Watched an eric Clapton Doco a few nights back which showed a bit of J.J. Cale and his Crazy, heavily modified H162 Harmony Guitar, which of course immediately grabbed my attention, set out to do my own version of one using this little piece of Crap I found by the kerbside a few years back, but after taking the back off, decided it was too small, and turned it into an “El Cheapo” Short Scale 3 String Git, BUT!, a Full Size $10 Junk Shop Git I modified a few years back, is already on the Bench, and will have all the Pups, Switches, Bells and Whistles similar to J.J’s Crazy Git, but in my own Style and choice of Hardware.AGP #459 - “Baby J.J. Cale Crazy Guitar”3 String Fretted Junk Throwaway GuitarScale: 18¾ inchesStrings: .038NW .026NW .018NWTuned A E aAs stated the Git is a free No Name ¼ Size Kids Guitar, with the Back ripped off, the Neck is Braced with a piece of solid pine, with a 10mm dowel at the Neck Block, and a long Tailpiece Screw at the Bridge end.The Cheap Arse Plasticky Dark Finish, the Thin Lacquer on the Top, and the horrible Black Stuff on the Fretboard were stripped of with a Heat Gun and Scraper, and then coated with 3 Coats of Shellac.A 5.2k 4 String P Bass Pickup is hardwired to the Output Jack.Not the greatest sounding Git, but not bad for a $12 Build. :-)
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"Yep BQ", nearly all my builds have cheap Ebay Pups in them, have come up with a combination of 8 Pups which I had on hand, which cost $66Aud all up, 2 x Single Coil / Humbucker, 1 Humbucker / Humbucker and 1 Humbucker / Under Saddle Piezo, with each Combo going through a 3 Way Switch to its own Output Jack, but will apply the KISS principle and stay away from the Psycho Knobs and the Coil Tap Switches. ;-D
Yea, I’ve seen pictures of it. What was he smoking :) Lucky that modern versions of those pickups can be found cheaply on the internet? Maybe substitute the low impedance pickups for some Humbuckers with coil tap switches, put switches on every pickup or even a Psycho knob in there?
Yep Brian, apparently J.J. was a bit of a mad scientist when it came to this Guitar, hard to work out exactly what was going on with all the Pups Switches and Wiring etc., I'll probably end up putting 6 or 8 Pups into my build, along with some switches and a few output jacks, how many depends on what I have on hand, so I'm sure all of that wiring will have a Rats Nest look, not sure how all those turnbuckles worked, so will strengthen the Neck & Box etc., with Timber, and probably add a few Springs, just to be different. :-D
"He took the back off of the guitar, and put a cutaway on it. He used a series of metal rods and anchors to hold the body together.
"He also installed five pickups on the guitars top plus. Four of the pickups are Gibson, two of which are low impedance for recording direct. The other bar type pickup came from a Sears Silvertone guitar, it was manufactured by Dan Electro. It also had a Fishman piezo pickups in the saddle. The guitar has three high impedance outs and one low. These pickups would occasionally be swapped out. The low impedance pickups were the ones that allowed him to plug directly into a recording console, much like Les Paul's personal guitar.
"This guitar had seven control knobs, countless wires, buttons and switches, four outputs, and a big red light. He never bothered to put the back of the guitar on again. That way so he would have easy access for repairs and adjusting the action by means of a couple coins he had wedged into the thing." :-)
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"Yep BQ", nearly all my builds have cheap Ebay Pups in them, have come up with a combination of 8 Pups which I had on hand, which cost $66Aud all up, 2 x Single Coil / Humbucker, 1 Humbucker / Humbucker and 1 Humbucker / Under Saddle Piezo, with each Combo going through a 3 Way Switch to its own Output Jack, but will apply the KISS principle and stay away from the Psycho Knobs and the Coil Tap Switches. ;-D
Yea, I’ve seen pictures of it. What was he smoking :) Lucky that modern versions of those pickups can be found cheaply on the internet? Maybe substitute the low impedance pickups for some Humbuckers with coil tap switches, put switches on every pickup or even a Psycho knob in there?
Yep Brian, apparently J.J. was a bit of a mad scientist when it came to this Guitar, hard to work out exactly what was going on with all the Pups Switches and Wiring etc., I'll probably end up putting 6 or 8 Pups into my build, along with some switches and a few output jacks, how many depends on what I have on hand, so I'm sure all of that wiring will have a Rats Nest look, not sure how all those turnbuckles worked, so will strengthen the Neck & Box etc., with Timber, and probably add a few Springs, just to be different. :-D
Marc O'Hara of The Unique Guitar Blog says:
"He took the back off of the guitar, and put a cutaway on it. He used a series of metal rods and anchors to hold the body together.
"He also installed five pickups on the guitars top plus. Four of the pickups are Gibson, two of which are low impedance for recording direct. The other bar type pickup came from a Sears Silvertone guitar, it was manufactured by Dan Electro. It also had a Fishman piezo pickups in the saddle. The guitar has three high impedance outs and one low. These pickups would occasionally be swapped out. The low impedance pickups were the ones that allowed him to plug directly into a recording console, much like Les Paul's personal guitar.
"This guitar had seven control knobs, countless wires, buttons and switches, four outputs, and a big red light. He never bothered to put the back of the guitar on again. That way so he would have easy access for repairs and adjusting the action by means of a couple coins he had wedged into the thing." :-)
You gotta put a bunch of turnbuckles & rats nest wiring inside if you wanna call it “crazy”