Big Fat Ostrich

Since Ostrich Guitar Labs has an international reputation in the field of quality drunk soldering, we’re constantly being commissioned for all types of repair jobs. This week we tackle a BC Rich Warlock aka THE metal bass.

The problem was the wiring, and by wiring, I’m talking about this mess:

I don’t even know where to begin. Basically the volume pot was completely BURIED in dried glue. The wires themselves wrapped up in a crazy spiral. Who does that? Really.

Anyway, it’s a very simple circuit so I’ll keep this post completely uninformative. 1 single volume, one tone and two pickups. The hardest part was scraping out the glue. I had to use knives, pliers and a fucking spoon, but I did it. Nice and clean.

The working circuit looks like this:

The finished product. Approved by the cat:

My trusty Ibanez. I’ve had this steel string guitar for over 20 years and the only work it’s needed has been a re-gluing of a bracing strut. Otherwise it’s been a solid standby.

Until now. Look at how the strings have hungrily eaten away at the string guide holes! I never really noticed the progression of damage until I changed strings last week. While taking off the old strings, the b string had actually become embedded in the wood of the guide hole.

Here’s a closer look. Shit that looks bad, and I probably shouldn’t have put the new strings on but hey, a couple of weeks couldn’t possibly make it any worse. Could it? I think it’s time to make an appointment with my local Luthier.

If you’ve been following the BFO Guitar Shop Fiesta Project, well the moment is finally here: pickups for the Fiesta Les Paul. Installing them is a piece of cake but…how will it sound?

Ignore the revoltingly out of focus picture. Wiring guitar pickups is easy. There’s a single wire coming out of the pickup so it’s very hard to screw up. Plug the guitar in and test it before wrapping the knot in electrical tape. As long as your guitar is grounded, it’s also pretty hard to get electrocuted, although it happens.

Both humbuckers fit nice and snug. They appear a little bit off center, but that’s how they fit when they’re screwed in. Any offset should be unnoticeable as far as sound quality is concerned. All that’s left is to close up the hole with the pick guard cover and put some strings on.

Done. It’s been literally decades since this guitar had functioning pickups.

Complete, except for new pot covers and maybe a new toggle switch cover.

So how does it sound? Pretty good actually! We were impressed that it actually has decent tone and is very playable. The action feels great and we haven’t found any dead frets yet. The dual volume and tone controls will take getting used to. It’s been awhile since I’ve messed around with this configuration, but not a bad guitar by any means. By the way, the body appears to be plywood, but it’s very dense which I think contributes to its rich tone. More on this later as there’s much more experimentation in sound shapes to be done here. This thing is coming to my next jam session for a road test.

Update: The Fiesta has moved up the ladder in my collection in terms of usefulness. Of all the guitars I own, this is the best electric guitar for slide playing. Both for blues and rock. The humbuckers really scream and the sustain is very very good. Equally impressive is playing in dropped D tuning. The tone is super rich and makes playing Badmotorfinger /Louder Than Love era Soundgarden a blast.

Now that we’ve got our shiny new Grover tuners it’s time to replace the old ones. But first, let’s have a closer look:

And again:

Now we do have a slight problem. The tuner is not going to fit into the existing hole. As you can see, these tuning heads have a threaded sheath which is actually for the holding screw. That means that we’ll have to get ourselves a reamer and ream the hole until it’s wide enough for the tuner to fit. I know, that just sounded incredibly dirty. But we have no choice. We’ll have to ream it, so I’ll go buy a reamer and report back. Stay “tuned”.

P.S. Note the old tuners/machine heads. My local guitar store sells similar ones under the guise of vintage machine heads. I’m sure the new ones are good, but these old vintage style tuning heads? They slip like crazy and are absolutely awful, which is why we’re replacing them with Grovers.

Bob Log III is back!

Well, he never left since the guy tours constantly and plays over 300 shows a year (I’m guessing), but he is back with his first album in 6 years! Actually, the new album was released back in March, so I’m super late about the whole thing. Either way, if that doesn’t make you happy, it should, because Bob Log III will melt your brain with his furious slide guitar. And everyone needs their brain melted once in awhile.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Bob Log III. The man plays Silvertone arch top guitars and if you’ve been reading my posts, you’ll remember that one time where I postulated profusely about my own Silvertone. If you don’t remember, well just scroll down. Or click the Silvertone tag. Or don’t.

I guess you can describe Bob’s style as fast Delta Blues, but what makes his sound unique is the ultra-low bass string tuning. In this tuning, the bass lines are present while he can plays the rhythm, so he gets a fuller sound. Those low strings are slack, in a JJ Cale kinda way. But where JJ Cale is slow and groovy, Bob Log is fast and dirty. Filthy even. Here are the specs on his tuning:

A–A–E–A–C#–E  <— Remember that the low A is tuned low. Really low.

The new album is called My Shit is Perfect, which alludes to his flawless playing and timing. He’s just one of those guys who’s always in the zone when he plays. I won’t even go into detail about the helmet, the cannonball suit, or the telephone microphone. Just expect to hear more sleazy sex and scotch induced slide guitar from my favorite one-man band.

Bob is also probably the only musician to ever ‘raft’ the crowd. Just watch the video and you’ll see what I mean.

A few years back, I walked into a used guitar store in Montreal, Quebec intent on buying a Fender Telecaster. I always loved the tone and versatility of the Tele and it’s shape fits me well. Plus, it’s the perfect weight for me, unlike those Gibson Les Paul’s which are known to be back-breakers. So I tried out a few vintage Tele’s, but they were between $1500 and $3000, which was slightly out of my budget. Yeah, just slightly

Then I spotted a couple of Silvertone‘s which caught my eye due to their black/white retro look (retro today, modern in 1960). I had sort of heard about Silvertones, but never really paid much attention to them. 90% of us guitar players have our hearts set on either a Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul from the first time we saw Eric Clapton (that racist!) slowly stroking them notes, or Jimmy Page going tone-crazy on Whole Lotta Love. The truth is, these guitars are their most photographed showpieces, where their studio instruments vary greatly. Anyway, enough about that. Let’s get to my Silvertone.

The first thing that surprised me was the weight of it: light as a feather. The body is hollow and was made from the cheapest materials at the time, like masonite and poplar wood. When I first held it, I thought that it really is ‘this close’ to actually being a total piece of crap, but the Silvertone I played (and eventually bought) just felt right and sounded great.

Pickups
Just about anyone who knows anything about Silvertones have heard about the pickups. As a budget guitar (back in the 60′s), the guitars were sold for like 19.95, and were built cheaply. The pickup casings are used lipstick tubes which have a really nice warm tone. The pickups are now highly prized, and many artists have been known to buy old Silvertones just to transplant the pickups into another guitar. Check out the history here

The action is also high and the strings are quite tight. Don’t ask me what gauge I use since I’ve left the original strings on. I’m too scared to replace them for fear of losing some of that sweet, sweet tone, but I’ll get the gauge measured at some point. Slide guitar sounds awesome on it, whether I use an amp or not and thanks to the hollow body, this Silvertone resonates well as an acoustic guitar.

The tone switcher is actually quite limited. You can barely hear an audible difference no matter what position the switch is in, but no matter. I have a number of guitars in my collection, and I’ve designated the Silvertone as my ‘openly tuned, blues/folk guitar’. If you want to know, I have it tuned to DADGBD.

The Specs (I don’t know anything about it except the year, so let’s make up some specs)
1960 Silvertone
Tone: awesome
Strings: I have no idea
Used for: Blues and Folk

So there you go. I have since picked up a nice Japanese Tele which I may or may not review here. For now, keep on pluckin’!

m.

The Last Kind Words

You love metal? You go, and you buy that album. If you’re not broke, you should also buy The Fury Of Our Maker’s Hand. But don’t buy the first one (titled DevilDriver). Listen to it on the Internet first. Just in case.

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