Drak Build - Moonshadow (Buchanan)

[Drak]

Well, for anyone who knows me, a LOT can happen as my builds progress. Sometimes too much for the faint-of-heart.

So this one's far enough down the track that I'm reasonably confident I won't cause heart failure amongst the more tender hearted.

It's about 95% done, but you know...anything can happen. So, this one has some history behind it, a story.

What would a Cowboy Sunset guitar be without a story to go with it?

And how would the name Moonshadow be aligned with Cowboy Sunsets? Well, what comes after sunset? Duh... Darkness, that's what.

And in Cowboy Country, darkness can be Ominously dark, ain't no city lights out there 'in the Lonesome'...if you get my drift.

We will come back around to this theme of darkness and ominous-ness later on.

 

And so, we begin our tall Tele tale with a Telecaster formerly named 'Dieselbilly'.

Name taken from Bill Kirtchen's usage of the term along his pathway to Telecaster Twangin' Glory and golden halls made of pure steel twang.

But Dieselbilly didn't start out as Dieselbilly (see line item No. 1 above)

Dieselbilly started out as a 'Nancy', my ode to Roy Buchanan, the father figure of ominousness and darkness and all things wolven.

There was very little 'happiness' you could attribute to Roy. He was a loner mostly, rarely laughed, usually somber, with some 'issues'.

Road-dog mostly, which can be a lonesome, and sometimes dark, path.

Welcome.

 

[ScottR]

I'm looking as forward to the story as I am the build.

SR

[Bizman62]

Yep, the story... Having now seen some of your builds and read another story I believe there's going to be some amusing moments with this thread!

[Drak]

OK, so what exactly is 'a Nancy'?

For most people, it's some version or rendition of Roy Buchanan's beat-up 1953 naturally relic'd Butterscotch Blackplate Telecaster.

Most people who build a 'Nancy' wind up with either a relic'd copy or (more usually) a very pretty version of that scenario. Which isn't really real.

So the real 'thing' about Nancy was the sound. A damaged bridge pickup with a very 'AM Radio' sound that lacked most of it's bass.

Don Mare chased it down for years and what he finally wound up with was using a .0033uF cap in series with the bridge pickup.

YT search Don Mare & Nancy and you'll hear it, he has one YT of it. That was his third and final 'version' of his 'Nancy' pickup.

But along the way, Don made three different versions of a 'Nancy' bridge pickup before he hit on the .0033uF solution.

That is the basic core of a Roy Buchanan 'Nancy', unless you intend on hanging the guitar on a wall, is the particular tone of that bridge pickup.

You can build butterscotch blackguard Teles all day long, if they don't have the AM Radio bridge pickup sound, it isn't really a Nancy.

Don encapsulates a .0033uF cap inside the wind under the tape, but you can do it to any pickup you want.

I believe Rickenbacker called it a 'strangle switch', that for whatever reason seems to replicate whatever happened to Roy's bridge pickup.

 

Back then, no one knew he would wind up making three versions, ...at version 1, everyone thought that was 'it'.

So. many years ago, I bought two bridge pickups of version 1, and one pickup of final version three.

The first versions ohm out at around 5.2k, the final version with the cap only reads capacitance, not resistance.

I have a bunch of .0033uF caps now, and when I measure the version 3 with a .0033uF cap, they read identical.

Now, I would just use whatever pickup I want and attach a .0033uF to it (in series), but, its all part of the story that will unfold.

 

I called him many years ago with a question about the versions, and he told me 'No, those first ones won't cut it for Roy'.

I believe because he underwound them so much, trying to achieve the thin Roy sound in his early efforts.

Well, low-wind Tele bridge pickups are good for Bakersfield Twang and Bill Kirtchen does that very well.

 

And so, we have the origins of the Dieselbilly build.

I decided to use BOTH of those 5.2k pickups in bridge and middle, I cutout a pickguard for the second one in the middle position.

And I used a 4-position switch (does series and parallel) coupled with a push-pull knob to select either neck or middle to go with the bridge.

4-position switches are funny to use because whatever volume pots you use probably will not be suited well when you kick in the series connection.

Usually using 250k pots for Teles, the series connection will (usually) not match too well, especially if you use higher output pickups.

 

But for two 5.2k pickups, it worked great, all connections and combinations worked really well.

So this guitar is 1/2" Mahogany over a chambered Maple core and is only 1.5" thick.

OK, we are at the first stop in the road, Dieselbilly, with it's (two) 5.2k Don Mare Nancy bridge pickups.

You may have seen this pic from the Steerhead pages, but now you have some background content to work with.

No one needs to see construction pics of a Tele, there's no need of that.

And...it looks Nothing like this now, ...this was just a stop in the road.

[killemall8]

very nice

[Drak]

Just thought I'd add this in before things go dark.

I did a front roundover using a 15" speaker as the guide.

The top is 1/2" Mahogany so I shaved it down right to the edge.

[Drak]

And so the transformation begins.

Nevermind the square HB mark, it was just an idea.

The goal here, as you will begin to see formulate, was to borrow ideas from the relic world, but to also break all of their rules at the same time.

That's why I shot the pic showing the grain so much, I wanted to preserve as much of the grain as I could.

I didn't get to preserve as much as I would have liked, but the effect is there.

[Drak]

So, I've never been a relic fan, never even found it interesting. But I've done the mega-burst thing so long, I think I was looking for something different to do. Everything becomes standard and boring after awhile, no matter how good you are at it.

I look at this as a distressed finish, because for many reasons it doesn't follow any standard relic guidelines. Although at a casual glance I would think that's what would come to mind. But it breaks many relic 'rules of the road'. And, as with anything guitar building, you have to just keep putting the foot forward, see what happens, and adjust to suit.

I didn't know whether I would like this shiny or flat, so I did it both ways. Relic rules are everything must be flat and de-glossed, but I never follow rules. And I always have a goal in mind when I do anything.

This goal wasn't to create a relic, this was about capturing Roy Buchanan's dark side, and that guy had a serious dark side. Which is what made him what he was, and his music what it was. Which I think was right out in the open for everyone to see, but everyone seemingly avoids it. People always want to avoid looking at the dark side of life, but that's where a lot of the flavor of a person comes in.

And I got to incorporate Roy's dark side with allowing me to play around with the Steerhead in a way I never had done before. And I really dig it, I think I nailed my goals. I like 'irritating' people for some reason, I like to break their 'box of assumed reality' which makes most people uncomfortable and squirmy. No regular Roy fan would probably dig this because it breaks just about every single rule for a 'Nancy' build. Yet, to me, it encompasses more Roy than just about any other build I've ever seen (my opinion only, of course) Most Tele guys would hate the black hardware, the Mahogany underneath, but I adore it all. As I said, it's not about copying a guitar (which I really never do), which everyone else focuses on, its about the guy himself.

Guitars don't make music, people do. A guitar by itself doesn't make a sound.

[Drak]

So, onward. The neck I decided to use is a Mahogany/Rosewood neck. Again, breaking the 'biblical Roy/Nancy rule' of having to use a Maple neck for authenticity. I have three Maple necks already done, fully assembled, even Plek'd. They've all been on other guitars before and are ready to go. Nope, I didn't like it. It removed the 'dark, ominous' theme I was shooting for.

So I ran into a problem of the sanded Mahogany body not matching the look of the Mahogany headstock close enough for my liking. They looked too dissimilar. The headstock was a very rich and deep Mahogany, and the body seemed too 'washed out' to me, I didn't like the match. So I decided to try shooting a toner coat over the bare Mahogany areas. I used Behlen Medium Brown Walnut. And that didn't work either. It actually matched well, but it took 'something' away from the 'raw ominous' thing I didn't like. Damned if I do and damned if I don't scenario.

So what I discovered/wound up doing was sanding back the toner coats, in areas, to taste, and (IMO) that totally worked. Check this pic with the one above, the difference isn't massive, but with the toner coat sprayed on, the match now is dead-on.

This is with the full toner coat, before I sanded it back. Nailed that shit, didn't I? But we're not even close to done yet. It gets better.

[ScottR]

Scorched and polished.

You did nail the headstock match. For me the best part is the area around the steer head.

SR

[Drak]

Thank you, Scott.

Me too, really. I think I pulled that off to look pretty 'rustic cowboy realistic' and not super-faked.

If I tried to do it again I can't think of anything else I'd try to do to it or change, it hits the mark pretty well.

Of course that's my favorite part, haha, its always all about the steerhead in my world!

To be honest, you can't ask for much more than that, to come up with a theme and then find a way to morph that theme into your own theme.

I call that a win. ...It gets better tho.

[Gogzs]

What a joy to read. 11/10 thread, thanks for the awesome build! 

[mistermikev]

not normally a big fan of the burnt look but gotta say it won me over on this one.  lovely.

[Drak]

Ha! I guess if you want to call it a burnt look, OK with me.

I find that funny as I have looked into how to actually do a fo-real burnt job with a propane torch.

This is just black lacquer sanded back ala a typical relic process.

But, I'll take the compliments any way they come, and thanks back.

[Drak]

These two pics show the brown walnut toner sandback/fadeout pretty well. I left it heaviest in the back corner near the forearm contour. And as it moves towards the steerhead it becomes more and more faded back to pre-toner. I think around the steerhead, most of the toner coat is gone.

I also hit all the other sandback areas. You can see the effect well in the bottom corner near the control cavity. Nearest the left, most of the toner, and as it moves toward the right-hand edge, its very pale.

I really like the way this came out, having never experimented with such a thing before. The full-on toner coat didn't knock me out, and neither did it look good w/o out, this seemed to totally do the trick of the effect I wanted.

 

[Drak]

OK, back to the Roy story a little bit. Roy Buchanan is what got me into building guitars in the first place, period. If it weren't for him, I doubt I would have ever taken up the hobby.

What started it all for me? It was a VHS promo video I saw advertised for sale in Guitar Player, around 1990 or so. It was an ad for the Fritz Brothers Bluescaster. That was an Active, EMG-laden Telecaster tribute for Roy to get their company off the ground, up and running, with Roy as their first promoter. Unfortunately for them, he dies less than a year after the introduction, I believe, so those guitars are a bit of an idiosyncrasy in the world of guitar-lore. A mere blip on the radar screen of guitars. I'm including a link here below as the YT links appear so huge on our screen.

Talk about a day-to-night extreme switchup/makeover?

From Nancy, with her broken-ass AM Radio sounding bridge pickup, to a Fully Decked and Optioned active EMG Tele rig. In the hands of a guy who started playing guitar before anyone had ever heard of an Elvis. Elvis appeared professionally (Ed Sullivan) in 1956, Roy appeared professionally for the first time in 1958, he goes that far back in guitar-lore.

The funny thing is, at that time (Fritz Brothers) Roy had switched to Alligator Records and Bruce Iglauer, and his records sounded completely different than they had before. The point is, the 'Nancy tone' was gone, as he used other Teles, then adopted the Fritz Brothers EMG Tele (which is clearly audible on some of the Alligator material)

Telecasters equipped with EMG electronics? Sound familiar? My first five guitars all had that, but I discovered how to ditch the EMG pickups and just use the active tone pots, which I still sometimes use to this day, that's where it all began so long ago, and the imprint of the Fritz Brothers EMG Tele still lives with me. Because that's what I do. And here I am, working the whole plan backwards and in reverse, 30 years later. Going From active EMG-laden Teles To 'The Pure Nancy'. It's a homecoming of sorts for me.

So back to the VHS video...It Is Hilarious! Roy is Gulping Down a drink right on camera, and it ain't Root Beer. He is probably the worst promo guy I have ever seen in my life, and I'm in sales. He doesn't know the terminology, the clip is Highly Edited (cuz he was wasted and probably going on and on about nothing)...from a sales standpoint, its just brutal. But I guess they weren't going to do a 2nd take, and tho his speech is mumbly and totally scattershot, the minute he plays anything, there are no mistakes.

This is the video that made me want to go search out what the term 'hardwoods' even meant, then go find a local retailer and buy some. This old video is what made Drak, the Drak.

The Fritz Brothers' Bluescaster Buchanan Sales Promo Video, circa 1990

[Drak]

So, I matched the body to the neck fairly well, I like it. Then I put the neck on the body, and the neck looked too 'pristine and pretty'. So I figured I'd dirty it up a little.

I shot a quick black coat over the headstock, flat-sanded it back to where I was happy with it, then glossed it.

I used a set of gold tuners I had that are aging and losing their gold plating. Perfect fit for this project.

The aging, de-plating tuners kind of 'go with' the brass/aluminum saddles, cuz they're a little of both...

[Drak]

So I had a major epiphany last night. It's basically done and ready for assembly, but it wasn't 'sitting right' with me for some reason. It was driving me crazy. I never finish a guitar unless I am completely 100% behind it and in love with it and everything feels right. And this wasn't feeling right.

Then I heard the voice of my intuition pipe up and I heard: 'It's not working because you're not fully committed to it. You have one foot in and one foot out and nothing succeeds like that, you have to fully commit to it for it to work'. And I said, 'thanks for that, Mr. Intuition'. But I didn't know what it meant for awhile and I kept staring at it wondering what the message meant. So I asked myself where was I not committing, where did I have the one foot out? And dammit if the answer didn't come through, tho it had to be pushed through.

There were two areas where I wasn't 'committing' to the very purpose I had outlined for myself. And both had to do with the 'darkness' theme.

One was the gold tuners. I had severely hesitated about using black tuners as I thought it would push things too far from ground zero (standard Fender Telecaster). I mean, I like and use black hardware when I think it works, I have no problem with black hardware and I have a reasonable supply of it. But it just didn't 'seem right' to go full-on black on a Roy Tele, for some reason.

The other was hanging onto the gloss look, which I am very accustomed to. Super-Gloss is like my baby-blanket, all my guitars are super-glossed.

So I took off all the gold hardware (tuners, ferrules, strap buttons, output jack) and replaced them all with their black counterparts.

Then I did some Micro-Mesh level-sanding down to 1800, then hit it with a used 320 grit Abralon pad on an orbital sander to finish it off.

And it started to come together and I could see it coming together, ...but that's not the end of the story.

So, after performing those two things, I broke out the guitar polish which is part of my normal procedure at assembly. Now usually, guitar polish does very little for my builds, as they are already super-glossed before they ever see a guitar polish.

But such was not the case here with the satin-sheened finish, something completely different happened. When I applied the guitar polish, it Really came together, it just tied everything together perfectly. It gave the satin-sheen an added depth and dimension it didn't have before, it Totally Nailed it, Totally Loving it, which is very necessary for me to feel before I complete a build.

Should be done in a day or so now, might have it finished by tonight.

[Drak]

Finished this up last night.

Done. My Roy Buchanan build is done.
Frikkin' Love It.
It's black, it's lightweight, its got a 'knockaround' finish on it so I don't care if it gets banged up.
And it sounds just like a Nancy-Caster should (IMO).

So...the spec 'recipe' I came up with is perhaps as interesting as the guitar itself.
What I wound up with:
Switch: 3-way switch w/ no in-between. Just neck, middle, bridge, done.
Bridge Pickup: Don Mare 2324 3rd (and final) version Roy bridge pickup (no ohms, measures .033 on a uF meter)
Middle Pickup: Don Mare 2324 1st version bridge pickup (5.1k)
Neck Pickup: Harmonic Design '54 Special strat (6.3k) in the neck
Pots-n-Cap: 220k volume, 200k tone, .022uf tone cap
Added Cap in Series with Middle Pickup only: .02uf
Cap left out: from Don's original wiring layout, I left out the .1 cap between the switch and the volume pot
Bridge: Glendale bridge (painted black), and Glendale intonated saddles w/ aluminum E/A

So what does this stew do, actually?
The Neck pickup is wired as a straight-up strat neck, no funny business, but dropped a little lower than normal to volume compensate
The Middle pickup with the cap is the 'in-between-land' between the 'straight-normal' neck and the 'AM Radio' bridge
I tried 3 different caps until I found one I was happy with that made the pickup sit somewhere in the middle tonewise.
Adding a series cap, depending on cap size, drops volume, so the middle pickup is hiked up a bit more than I normally would have it.
I hit it pretty good tho, I like the middle position a lot.

I tried the reverse-mount control cavity to get easier access to the volume control.
But I didn't like it and switched it back to normal.

 

[Bizman62]

That's one nice looking guitar! That's not reliced, that's antiqued. Not looking like abused, instead looking like loved a lot.

The electronics... I just wish I could play at the level I could try to emulate the sound and style of certain players. At this point all I can say is that you've done a great job in building a guitar carrying the heritage of your guitar hero!

[mistermikev]

that bridge really ties the whole thing together.  I like the "path less traveled" approach to electronics.

[Drak]

Thank You for the nice words, they are most appreciated.

I don't know if it shows well in the pics, but I knocked the finish down from the previous pics where it was glossed. I micro-meshed it with 1800, then hit it with a used 320 Abralon pad, that's the final finish level.

I'm really digging this 'distressed finish' thing lately. I have two more builds I made in the last few weeks I did the same thing on and am really liking both of them.

Not black over Mahogany tho, they're dyed Oak, then distressed, but basically in the same patterns I used on this.

Kind of a nice break from all the bursting business actually...

[mistermikev]

10 hours ago, Drak said:

Thank You for the nice words, they are most appreciated.

I don't know if it shows well in the pics, but I knocked the finish down from the previous pics where it was glossed. I micro-meshed it with 1800, then hit it with a used 320 Abralon pad, that's the final finish level.

I'm really digging this 'distressed finish' thing lately. I have two more builds I made in the last few weeks I did the same thing on and am really liking both of them.

Not black over Mahogany tho, they're dyed Oak, then distressed, but basically in the same patterns I used on this.

Kind of a nice break from all the bursting business actually...

certainly a creative coolness to it.

[Drak]

So after playing this thing in yesterday, a few fine tuning features became obvious to me.

There is simply no need for a middle pickup, although with the series cap in place ON the middle pickup, the middle pickup sounds 'closer' to the bridge pickup than the neck. It sounds more similar to the 'broken AM Radio' sound of the bridge pickup, which is the main feature of the guitar after all. So the 'other' pickup needs to somehow align itself with that feature.

I want the sound of the middle pickup, but in the neck, and remove the middle pickup alltogether. I need a pickguard and pickup to do this w/o spending much money. Just on dogged stubborn bastard principle, I have a drawer full of pickups and will be damned if I'm going to buy another just for this. I must have something that will do what I need.

Answer: I have several old Kay 'speedbump' pickups I've never used. They're known for archtop 'cowboy jazz' and slide, as they only ohm out in the low 5's, so they have a limited value and demand. Well, Tele necks ohm out around the same thing, so there's my answer. I'm going to buy a plain black Esquire pickguard and cut out a hole for a speedbump pickup. And spray the cover satin black most likely, as they have chromed covers. And install a series cap on it most likely, I'll play with values until I find something that works.

Roy would appreciate this, I'm sure And I think it'll look kinda interesting and throw people off (I love doing that).

I have never seen an old Kay speedbump in a blackened cover, that's for sure. You can easily hear how very low-wind and clear they are, a good matchup for my Roy build I think.

 

 

 

[Drak]

I have a single-ply black Esquire pickguard coming Tuesday.

I made a router template for the Speedbump pickup for when the Esquire guard gets here.

I sprayed one of my Speedbumps today.

Should have it done and mounted same day the pickguard arrives, I'm all ready for it..

I think this is going to look really cool and interesting.

Think I'm going to knock the finish shine down a bit to match the guard, more or less.

This pic is before I routed it out.

I also needed a router template for a few old Gibson-Lawrence Marauder pickups I've had for years, unmounted, simply because I was too lazy to make the router template for them. Case corrected.