Billy Bones

Everybody slags the pistols and says they couldn't play. Honestly sit down with Never Mind the Bollocks and try to say that. There's some real good Chuck Berry hooks in there. The Rythm section is amazing. Sid couldn't play a lick, but he's not on the album. They actually hired the original bass player to play the bass on songs he's written. Sex Pistols were'nt bad musicians. No virtuosos, but they were really solid. Some punk bands have mediocre musicians, and they can still "make it" because they've got some other charisma or something going for them. Johnny Ramone was only proficient at playing one style, but he was really good at it. I guess he was pretty rough on the first record, and the ethos is anybody can grab a guitar and you don't have to be amazing. But the idea that punk is bad musicianship on purpous is the creation of a media that doesn't understand it. That's all I was trying to say. Rancid and the Rezillos both have unbelievable bass players. The Toy Dolls have a crazy good guitar player. Punk Rockers don't think it's cool to not know how to play. They do think it's ok to fly at it before you're perfect. Johnny Ramone made me feel more with one note than Ingwe Malmstein (sp) ever did. I guess it is more about the way a punk rock guitar player can make you feel, than technical proficiencey, but I think that works out in most popular genres. Man you're right about the Dolls. Those dudes could play. I just saw that new Ramones movie, and the best part of it is the 10 seconds of Dolls footage. Billy

I built one of those neck jigs, and it works great, and saved a pocketfull. I got my gauges at Lee Valley here in Canada. I think they were 20 canucks each. They were the pricey part. I'm starting to outfit a shop from scratch, and so I really like this thread. I've gone through my Stew catalog and decided what I need, and now I'm trying to find some of the stuff around town for less. I won't mess with some of the stuff that's neccessary, but I don't think it all is. A guy's gotta be able to get a straight edge for less than $56. Billy

I've used a dremel with a bit that I got from a jewelry store. The guy that showed me told me to make sure I dulled it down a bit first, so it didn't go running away. I had cut the slots originally on a tablesaw with a jig, and once the fingerboard was on the neck, radiused the fingerboard. Once the bit was dulled, I freehanded the fretslots to just past the bur point on the tang to give me the exact amount of bite I wanted, and left the bottom of the slot at the depth that the saw left. I'm still pretty new to this, but I think I was doing that to make sure I didn't get any compression when I put the frets in, but the bur still had enough bite. Billy Bones

Has anybody on here tried the waterbased finishes? I can't make the search work, I'm hopeless with computers. I'd sure rather use waterbased if it's possible, but I know from screenprinting waterbased stuff just doesn't hold up. Billy Bones

The word "punk" doesn't really say enough to know what sound he's after. 1500 bucks would get that dude any tone he wants in the "punk" range. What's he into? My all time favourite punk rock tone is an old SG Jr with a p-90. You can play that through a Fender Twin (As long as the volume is right on 10 so the tubes break up nice) and you don't need no pedals. Or you can put it through a Marshall, Mesa, Hiwatt, almost anything and it'll sound good. guys like Johnny Thunders (Heartbreakers) and Mike Ness (Social Distrotion) play(ed) Les Pauls. You can get a pretty big variation of tone in there too though. Mike Ness plays LP's and Gretsch's. He uses one of those Yellow boss overdrive pedals with it. Gretsch's make great punk rock guitars. Rancid, Social D, The Hives last tour had the big guy playing a White Falcon! I saw him knock over his HIWATT stack with it to end the show. Tim from Rancid plays a hollowbody that looks like a 335. Joe Strummer played a Tele, and Mick Jones played a double cutaway Les Paul (at least some times). Tell him not to put a bunch of stupid stickers on it. And tell him NOT to go and buy a cheap strat copy. Strats are the last guitar you want to use to play punk rock. That's what I started on and it always sounded horrible. Punk has never been about sounding or playing crappy, it's just squares that don't understand who try to write it off that way. Billy I play in a garage/punk band and I run an old airline archtop that I put a p90 in, and I just built a copyof a vox phantom.

spider's great, and those knobs are a great choice for that guitar. Nice job.

I'll bet they're sourcing them from the same place as me. Probably the same pickup.

It says "Sky" Pickups, designed by Kent Armstrong. I think it's a stacked humbucker.

If I had it to do again, I'd do the headstock shape differently, but I still wouldn't use that ugly Vox shape. It looks like Grimace from McDonalds. Just a blob. I'd probably do something like one of the cool italian guitars. yeah, our band our thinking about covering "Kicks" They did some wicked stuff. Some of it's a bit sleepy, but when they go, they go. Billy

Thanks Hyunsu, Yeah, I made the neck. I screwed up a few things, and it ended up being a hair narrower than I had planned, but it plays fine. I wanted to do everything on it, so I made the trussrod myself. I wasted a lot of time there, and next time I'll just buy one. But I cut the slot for the trussrod after I cut the shape out on the band saw. So it was tricky to get the slot in properly. Or took a little more time anyways. I built an Erliwine neck jig, and had a radius block to sand the radius into the fretboard, so the most difficult thing was keeping the sides perfectly straight. I had a jig that I used to cut the fret slots on a table saw and had a friend who knows what he's doing helping me along. Billy

I've barely got to hear it yet, and not through my own amp. We're recording next weekend and playing a couple shows (One with Shonen Knife from Japan) so I'll get to hear it a lot soon. I ran it through a fender deluxe (I think) and it sounded all right, but I won't know till I get it going through a twin all out, so I can hear it with the tubes breaking up. I played it side by side with an old airline archtop that I put a p90 in, and it's not as mean sounding as the archtop. A little more treble. I love the tone I get from the Airline. When I show up to a club with it, the sound guy looks like he's going to cry. But for some reason I can keep it from feeding back, and just let it howl when I want it to. Billy

I originally was going to build myself a les paul jr, because I love the way they sound. So I bought a piece of mahogany. It cost me more money than I thought it would, and I was going to have quite a bit of extra material, so I decided to build two guitars out of it. I didn't quite have enough, so that low point on the bottom side, and about an inch of the horn on the Les Paul are both from scraps I had lyin around that I glued on to make big enough pieces for two guitars. I figured, they're far enough from the strings and pickup, they shouldn't affect the sound.

Yeah, I ran into his stuff last night on Ebay. Then today I saw a thread on here asking questions about a lazer router. I'll bet that guy isn't doing all that crazy stuff by hand. Billy Bones

Hi Guys. I just joined this thing a couple weeks ago. Here's a picture of my first guitar. Almost finished. I'm gonna do some inlay on the fingerboard, and put something on the headstock. I play in a garage band, so it's gonna get beat up pretty good. I didn't work the finish too hard, as I was running out of time at the spray booth I was using. It's gonna get some simple pinstripe work. I know these things came with single coils, but I love these mother of pearl hums. this site is amazing. Body is made from Mahogany (with a piece of pine or something off a shipping crate glued on for the outside bit) Neck is Maple, fingerboard is Cocobollo wood.

Anybody know a ballpark figure for one of those machines? Billy Bones

I saw on I think it was "Luthiers International" or "International Luthiers" page, some real good prices on fingerboard blanks, slotted and not.

I just heard about an idea, I think you shoot laquer onto the poster, and then when it's dry wash the back off with water, the ink stays on the laquer, and the poster material washes away. It sounds like fun to try out. I'd think it'd show up best on a guitar that was primered white or light.