"guitar-project" & Concert!

Slowly, way to slowly the guitar DIY projects are reaching "the final countdown". After all problems with it´s electronic circuit the whole guitar was once again dismantled. This time to get a nice spraypaint. 

What colour should I use? The answer to this question was solve in an easy way by just opening the colour cabinet door where a couple of spray cannisters was stored.

White - NO, Red metallic - hmm, No. How about painting the guitar in BRG? Brittish Racing Green, a nice Jaguar colour that because of the three spraycans gave the answer to me dilemma. Two slightly different BRG cans was tested and  finally I started off, by using the lighter colour to start with, the backside and the outer facia of the guitar will then be painted with the darker colour.

Hopefully this will make me  satisfied with the guitar. As soon as this green-ish paintjob is dry the guitarbody  will be painted  with a couple of coats with Clearpaint in hope to make it shine.

With a bit och luck and some hard work I will have the possibility to show the guitar in it´s finished stage with in a couple of days.

"SARAH MACDOUGALL CONCERT"

Finally S MD arrived to Sweden and on the 14th of january she and her f reinds will be performing in Malmö. dont miss this rare opportunity to listen to a truly great Swedish / Canadian artist. 

the 17th of january you can see - hear her perform in Gothenburg

I think that We, all of her fans are waiting for yet another album from her. Her albums "across the atlantic" and "the greatest one alive" was both truly exellent. 

Natuarly there was nothing that could stop me. so as soon as the last clearcoat of paiant was dry, all the parts of the guitar came together. Still remaining is to solder all cables and contacts, but at this moment I have to admit that I do like this "dare-Burns Vibraslim Clone" that i was able to build. I think it looks great!

drying in the kitchen!!

 At last all parts set up, the guitar almost ready for action

 not to bad?

In the cllection of guitar.

Burns Bison-62, Burns Marquee, dare-Burns Bison Clone,

Pasadena 12-string, dare-Burns Vibraslim-5 clone.

end of the world

It  may well be the urge to have yet another instrument that kept Me going and working om Me two DIY guitar projects. For a couple of day´s both of them has proofed to be nice instruments. Adjustments have been made every day, and finally they seam to reach the point of becoming finished projects.

The "Vibraslim-clone" ©Burns, did finally receive it´s five pickup´s. With it came the problem of connecting them to the selectors (a 5 way & a 4 way). To start with it was easy and after half an hour of soldering the guitar was in buisness, giving 5 different sound´s from its 5 pickups. 

simplified cirsuit schematics.

Next step was to connect the 4 way selector to give the instrument a few more pickup configuration´s. 


1,st page of pickup configurarion´s

suddenly I realised that instead of 5 different sound config´s there was 16! That´s the way to go. The different parts of the guitar was put together once again, may be one of the last out of at least 50 times taking it all apart. 


tje Snakepit, loads of wire´s

Finally the next step will be to fit a nice binding around the guitarbody, sand everything to a proper finish and the it´s about time to paint the whole guitar. Still I hav´nt decided what colour it shall be as I dont want the it to show to all and everyone that it´s made out of laminated wood.

partly finish´d guitar, now with two different knobs for the selectors.

During the same time a couple of new tune´s have been written and made into demo-recordings. Seam´s that I finally can take a step away from the standard style of songs that I usually write´s. This time it´s a lot more of R&R in the different songs, much more aggressive then they use to be.

I do think this is a common problem among all songwriters. They soon end up in a certain style of music where its almost impossible to escape from. Everything seam to sound the same, or at least very similar to song written before.

In the so called studio everything is in some kind of progress. Old gear is swapped to  better sounding items. Some new (secondhand) loudspeakers is installed instead of the old one. Those newly found speakers are bigger and sounds much better. 

As a member of "Pippi Longstockings thing finding club" i do have my sources for finding new parts. Just a week ago I found a large snakepit of what i first regarded as guitar cables. Pulling in one end show that it wasnt guitar cables, but microphone cables, 6 of them and in the end of three of them was three microphone. One fairly simple mic but there was also 2 exellent Condensor micrphones of hig quality. Yet some new useful gadget to me small studio.

DIY

Steady but unfortinutly also slowley Me both guitarproject is reaching its end. Then end where hopefully  the two guitars will be as good as i intended them to be when the project was started off.

Pieces of wood formed into guitarbodies, their neck and electronics buildt together and then hours of testing and finetuning each guitar in hope to obtain a good instrument. Already the  exact position of the necks seams to be hard work, before finally everything seams to be almost perfect.  

The Jazzbass with 3 pickups and switchpanel 

for endless pickup configurations.

The "dare"-Burns Jazzbass clone isnt a real clone at all. in fact it just shares the body styling and size with the original Burns Jazzbass of the 60-ies. Actually the neck is taken from some kind of Fenderish bass, where my intention is to transform its head to a design similar to the original Burns head. 

The body has the exact shape of a Jazzbass, but will have the top with edges just like on a couple of Burns Marvin Specials. Smoth and rounded at back but with edges at top. 

It also contains both Fender P-bass and Jazzbass pickups. At this very moment 1 set of P-bass pickups and 2 Jazz pickups, but it will have yet 2 more jazz pickups before its ready for the finishing touch of its body. at this moment im both very happy by its playability and the sound from its 3 pickup sets.

the inside of the Vibraslim project

Same type of laminated wood has been used in the "dare"-Burns Vibraslim Clone project.  the guitar is constructed partly similary to the original. With a partly acoustic body. Both the back and the top has been grinded to a smoth shape wich will show if not when the guitar is painted. As with the bass projet the guitar has been set up several times to make it a players guitar. Such testing takes a lot of time but seams at this moment be at least near the end where im satisfied with it. As with its original its a bit heavy!

the shaped top of the Vibraslim project with F-holes

Finally the missing two pickups arrived today and was natuarly installd. Next step will be to solder all cables, capacitors and switches to make it work electronicly. At this moment i tried it out with the possibilities to chose between the 3 pickups in Fender style. But when its ready I will be able to use the two rotary switches to give almost 20 different pickup configurations. There will be 2 volume and 2 tone controls also to set up the perfect sound.

 the 5 pickup Vibraslim guitar. Master volume at pickguard, 2 x tone controls, 

1 x volume for pickup 2-4, 1 x 5 way & 1x6 way rotary switches.

Almost forgot to mention todays findings. On the Swedish Tradera(ebay) suddenly a nice Burns Bison from the ealy 60-ies was on sale. Even if its not original in all details I would call this guitar a real bargain. The pickups isnt original  (possibly Fender) and both the tremolo cover and arm is missing, as well as the 4 knobs that doesnt look at all as original Burns.  As Ive never seen a blue Bison before I also wonder if the guitar might have been respray´d?? As I do know of many Burns "specials" that was produced this might well be one of em. Still a really nice looking Bison!!

Christmas guitars

"And so it is Christmas"

Just wonder what copyright holders had to say about that song by John Lennon, as its easy to recognise the melody from the song "Stewball". shit happens and it might be that Lennon knew all about his grand theft and actually bought the rights to use this melody.

A bit of "Christmas without You" suits better this Christmas as my love was in Stockholm with her daughters and I was in a way stuck at the island of Orust and our summerhouse.  So instead of baking christmas cake´s and other forms of cocking I contintued with me two DIY guitar project´s.

As I´m no kind of Luthier Pro, I´m forced to test my DIY guitars every other minute or so in hope the the design and contruction will work out properly. Leading to a load of extra work to be done. Well the bass is partly ready for the finishing touch, but with the guitar there was much more problems.

  

Cutting out the inside with a jigsaw meant a lot of work, until I finally was satisfied with the result. Then putting all the parts together and testing it with out any kind of elctronics involv´d. 

Next step was this particular part of the build. Three singecoil DiMarzio pickups was used to start f with, but my intention has all the time been to use not 2 or 3 but 5 pickup system. all in hope to obtain a bit of useful Burns sound in the  guitar. Those pickups do need an amplifier that also is going to be installed. It´ll give both passive and an active system in the guitar. With the possibility to choose a lot of different pickup settings. 

2 volume controls and 2 tone controls was fitted together with one 4 way selector and one 5 was selector, all ending up in a Master volume control. At this very moment I wait for delivery of the remaining 2 pickups.

In hope to obtain a little Christmas spirit I went out and found me a Christmas tree, and as it doesnt have much more then its light-candles and a few red balls as decoration I used a couple of me guitars to lighten up Christmas.

the two DIY project together with my new monitor cabinet

and volumepedal. This uit started its life as a sweller and speaker

for a Yamaha organ. But has been totaly transformed with a buildt in amp

Here at one of many test runs of this guitar.

Birthdays and guitars

About time to add some words in My so called musical chronical. 

Recording session with "Elinor" will hopefully soon reaach the end of the line. in the meantime I went down to the basement in hope to create not one but two guitars. 

Both with body styling based on well known Burns guitars. 

to start of the was the 12-string guitar that i wanted with a body styled from the famous Burns Vibraslim-TR4. As soon as the body was saw´d I realised that it wasnt going to be a 12-string, but a ordinary 6-string guitar. 

The 3 plywood parts was grinded into the shape I wanted, in hope to reduce its weight the hole inside was cut out. It´s neck was fitted with strings just to get a small test of the guitar. It seamed to work real good. My intention is to mount not 2, not 3 but 5 singelcoil pickups in the guitar. It may work and might give this guitar a very special kind of sound.

As soon as i got hold of a proper bass-neck the to be Burns Bass body was cut upp for fitting the new neck. As a choice of pickups there is at this moment a pair of Fender Jazz Bass pickups and one set of P-bass pickups. Still im not sure if this will be the final  sollution of the bass sound system. I do  think i would like to have at least 3, maybe a 4-pickup configuration on this bass.

A phonecall to Sanden Guitars in Gothenburg gave a real surprise. The Sanden Guitar No:400 was under construction and will be a "Vindö 28 special". Made out of mahogony taken from the old Vindö 28 yacht.

Not to forget my freind in Canada Rob "numubu" who celebrated his birhtday 

and Bruce !!! of "MUG" guitar shop in Gothenburg.

 

by the way, on sale in His shop Bruce do have a nice if not completly

original Burns Split Sonic in unusual Satin Black.

To all of You from all of Me-Us

a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Johnny

Recording ELINOR

the sale of a huge mixer also made me learn more about a group of people arranging "Elinor spelen" just some 15 km from Uddevalla. I still dont know who Elinor really is, but the band is also called Elinor. 

Elinor-spelen

David in action with me guitar.

Ronja playing the flute 

And the main caracter of the band, David playing the xylofon

in pure Rock´n Roll style.

All leading to a couple of recording sessions with this band. David the main figure in the band show´d up with different guitar-bass-banjo-ukulele projects. 

Davids 2-string bass and ukulele

the new 3-string bass made out of a teak fruitbowl!!! for sustain.

At this very moment two different songs in prerecorded and will soon be ready.

 Oscar recording lead and rhytm in today´s session

while the bands headprofile hides behind an Ipad 

with Björn.

 more in regards of this recordings will be found here soon.