Factory Mods ~ Luthiery Laboratories

Factory Mods

Brownsville Violin Bass

Danelectro Silvertone 1457 Rescue Guitar

Danelectro Companion Guitar

SX Precision Bass

Schwinn Stingray Bass

Samick SG450 Guitar

Fender Squier Stratocaster Guitar

Danelectro Pro-1 Guitar

Danelectro '63 Guitar

These are factory instruments that I either significantly modified, restored or refurbished.

Danelectro Companion Guitar

This was a box of junk I got on eBay, originally a vintage Convertible. I replaced the front and back with cabinet-grade birch plywood, as the original mother-of-countertop material is no longer available. I rebuilt it as something like a Companion, which is a very rare model. The neck and sides are vintage, the rest is modern.

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Danelectro '63 (1457) Guitar

This body style was originally reissued in a range of models - guitar, bass ( long and short scale ) and baritone. I only have the guitar. These were part of Danelectro's Chinese production, and while not bad, are not as nice as the prior or later Korean models. A second reissue in 2015 restored the gloss sparkly finish of the vintage original. None of the reissues use the original headstock shape, though.

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Musicman Stingray Bass (OLP)

This OLP Stingray was one of the first basses I ever modded heavily. I routed a battery and a second pickup cavity, and did all sorts of experiments on it, before returning it to it's original single-pickup configuration, but with upgraded active electronics and pickup, and a nice new pearl pickguard.

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Factory Mods

Projects

Audiovox Gibson-style Bass

Audiovox 736 Replica Bass

Audiovox Gibson-style Guitar

Audiovox Danelectro-style Bass

Audiovox Fretless Bass

Audiovox Electric Upright Bass

Audiovox Strat-style Guitar

Audiovox 12-string Guitar

Audiovox Ukulele Bass

Audiovox Mandolin

BC Rich "Osprey" Bass

Brownsville Violin Bass

Cowbell Bass

Danelectro Pro-1 Bass

Danelectro "Super-63" Guitar

Danelectro Silvertone 1457 Rescue Guitar

Danelectro Longhorn Guitar

Danelectro Silvertone U-1 Guitar

Danelectro Companion Guitar

Danelectro Silvertone 1443 Bass

Danelectro '67 Hornet Guitar

Fender Jazzmaster Bass 1

Fender Jazzmaster Bass 2

Fender Jazzmaster Bass 3

Fender Stratocaster Bass 1

Fender Stratocaster Bass 2

Fender Stratocaster Micro Bass 1

Fender Stratocaster Micro Bass 2

Fender Stratocaster Fretless Bass

Fender Stratocaster Bass VI

Fender Stratocaster Bass IV

Fender Stratocaster 12-string Guitar

Fender Stratocaster Uke Bass

Fender Squier Stratocaster Guitar

Fender Telecaster Bass

SX Precision Bass

Gibson Fenderbird Bass 1

Gibson Fenderbird Bass 2

Gibson Reverse Fenderbird Bass

Kubicki Bass

Schwinn Stingray Bass

Mosrite Bass

Rickenbacker 325 Guitar

Rickenbacker 325 Bass 1

Rickenbacker 325 Bass 2

Rickenbacker 325 Bass 3

Rickenbacker 4001 Bass 1

Samick SG450 Guitar

Danelectro Pro-1 Guitar

Danelectro Silvertone 1448 Guitar

Danelectro '63 Guitar

Danelectro Silvertone 1457 Guitar

Harmony H617 Bobkat

Danelectro Silvertone 1450 Guitar

Harmony Silvertone 1478

Danelectro Silvertone 1472 Amplifier

Danelectro Longhorn Bass

My projects are generally inspired by classic designs, but with a twist. I like to build things like basses on guitar bodies, non-standard scale lengths, and occasionally originals, and experiment with materials, finishes, and electronics. One of my great interests is driving the cost out of luthiery by sourcing parts and materials from the hardware store. I prefer to build more guitars than simply more-expensive guitars.

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October 12, 2021

Spellcheck in WordPress

October 12, 2021

It would be really great to be able to do spellchecking right inside WordPress. Specifically, it would be great to be able to check the entire site in one shot. That would require something working from inside, ie, a plugin.

I looked at a lot of spellchecking plugins, and I didn't find one that was acceptable. It's not that they don't actually work, but every one seems to cause non-fatal errors, and I don't want faulty code running on the site. But I could still use some sort of tool, as this website is cobbled together from a huge mass of forum posts that were not all written with the greatest care.

Finally, I tried a browser extension: Grammarly. Grammarly adds spell checking to any html input field. This adds spellchecking to the WordPress editor. The downside is that it only checks one page at a time, and that page has to be open in the editor. That's not that bad, you'd have to open the page to fix anything anyway.

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