Classic battery-less passive electronics.
This was my third go at a 325 bass. The first one was unbalanced with this long neck, and the second suffered a router mishap. Eventually, I salvaged both of those, but first I took all the good parts and did this. Fender-type alder body with 3-tone sunburst, single binding. Surface-mounted pickups, active electronics. Finished entirely in polyurethane.
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A faithful reproduction of John Lennon's Rickenbacker, but built as a Danelectro. Masonite over hollow plywood body. Poplar neck. Passive electronics with active distortion on the fifth knob.
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This one is kind of a joke and an experiment in just how cheap you can build a guitar. The body is dry-erase board over plywood - no finish - with Tolex side binding. Dry-erase board is Masonite covered with Melamine. The neck is 100% Radiata pine, even the fretboard. The "inlays" are glitter and CA glue. The pickguard is the other side of the dry-erase board - 'chalkboard'. The pickup mount is a 57 cent switch plate.
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The SG, or 'Spanish Guitar', is without a doubt Gibson's best solid-body guitar design. Unlike the massive overweight Les Paul, the SG is small and light and just feels like fun in your hands. Sound-wise, the two are indistinguishable. The SG body has comfortable bevels and round-overs in place of the Les Paul's arm-gouging sharp bound edges. And the little devil horns are unmistakable.
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This is another factory guitar, vintage 1960s, made by Danelectro and sold exclusively through Sears. The 1448 was one of the cheapest electric guitars in the Sears catalog, but it came with something special - it's own amplifier built into the hardshell case. There is almost no wear on this guitar, I don't think it was played much.
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The Silvertone 1450 is a relatively rare model from 1965 to 1967. It is identical to the much more common 1452 "Amp-in-Case" model, except that the 1450 has a three-ply tortoiseshell pickguard in place of 1452's white masonite, and the 1450 did not come with an amp. The three-bolt neck attachment indicates that this is a fairly early example. There should be a date stamp inside the neck pocket, but I don't want to take it apart. For a long time I thought this was a 1452, I was quite pleased to discover while writing this that it is actually the more deluxe 1450.
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This is a real Danelectro Silvertone 1452 from the 1960s. When I got it, it was a sad box of parts. Some hillbilly had stripped it, by rubbing it on the sidewalk, I think. The fretboard had delaminated, and the old repair had simply made the problem permanent. I repaired the neck and fixed all the other issues, replaced the lipstick tubes, which had split, and clear-coated the whole thing in modern poly. I was not able to fully repair the neck, there's just not enough wood left, so I don't keep it under tension. The pickguard is stained dark for contrast. I cleaned tarnish off the old metal bits with oven cleaner, and replaced all the corroded fasteners with shiny new stainless ones.
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This is the very first guitar I ever built, a hot-rodded version of the old Silvertone 1457. This guitar uses every passive wiring trick in the book. Four - count 'em - four lipstick pickups, wired in series. Six-way pickup selector, and two phase switches. The neck is from AllParts, I paid way too much for it. The finish is glittery acrylic lacquer from the auto parts store. The knobs are from Radio Shack - remember them?
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This is the big brother to the Silvertone 1448, vintage 1964-67. Construction is basically the same, but with a full-scale neck, two pickups, and a much better amp. For a lot of details, see the 1448 page. This guitar is in excellent condition for being almost sixty years old, and apart from cleaning and re-stringing, it needed nothing.
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This is a Harmony-made Sears Silvertone 1478. This body style was originally called the "Silhouette", and Harmony sold similar models under their own name. Later it became known as the "Bobkat". I can't find a serial number anywhere, and I'm not taking it apart to look for one, so I don't know the exact age of this guitar.
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I took a drive over to Harbor Freight - purveyor of fine {sarcasm} Chinese tools & hardware - and picked up this little drill press. With a coupon, it cost me just over fifty bucks. This is not what I would call a good drill press, in fact, it is pretty crappy. The base and the table are stamped, not forged, and small. The quill travel is a measly two inches, parts that should be steel are aluminum, parts that should be aluminum are plastic, vibration is excessive, and the 3/8" chuck has a disconcerting wobble to it. I knew all that when I bought it, and I never would have if I did not already have a much better one, or at least a decent one. What I wanted from this drill press is small size and lightweight, so I can add it to my inside workstation, and not have to leave the heat/ac to go drill a hole in the garage. This press weighs well under 40 pounds and doesn't take up too much space on my inside workbench. My 'good' drill press is not something you'd want to move around a lot.
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