A couple of years ago, I won a pickup sales contest–somehow I still didn’t earn a commission check for the month, but that was an angry rant for two years ago, not today.
I ended up ordering two humbuckers without a real game plan for how I was going to use them, since I was/am perfectly happy with the Lace Sensors in my strat. The third pickup I ended up giving to delicateman, since he threw some pickup sales my way that ended up putting me up over the top.
I didn’t really want to buy a new guitar just to gut it, so I started checking ebay for a reasonably priced vintage guitar. What I found was this:
I loved that the paint job looks like an old bowling ball, and I ended up picking it up for cheap. sixshotsorfive and I determined that the finished product should be named Sparklebooty, and thus Project Sparklebooty began.
The seller indicated that he thought it was a Teisco body…maybe. In reality, not knowing has made it a real bitch to try and find a neck for it. One thing’s for sure–modern necks don’t fit it. If you bought a Squier or an Epiphone or any other cheap new/used guitar from the Kirkland Guitar Center around May of 2005, there is a good chance that at some prior point, I removed its neck and tried to fit it onto this body.
It doesn’t quite look like any Teisco I’ve seen–it’s definitely not a Del Rey, and their other, less popular models don’t get a lot of love on the internet. According to Wikipedia, Teisco guitars were also imported in the U.S. under several brand names including Silvertone, Kent, Kingston, Kimberly, Heit Deluxe and World Teisco–and not a single picture exactly matches what I’ve got. It does seem to be in a similar family, though, so if I happen to see a Teisco/Silvertone/etc neck in decent condition, I may have to pick it up. Eventually I plan to have a Warmoth neck made for it with skull & crossbones fret inlays, but I don’t see that happening for a long time, and I’d really like to get this project going–I’ve already had the body sitting in my closet for two years.
In order to fit the humbuckers, I’ll need a new pickguard. The body is routed out enough underneath the original pickguard that I shouldn’t have to do any additional routing to accommodate them. I’ve also bought some pirate knobs, which are pretty fucking awesome, if I do say so myself.
Since Sparklebooty is such a unique color (not quite silver, not quite gold), I’m not sure what sort of pickguard will look best with it. Aged pearl would probably look really nice, but I want something fairly dark or obnoxiously shiny, so it’s out off the bat.
I could stick with tortiseshell which has that vintage-ugly-cool, but that’s not very piratey. I could go with smoked mirror, which I think would more closely match the guitar. I could go with clear mirror, which would more closely match the pickups. Black abalone could look awesome or it could be truly, truly awful.
Or I could do what I did with my strat, which is to get a clear acrylic pickguard and paint the back whatever damn color/design I want. What should I do?
I have a friend who has a guitar that is entirely mirrored…and it has a handle built into the body…it is the most awsome/ugly thing I have ever seen.
Oh god the fingerprints. It sounds to me like your friend has one of those awful, awful Steve Vai guitars.
It’s like he took a decent guitar shape and said ‘How can I make this ugly? Really ugly?’
That would be the one…He’s all proud of it…him and his instrumental metal…
It seems to me that if you’re going to drop the not-insignificant coin to get a Jem, you should get one of the crazy-colored ones. Like the hot pink one.
Or be a real man and get this bitchin’ titty guitar.
Take that and slap a rainbow of paint splatter stripes on it?
Then it’d be like Jem rose up from TV Cartoon Hell and personally touched every one of those in production.
clear mirror, match the hardware. it’ll look ace.
all hail sparklebooty.
All hail sparklebooty indeed!
That pickguard is horrible. You should get lacquered bamboo custom made.
From my best guess, this guitar body was made in the 60s–back then, tortiseshell went orgasmically with EVERYTHING. Today, not so much. It’s like wood panelling on the sides of cars.
or git yourself one of those odd custom car paints that change colour depending on how the light hits it. then it can be a mood indicator.
What color is ‘bitchy’? Because as a mood indicator, it should probably be that color 100% of the time.
It probably was. I bet you it has fantastic tone – which is why I think you shouldn’t give up pairing it with a vintage neck.
A vintage neck is definitely in the running, but so far finding one that isn’t beat to shit has been difficult; most of the ones I’ve seen are warped or the headstock is cracked…stuff I can’t fix even with the tools/inclination.
you should do a clear pickguard, and put different pictures behind it. then you can have an ever changing pickguard
now THAT is a good idea.
That is a pretty awesome idea.
It’s official: “Sparklebooty” is the most inherently funny word I have ever laid eyes upon.
Also, it looks like it’ll shape up to be a pretty sweet guitar.
Hooray for Sparklebooty!
It makes me think ‘disco butt’ and ‘shiny pirate’, both of which make me smile. 🙂
Come to think of it…
Project Sparklebooty would be a pretty great band name.
I’m just sayin’.
Re: Come to think of it…
Disco rock!