Leaderboard

After months of holding out in hope Thomann would come round and do their MR Classic Mosritealike in a solid colour, I happened to notice today they've dropped the price on the existing model to £165. Today being payday, I jumped on paypal in three and.... I'm having it delivered to the office til I can convincingly say "bigger boys made me do it"... Off on a work trip Friday, so I won't see it til earliest 5 June, but excited. All the MR Classics are markedly cheaper than they were; I hope this is them making way for new stock rather than cancelling the model. Still hoping they do a white one patterned after the Johnny Ramone Ventures II... and the blue and red ones lefty.... at this price, if I get on well with the first, I would buy one of each of those.

And - with neck now carved to a decent start off shape, it is ready for the Saville Row-type 'final fit' where Alex can actually pay the guitar in between me scraping further tenths of millimetres off the neck haunches. That can happen at any time and so isn't on the critical path for the myriad of finishing jobs still to do. The spaghetti of string ends is because I don't trim the ends until I've finished messing about - there will be many, many strings-on and strings-off to do before I fit the final new set! So still loads to do but at least it's starting to look like a guitar

New board on the way. I'd outgrown my previous mini-board due to the arrival of a Boss comp/sust pedal. This one will have one spare bay - I really don't expect to outgrow this as I tend to use a few, quite selectively (I'm sure I said that when I built the last one. Just some odd bits mdf and supermarket softwood lying around. The black insert will take a rocker switch, as my power supply is unswitched - I may have a click issue turning on (even a loud one!) but worth a go for convenience and could always mess with a capacitor across the switch (IIRC). Finish is PanzerGrau - same colour the Germans did their tanks - had a rattle can lying about (been used for some outside table legs, not an actual tank). Waiting on arrival 50mm velcro hook and the switch. Order of pedals may be (input > output) TC tuner > Boss chorus > TC Hall of Fame > Boss comp/sust > Fender Santa Anna drive > out. Supply is an Amoon btw - 8 x 9v out (enough for me) and been great - silent, robust, reliable. I rate it. I'll probably start with that order and see. Will do pic when finished.

I would say it is actually a genuine Ibanez Monteclaire. Possibly this version? https://reverb.com/item/39298717-ibanez-montclair-1965-3903-2103

Stop tail is fitted and, once I've cut a proper nut/spacer, it will be able to be then fitted with a full set of strings. Still a bit more carving to do at the back, but - other than the truss rod cover is off in this shot - this is getting close to how the pre-sanding carve is going to stay: Actually, seeing that trussrod coverless, I think I'll make Alex a maple/ebony/maple truss rod cover (which would look like the above shot ) as well as the black ebony one so he can swop between gigs if he wants

Nice one. We will expect to see pictures.

Please accept my sincere and humble apologies! To make up for my schoolboy error, please accept 2 for the price of 1, the Epiphone and the Hohner acoustic I bought back in February. Now I am shopping for an amp, as per my post elsewhere on the forum.

Hi Douglas! I end up upgrading the pickup to the Kent Armstrong Handwound Body-Mounted PAF Jazz Humbucker Pickups and also changed the string to Thomastik-Infeld GB114 Jazz Guitar Strings: George Benson - Nickel Flatwound. Very happy with the result and thought to just share with you! Thanks for your response

i used one continuous oak board (easy cuts) to make this: lots of sanding, some stain, etc. I used the scraps to create supports for the bottom side (given the stomping): i used a 1 3/8" hole saw to cut an opening for wires. i then took that plug and split it in half to make posts, to wrap the excess wire: on the underside, i used wire ties, tacked into the wood, to secure the power lines: in the far corner above, you can see i velcroed the transformer onto the underside. then, velcro on the top, and on the pedals, and a $6 leather handle: then, rubber feet on the bottom, and wire it all together. PS this is not representative of my pedal setup, this is just for testing! i'll post the actual rig soon. it's made it through 6 gigs. hopefully more to come (we have about a dozen lined up!). what i'd change- it doesnt stand on it's side, probably because of how heavy pedals are. to put a stand plate on one side would mess with the aesthetic. what i'm thinking of adding- maybe a shoulder strap so i can make one trip from the car to the studio. i can send plans if anyone wants.