Most of my projects are inspired by classic designs, but with a twist.
This pretty little thing is a Harmony H617 Bobkat. The H-bodied series of guitars, originally known as the Silhouette, began in 1963 and ended in 1973. This one is from 1972 or 1973. Harmony built a number of guitars for Sears under the Silvertone name, at first as a step up from the Danelectros, and ultimately replacing them. See the Silvertone 1478.
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This started as a Squier Jaguar body with a Mighty Mite neck. Stock pickups ( which are pretty decent ) with cream-colored covers and upgraded electronics. I used a MusicMan bridge to evoke the round Jazzmaster tailpiece, and likewise cream Strat knobs. I think it is a vast improvement over the Jaguar it started out as. The Cowbell inherited some of the Jaguar electronics.
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This started as a stock Squier Jaguar bass body. This 32" conversion neck was my first bass neck build. Stock pickups ( which are pretty decent ) with cream-colored covers and upgraded electronics. I used a MusicMan bridge to evoke the round Jazzmaster tailpiece, and likewise cream Strat knobs. I think it is a vast improvement over the Jaguar it started out as. The Cowbell inherited some of the Jaguar electronics.
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Hollow plywood body with Mighty Mite 34" neck. Graphtech Ghost piezo saddles with a backup soundhole-mounted magnetic pickup, active electronics.
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I was so pleased with the bass that I thought I'd try a guitar. This is a little more complicated, as there are six tuners rather than four, but it worked out well. The battery is for an Artec tone control that I wanted to try. More later ...
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I went into the electronics, and reversed the leads on the volume control for a nicer 'sweep'. Then I started troubleshooting a problem with the passive tone control that turned out to be an interaction with the EXP circuit. Long story short, the EXP disables any tone control that is downstream from it. I moved the tone control upstream, and now it works fine. I have a separate review for the EXP tone control, I'm not all that impressed, but I'd say try it yourself, it's not expensive or difficult to install.
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This one went through a long and torturous build process over almost two years. All I can say is don't believe the "advice" you find on talk_ass. However, in the end, it turned out to be a pretty nice instrument.
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This beautiful instrument was built from a teak cutting board that I got for free from Home Depot for review. 32" Eden neck, active electronics. Teak is hard enough for a simple oiled finish. This one was built with a minimum of tools, mostly by hand, to show that it can be done and how.
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Solid poplar body, lightly stained and finished in polyurethane. Korean Squire neck, active electronics. Is it a reverse, or a non-reverse? Since this is a reverse of the original Thunderbird body ( more-or-less ) I say it is a reverse. If this is a non-reverse, then the original would have to be the reverse. Reverse of what? Makes no sense.
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I've been working on another website lately, but it uses the same code base as this one, so all of the improvements get carried over. The latest thing I've done is a complete rework of the slideshow plugin.
First, I stripped out a lot of fat - unused features, ugly themes, 'call-homes', etc. I hardwired some stupid options, added some new ones, fixed a few major problems, and made it much faster. Finally, I put the whole thing through the wringer and got rid of anything that was not strictly needed, everywhere - PHP, JS, CSS. My version is less than half the size of the original.
The result is a yuge improvement, both on the front end, and especially on the back end:
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