There's often prizes and competitions offered at Guitar Shows, but not many that I can recall to this high standard I must say. For this year's Guitar Show, the organiser had the idea of bringing together a group of UK based guitar makers and brands to build an instrument that would be raffled at the show and go home with a lucky visitor. The specs of the guitar have been chosen by the followers of the Guitar Show's facebook page, so body shape, to colour, to pickup specs and it has resulted in a very high spec guitar indeed! For the final stage of the build, the guitar has made it's way to my office so I thought I'd put together a few blog posts about the build as well as a reminder of what this is all for. Below is the post from Jason (Guitar Show organiser) about what charity the raffle ticket sales will be donated too. Well worth a read, and makes it more special for me to be a part of this great project -
"I’ve been thinking of what charity this guitar should go to, in the back of my mind I’ve always had an idea.
You may have seen recently that Prostate Cancer has now become the number 1 cancer in the UK, probably not the number 1 you want…
I’m fairly sure that almost everyone on this page that had to deal with a friend or family member dealing with this horrible illness. For me, in 2019 it got close, my dad successfully beat it (sheer bloody mindedness I think), a friend's dad unfortunately didn’t, and in this, The Guitar Show world, my good friend and Live Stage host Simon “Bradders” Bradley was diagnosed with it. I’m sure you know Simon from his days on Guitarist magazine or from the show, but he and I go back much further than that.
Simon inadvertently got me started in bands when I was 17, I had walked in to Birmingham’s (the UK’s?) premier guitar store, Musical Exchanges, dressed like an LA Rock Star (in my head obviously), I was tall, skinny, thick curly long hair, black tight jeans, leather jacket and cowboy boots, Simon looked up and having never spoken to me before just said “you’ll do”
"My mate is looking for a lead guitarist and you look like you’ll fit in”
I couldn’t really play very well, but got the gig anyway, Simon graciously gave me a guitar lesson an hour before each rehearsal so I wasn’t terrible in front of the rest of the band, he maintains that he feels guilty that he shouted at me a lot for being crap (I don’t remember this, I remember being crap, not the shouting bit) I can still play some of these songs 30 years later.
The lessons stopped when Simon left Birmingham because he’d got a job as a writer on Guitarist magazine, Cambridgeshire at first I think and then on to Bath. We reconnected when I started working on Music Live at the NEC, I always read his pieces and watched his videos (the first guitar youtube star surely???) with amusement and pride, I know him
When The Guitar Show stage got bigger I knew I needed a host and I couldn’t think of anyone better, it was the first and only call I made.
Thankfully the old bugger is still with us and clear of the bloody stuff, whilst he may not yet be back to 100%, he will be back hosting for 2020, just don’t ask him to lift anything.
So lets make a good thing out of a horrible thing.
Crimson Guitars, Williams Guitars, Rob Williams Guitars,
Oil City pickups &
Grainger Guitars
have given their time and resources to build this guitar, it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the trade,
James' Home of Tone
have offered to supply a top of the range wiring loom to the guitar and
Laney Amplification
have added an amp. I’ve bought a hardcase for it and I’ll refund the winners entry price.
Please, please buy a raffle ticket at the show, lets celebrate the Best Of British Guitar Building and raise some money so we can help kick this cancer in the arse*
*pun intended
"
So! Onto the guitar itself. Rob Williams shipped the guitar to me after he completed the paint work, and he's done a fantastic job. The tobacco burst pops! He mounted the neck and installed the bridge, so what was left for me was installing of the pickups, pickup rings, make and install the wiring, install the final few bits of hardware and complete the set-up. So let's get going with the photos
One detail I particularly liked, was the 'binding'. Rob had left the maple cap edge clear coated to give the impression of binding, but look closer and you'll see the lovely maple grain of the Crimson Guitars built body. There's nice figuring to the top too, which hopefully has been captured in the above photo.
First up was install the Oil City pickups, and Grainger Guitars pickup rings. The pickups are Oil City's 'Blackbird Pro' models, which according to the OC website were developed alongside Black Machine Guitars which is pretty awesome! They're medium/high gain output and feature open/clear covers.
The pickup rings are nice solid metal chrome items from Graingers UK made range, and fit was of course spot on. I measured everything up and took the drill to this lovely new shiny guitar lol! I always use a countersink drill bit, particularly with nitro lacquer to ensure when the screw is installed doesn't cause any splits around the drill hole. Obtains a nice clean finish and looks after the nice top coat, hopefully you can see that in the below photo.
This was also an opportunity to show you the nice detail I spotted on the pickup baseplates, the label showing that the pickups were made for the Birmingham Guitar Show 2020 guitar, nice!
Then onto the bridge pickup and mounting ring. I'll use this photo to show where I opted to drill for the bridge ground wire too. As it was closer, I opted to drill the bridge ground wire channel to the bridge pickup route, keeps it need and avoids a long drill hole into the main control cavity.
Both pickups now mounted up and looking good! So now time to move onto the wiring harness. I must admit, you likely won't see me ultilising coil splitting all that often, just personal tastes really, but upon reading the specs of these pickups, then opening the box to see they were wired with 4 conductor wiring, it just seemed the obvious choice to include that for this schematic. Then to really drive home the decision, I opened the parcel including the Grainger Guitars control knobs, which were shaped perfectly for an easy push/pull experience. So it was a no-brainer, push/pull coil splitting it just had to be.
Parts wise, I used a CTS 'TVT' Series 500k pot for the volume control (which I also installed a treble bleed mod too, a CTS 500k Push/Pull pot for the tone control (this will operate coil split for both pickups), a Switchcraft 3 way toggle switch, Pure Tone multi contact jack socket and a SoZo .022uF tone capacitor all wired together with Gavitt USA 22awg wire. I made a template of the component hole positions, and made the majority of the harness ready to install into the guitar.
Install went nice and easy, I did run a counter sink drill bit on the face of the guitar component holes, just simply to ensure the pots and switch don't catch on the lacquer when installing etc and help protect that nice nitro finish. Other than that, a nice easy fresh install!
With the harness in, it was just a matter of mounting the jack using the Grainger Guitars jack plate. Again, a nice solid made item, perfect fit and matching the curved radius of the body edge spot on.
As I don't have strings on the guitar yet, I tap tested the electronics to ensure everything run quietly, and operated as it should through the switching positions and pots. All good there so onward with fitting the control cover.
The control cover was a lovely piece of figured maple, which Rob Williams finished in a clear coat, which I think looks lovely. A nice detail on the guitar.
Flipping the guitar back over, time to fit the Grainger Guitars control knobs I briefly mentioned early. Really solid items, secured with a grub screw so nice and easy there. You'll probably see for yourself now what I meant by a good grip for push/pull functionality, some control knobs can feel a bit awkward to try and pries upwards for push/pull pots, but these are a breeze I must say.
There we have it for the first stage of my time with the guitar! Onward with the set-up next so I'll see you on the following blog post!
Thanks again to The Guitar Show organisers, for having me be a small part of the build, it's all for a superb cause which I'm sure has affected so many people we know and hopefully the raffle at the show helps raise some money for the charity chosen.
James
Comments
Rob said:
Where can we buy the raffle tickets?
I’m still fighting Prostate Cancer.
I didn’t have any symptoms, just casually mentioned after MRI follow up, from previous unrelated surgery.
Ray Chamberlain said:
Looking forward to seeing the guitar in the flesh and supporting a worthy cause👍
James Gascoigne said:
Thanks for checking out the post! For details on the raffle, do please check out The Guitar Show’s website and/or their social media pages like on Facebook as Jason has posted info about the raffle etc there. I believe the raffle will only take place at the show itself, but as I’ve not organised that aspect of it, I’m afraid I don’t know the final details.
Cheers and hopefully see you at the show!