gb/godin_a11_nt.htm
i was iontriguied, but i didn't want to spend so much cash on somehtign i would use seldomly,just to play eastern melodies and songs.
I did pick an old,battered 12 string acoustic guitar tha t had worn frets, with a bit of work i did made it fretless ,put nre tunings keys and also installed a piezo and a preamp i had lyng around.
I did fiot it with 12 nylon strings,same gauge of the glissentar ones, alot less expensive and,voilà,i had a new toy to play with(please,no cheap jokes ).
It plays great:):



both guitars have the back of the neck treated for a satin feel.

it is possible to have fun and get insual,yet fully functioning instruments without spending a lot of money....................

[Slayer]

Dino,
Is your heart going pitter patter after seeing Ankh's Electric Guitar Project? Looks like your style too bro?

Ankh, cool to see something go from unplayable into a valued instrument!

K

[doublev2]

I don't usually swear but wholly crap. That Egmond is amazing. Naples flea market is my dream.

[ankh]

LOL,Dino,don't look....................








The oldest one i will keep,the other i sell.the amp not so sure yet..............

Uncle Kev, thank for your kind words:).

I may be crazy but it is wonderful to give new life to an old, battered instrument and trasform it in something functional that plays and sounds good................

[doublev2]

Ankh if you ever see a Franco Cerri meazzi or a Hollywood president drum set in small sizes please let me know.

i just found an FBT Franco Cerri mod.in Paris.

[ankh]

sure,i'll do it.But please take note that such things are difficult to find even in flea markets,many people try to sell through ebay and even people from flea markets are using tablets so soemtimes they try to sell things at higher price,especially if they think they are collectible.The two things you've mentioned are soemhtign i've never seen on flea markets, years ago i did find an hollywood drum set but it was in a real bad shape,a friend of mine bought it and sold it afterwards.

Years ago when general info was scarce was much easier to find hidden gems and lots of things music related,now even boss pedals are hard to find, but you never know.

[Slayer]

Ankh,
I think that is too cool and Dino really appreciates this vintage stuff and shades of brown. Please keep posting your projects as it is really fun to see the before, during and after process. I'm really caught in a musical time warp of heavy rock from say 1975 to 1992. I like new music but mostly from those artists that moved me from 1975 to 1992 LOL My most recent project is an Yngwie Strat that he personally would probably think is an abomination. About the only think left that resembles the Yngwie Signature is the neck and the body color by much of the rest has been modified into essentially an 80's Fat Strat with a scalloped neck. Diversity in us humans is what makes the world interesting and go around.

Thank you so much for all your contributions and you are a talented person and musician!

Kev

[ankh]

Kev,thanks for your words you're way too kind! .

I like all kind of muysic with a preference from 60's to mid to end of the 70's;).
About your strat,i'm sure it will become a great sounding guitar.Like you've said,diversity is what makes the world go around,and,especially, finding something or build something that suits our needs.And most of the mass produced signature guitars are just an excuse to make extra money.It is much better-not to mention more rewarding-to take an ordinary guitar and make it your own.
Please update us on your strat:)

Years ago i went in one of the most speicalized stores in my city.A friend of mine has a mid 80's strat that he modified with Lindy fralin pickups(at the time).The body is one of those "pool" models where under the pickguard they just routed the wood,instead of just routing the space for the pickups.
We did try back to back his guitar with the signature models on display, among them there were malmsteen's ,Hendrix's, blackmore's and Bonnie Raitt models.My friend's guitar sounded much better.Funnily enough, the best of the bunch was the Bonnie raitt one and a mexican tele thinline(a brown one,of course;)).

Ok,now a couple of pics:
First,for Dino's pleasure:

An Italian Gibson copy,this one is more rare,usually you cna find a white model,this one is just lacquer finish.it needs restoring, i'll do it when i'll have more time.

One no name guitar, probably from Jugoslavia:


one 1962 eko:


Now , back to my projects: a very old Silvertone guitar amp, it didn't work, i had modded by my tech to fender Harvard specs:

It has just one volume,one tone and a small alnico speaker,but now it has also a speaker out, it plays great.
This one,instead:


it is a 70's Italian guitar,made by melody.
the original puickups sound good, but i had it modded.A dear friend of mine-and a great inspirational musician- made it fretless with an unique finish, changed the bridge to a through the body one(almost like a tele),added an old 1980 Ibanez roadster pickup and then we did put an hot rail pickup copy(bought brand new from uk at 18 £) on the bridge,plus a coil switch.Two volumes one tone.Weirdily enough,the original tuning pegs give a more acousrtic tone
It plays great, and i did use it for makin some unusual sounds:
[youtube][/youtube]

what you hear here it is the fretless and a sound i created on my multieffect processor,imrpovised on the spot,recorded live,straight to disc.

For more experiments i'll keep you posted.

Thanks again!

[Slayer]

Ankh,
Your song Lost Souls is a real movie soundtrack sounding recording! That would be great in a movie and has some dark moods to it That double neck is very interesting and on the other guitars look like the parts would be difficult to find so that it might require you to mod them in some cases. The Echo looks like it is missing some bridge saddles so those might be hard to find?

Keep us posted on your progress here please

Kev

[ankh]

thnaks for your kind words,Kev,glad you liked the atmospheric mood of that tune.I was mesin with effectds and then when i did create that sound and had the whole concept in mind,from music to images.The pics were taken in germany and in Pompeii.Once in germany i was at freind's house and theere were two harps playng.I had an intuition straight away and i did ask for an electric guitar, had one multieffect unit and an ebow with me and so i did play along, creating a sort of haunting melody.The harp players congratulated me and then wanted to know how i did creat those sounds and especially how did i know that it was a song about ghosts............music is so fascinanting.

About the guitarsm, the grey one is missing the tremolo arm, but sounds very interesting since the body is hollow.The melody before ahd a unique kind of tremolo,sort of a bigsby-you cna still spot some off the holes- but with this setip it has much more sustain, it needs a few touches here and there.It was very difficult to find both brigdges on the doublenck but i was lucky when i did find an unplayable bass by the same brnad, i did sold the parts but kept the bridge.The sort of tuneomatic for the guitar was a real drag, this brnad made Gibson copies but the width of the strings,pickups and polepieces are narrower than the original ,so it was hard to find.I did find a perfect retrofit that i had to paint gold.The eko bridge saddles are missing, the whole bridge was missing since it is nor screwed or glued into the body i did put that one and i'll find the missing ones, either i or a freidn of mind should have the right ones.

The friend of mine who helped me create this fretless has doen some incredible work on some of his guitars.I gave him a very cheap old italian guitar(,thin body weak pickups,no trussrod either) he did create a solid and bulky bridge out of a piece of brass and now that guitar sounds great.Recently he has done somethin similar to an other old EKO guitar shaped like violin(guess what..........it is brown:)),put pickups of another model by eko and now that guitar sounds like a gretsch!.
He's one of the best musicians i've had the pleasure to see play-including very famous ones- and always a great inspiration

[shramiac]

Yes a horror movie or scary video game soundtrack!!!

[ankh]

this one:


was originally a silver sparkle SX les paul copy.The previous owner did route the top with some cutting tool,looked it was full of bad scars looked like open wounds.It came with two chinese PAF copies.
I went to a body shop mechanic,asked him to put some filling to cover "the wounds",bought some red nitro and asked him to paint it for me.Then the luthier-a saint,more like- routed the humbucker cavities to fit two mighty mite p90'sand i also did change the broken volume and tone knobs.

Since the guitar sounded a bit on the dull side, the luthier suggested to take away the frets-they were badly set- and put new frets in the proper way,i will do that under his guidance next week.

Once the guitar will finished i'll add a couple of things to make it look a bit better

about the vids and horror movies :

[youtube][/youtube]

some found it distressing.............


this one is an exemple of a flanger effect pushed to the extreme:
[youtube][/youtube]

[Slayer]

Th world of Ankh

[1031]

I just love the first guitar ... and really all the Italy shaped stuff. I really wish they would have used those shapes in quality builds back then .

Great guitars,

[doublev2]

i have an italian guitar like this but I like mine better. I have to say the guitar plays really well and a unique sound. The italians used a lot of Beech wood in the old guitars and it sounds great. A lot of old violins had beech backs and necks too and virtually all the drums. I would take Beech over maple any day but for some reason not popular. I think because slightly heavier than maple and its kind of considered a cheap boring wood but actually beech drums are usually more money than maple.