WTF Wednesday 🤣 . Here's the custom headstock decal I made for the #DeeBeeCaster™ #partscaster I posted for #TeleTuesday yesterday. I think I made it in Photoshop using a Fender-esque font that I found for free somewhere, then I had my brother print it on #waterslide #decal paper for me (I don't own a printer) and then applied it to the headstock on my @stewmac_guitar neck. Then in a very non-Fender move I used my Home Depot spray can and lacquered over the decal! Everyone knows #Fender applied the decal AFTER finishing the headstock. . #telecaster #tele #fendertelecaster #homemadeguitar #diy #waterslidedecals #guitar #guitars #guitarra #chitarra #guitarre #electricguitar #fenderguitars #tone #guitargear #guitarsdaily #guitarsofinstagram #geartalk #guitargear #vintagegear #guitarsdaily #guitarphotography https://www.instagram.com/p/CPnglouBY4s/?utm_medium=tumblr
I had some time to kill before @shyboytexrepairs opens this morning so I dropped by the only #guitarshop in town that opens earlier than 11am on a Saturday, #Long & #McQuade on #BloorStreet in #Toronto, Canada. My friend Rob tells me that this is a '68 #Strat #Relic, but the #decal (with "transition" logo) looks more '66 to me. Either way though, it's a gorgeous #guitar and lightweight too. I'd say no more than 7 lbs. Now, if we could just lower the price to something to something a mere mortal could afford, it'd be perfect! #straturday #fender #stratocaster #customshop #fendercustomshop #guitar #guitars #surfgreen #heavyrelic #guitarshopping #guitarphotography
I know it's not #MacroMonday, but I had the neck off my new #vintage 1957 #Fender #DuoSonic (I was restringing it with.012s to tighten up the feel of the #strings on its short 22.5" scale!) and came across this hand-pencilled neck date of April 1957. I think it's incredibly fun that when this #guitar was made, the #Stratocaster had only been on the market for a bit less than 3 years! Strats are so ubiquitous today that it's hard to imagine a world where the Stratocaster was still shockingly new and innovative! Anyhoo, they stopped penciling in the neck date by the end of the 50s, when they started stamping the neck date on. This is my first Fender old enough to have a 1) a genuine, original "#spaghettilogo" (silver for the #Musicmaster and gold for the Duo-Sonic) #decal, and 2) a handwritten neck date! I am so pleased by this. Perhaps unhealthily so...😄😅😆 #guitars #fenderguitars vintageguitars #vintagefenders #fenderduosonic #macrophotography #guitarphotography
One of the grooviest #guitars I have seen in long time: 1962-ish #Mason #lap #steel with matching "walking note" wedge-shaped #amplifier, available at @folkwaymusic, in #Waterloo, Canada. This #guitar was made in the town of Galt, Ontario, just down the road from #Folkway's shop in fact. The #headstock #decal is killer, and the #amp's grill cloth with the ambulatory #musical #notes just tickles me pink! Every time I come across a gorgeous #vintage #steelguitar like this one, I kick myself for never having learned to play steel! They are so affordable relative to regular vintage guitars. One day I'll buy me an early 50s #Fender #Champ or a 1930s #Gibson #EH150... #guitarshopping #steelguitars #vintageguitar #vintagesteel #vintagelapsteel #madeincanada #vintageamp #guitarphotography
How can you tell the #guitar you are looking at is a #DeeBeeCaster™? Why, the #headstock decal says so, of course! Here's my very first homemade #Telecaster clone. I made so many mistakes on it! But the process of trial and error learned me many valuable lessons (except how to speak English, apparently) for future builds. The story on the #decal? Sure! I designed it in, of all things, Google's free Picassa desktop app, using a #Fender-esque font I found for free on Internets. Then my brother, who actually makes and sells decals for scale models on eBay, helped me out by printing it on #waterslide decal paper for me. Since he lives 6 hours away from me by car, he actually had to mail it to me! After applying the decal and letting it dry thoroughly, I sprayed a couple of coats of #lacquer over it and then sanded/buffed it to a high gloss, using finer and finer grit sand papers - course and dry at first, fine and wet at the end. After that I used various cuts of polishing compound by StewMac and Maguiar's (who make compounds for automotive finishes) and finally buffed it to a high gloss with my StewMac foam buffing wheels that fit into any power drill (for amateurs like me who don't have a buffing machine!). Fun! #guitars #teletuesday #fenderguitars #tele #replica #homemade #diy #partscaster #guitarphotography
Still with #DeeBeeCaster™ #2 (see last post). Here is the tinted and lightly #relic-ed #Allparts neck. I applied the #decal myself which is actually quite easy to do...I just Googled images of #transition #logo #Telecaster #headstocks to get an idea of proper positioning. The hard part was sanding and buffing the thin layer of #laquer I over-sprayed without damaging the decal! You might also notice the snazzy new @stonepicks J3 woven in between the #strings. If you like your picks heavy...with no flex on them...then these are the picks for you. Live, I always used the heaviest picks I could find because I always loved playing percussive rhythm with my strumming arm. I got that from my first guitar mentor @funkyceltic, who had started out as a drummer and so he approached the guitar with an incredible rhythmic foundation. From watching him play literally hundreds of times back in #Montreal, I developed an appreciation for #funk and R&B rhythmic #guitar playing that's still with me even though the last real gig I played was over 20 years ago! #teletuesday #fender #tele #replica #homemade #diy #partscaster #guitarphotography
More interesting stuff from #notnamm2016 :D Here is a very different #Fender Ltd. Ed. #Shortboard #Mustang. The "Competition" stripes are not painted on (like the original late 60s "#Competition" finishes), but are actually pieces of #walnut #laminated into the #ash #body. The #headstock logo isn't a #decal either...it's actually carved into the wood! I'm still not sure how I feel about the substitution of the normal #pickups with Fender's version of a #P90, or the #hardtail #bridge for that matter. In fact if you just put regular Mustang accoutrements (#pickguard, #vibrato, normal pickups and controls) on this body, I think it would be incredible. Still, I can't complain about Fender's willingness to try new things...I think it is always a good thing when a company tries to stay creative. Some results may suck totally, but eventually they're going to come up with a new classic. I wonder what my friend and Mustang aficionado @luisecoll Thinks of this model?? :) #guitar #guitars #fenderguitars #fendermustang #guitarshopping #guitarphotography
Ok, I STILL don't have a good picture of my friend's Heritage #H150...on loan to the #DeeBeeUs™ #collection for a few days. But I thought I'd give you the low down in this one-of-a-kind beauty until more and better pics to follow become available. That's just they kind of guy I am! So: what we have here is #Heritage #Guitars' version of a #Gibson #LesPaul called an H-150. Although if anyone has a right to rip off Gibson's design, it's Heritage! Why? Because when Gibson moved all manufacturing to #Nashville, there were a lot of craftspeople who didn't want to move out of #Kalamazoo with the company. So what did they do? Well, they made their own guitar company, and stayed right where they were. Literally: they stayed right there in the original Parsons Street Gibson factory! Now THAT is a lot of Heritage right there! So what's with the #headstock? Awesome: you noticed it's not a the regular Heritage headstock, right? Respect! So the owner of this #guitar runs a #guitarshop just outside #Toronto called #MojoMusic, and decided to have a local luthier, who specializes in #refin and #Relic-ing work, basically create a Gibson headstock by glueing "wings" to it the outside, reshaping it, and refinishing it with a pearloid Gibson script-style logo reading "The Heritage" and a #Les #Paul #decal! I think it looks awesome! But who am I? Nobody. Make up your own mind! ;) #guitarphotography #refinish #gibsonguitars #heritageguitars #guitarphotography
This is what happens when you find out your brother now sells custom decals on eBay! Photo one shows it at the end. The others show me sanding off the old decal (note how it has left a shadow on the headstock that can still be seen after the decal was applied!)
And yes, I made him do these for me for free. Bonus! :D
1968 Fender Telecaster. I love how the headstock detail is actually embossed - not flat as I would have expected.
Progress on the Telecaster build is brisk. Well brisk for me anyway - if I can install a pick guard in a single day I feel like I have accomplished a lot!
Hopefully I'll be able to show you "after" shots soon.
La Trahison des Guitares: Ceci n'est pas une Telecaster.
René Magritte is my 3rd favourite Belgian after Tintin and Hercules Poirot. I guess you could say Magritte is my 1st favourite "real" Belgian.
Choices choices.
Since I am building a mid 60s-style Custom Telecaster, it was only fitting to use the mid-60s Custom Telecaster decal. Of all the Fender logos over the year, the so-called "transition" logo is my favourite. It was used in '65 and '66 on most (if not all...) Fenders It was the logo that bridged the gap (hence the "transition" moniker) between the original "spaghetti" logo and the "CBS" larger black logo of the late 60s
I have owned this Nash S-63 for several months now, but this is the first time I noticed it has a little alligator(?) sticker on the back,
Since this colour is "seafoam", I guess it can't be an alligator...alligators don't live in salt water, do they? I saw one in a pond in a park near St. Petersburg FLA about 10 years ago...I was walking along beside the pond and looked down at what I thought was a log floating in the water. But it was an alligator. It was less than 10 feet away and looking right at me. It scared the living bejesus out of me. Luckily it was December and early morning, so s/he was too cold to move much. Anyhoo: that pond was fresh water for sure.
So the sticker on this guitar MUST be some kind of salt-water/marine reptile reminiscent of an alligator...a caiman perhaps? Anyone out there a guitar lover and an aficionado of marine reptiles?
I love guitar shopping. It's even more fun when I can actually BUY something...but it won't be this guitar. Unless I mortgage my house that is.
I dropped into Toronto's finest used and vintage guitar shop The Twelfth Fret, yesterday and my friend Ed pulled this lovely 1961 Fender Stratocaster down for me to have a look and snap a few shots. I didn't ask the price for obvious reasons...but it was in the $20,000 range. :D
The finish was in great condition, with only a few dings and almost no lacquer checking - and the red was still very rich and vibrant (the red in the very earliest 3 tone Fender sunbursts - i.e. 1958/59 - was prone to fading). The back of the neck was immaculate (and no skunk stripe...which I love!). I think this one could easily be called a "closet classic".
The headstock decal was mostly gone...but I am pretty sure I read somewhere that they were sometimes applied over the finish - and without that protective layer of lacquer it's quite common for them to get damaged or worn off. Oh, also: it was no more than 7 lbs. Perfect! ;)
On the road again. I just can’t wait to get on the road again. The life I love is making music with my friends. And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
No wait…I have no friends.
On the road again. I just can’t wait to get on the road again. The life I love is making music BY MYSELF. And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
PS: the guitar is my homemade Tele/Partscaster with a Stewmac maple neck and reproduction Broadcaster decal. The first landscape shot was taken somewhere along highway 407 (which also happens to be the most expensive toll road in North America!) And the second was taken on the Raglan Road somewhere between Toronto and Peterborough (Ontario, Canada)