P.G. Branton Guitar Aficionado

Just out having a bit of a fantasy adventure on my front lawn. After the City, in all it's wisdom, took down my beautiful old maple out front, my yard has been left open to the elements this summer (which has consisted of only one, really: Sun, sun, and more sun).
My grass stopped growing some time ago, and since then, a strange Dr. Zuess-like landscape has emerged. Plants that look like cacti relatives, and all the other stuff that coexists with your grass, but you have no idea what it's called, but all quite happy to thrive without a drop of water! My lawn looked like a hip Southwest style landscape job gone terribly wrong. The strange thing is, it was a lot tougher to clean up a little bit of this stuff than to cut my whole damn lawn!
So... Maybe I'm not in a hurry for it to rain...

BTW, yes, all this messing about is worth the trouble. Those primitive-looking pickups sound awesome, and now I'll want to play it more!

New project:
The crazed guitar aficionado guy is back, and he's doing the unthinkable.
For those faint of heart, read no further.
Some might be familiar with one of my thrift shop finds, the 1980s Polish made Defil Malwa, pictured below. I found it instantly appealing, although even after the major repairs it needed, it was somewhat unplayable.
Guitar neck profiles have variously been described as 'a horse's leg', or 'a cat's wrist', and other such metaforical comparisons. The Malwa had the neck profile of, I guess an oxen's leg, or a small sapling! I have big hands, and I found it daunting. I'm not sure who would have been able to comfortablely play it... maybe a big Polish lumberjack!
Anyway, one of the first orders of business was to do something about that neck, so I set about removing an aweful lot of wood! Since then, the guitar has sat around, and not been played very much. This saddened me, and when I'd given this some thought, I realized I still didn't like the 'feel' of the neck even though I'd slimmed it down considerably.
The next thing I decided to do was to determine what I liked about my other guitars, so I set about comparing their neck profiles with a profiling gizmo I have. Typically, I use this thing to replicate contours, or shape baseboards and moldings for coping corners, but it worked great for this, too.
I was able to determine that the most comfortable neck profile, for me anyway, was a soft 'v' shape. Some guitars have a soft 'u' shape, and others are somewhere in between, with a more rounded 'c' shape.
The Malwa ended up having a rather flat 'u' shape, so I decided to take off more wood to create a soft 'v'.
And I did this, wait for it... strings on - flipped over - go.
What could happen? And, I get to try it out as I go.
I knew I didn't have to do too much. A little goes a long way. I used my Demel with a course sanding disk to take off most of the material, and then a medium course file to shape and smooth. Then course sanding, fine sanding, and finish with shellac, done, and DONE.

Ok. I'm experimenting.
I have two rechargeable drills. One went up in smoke. The other has dead batteries. So now I have good batteries that don't fit the drill that still works.
Hmm... What to do. I know, I'll just get a new drill! No wait... Can't afford a new drill.
I decided to see if I can make the working batteries fit into the working drill. First, I took apart the battery boxes, and LOOK, they're the same inside!
All I have to do is figure out how to fit the good batteries into the new box, and I should be good.
Here's hoping I don't electrocute myself.
Stay tuned...

Here's a poor old Guild that came to me with a broken head stock. I couldn't bare to take a before photo. It was pretty gruesome! But I was happy with the repair.
Guild guitars typically have slim necks, great for beginners, and small hands, but long-handers like me find them very comfortable to play, as well. Sadly, this may have contributed to the problem - a slim neck is more susceptible to damage.
My finish work isn't perfect, but I don't have a very good setup for re-finishing. That's a pretty specific kind of thing, and requires, among other things, a really good ventilation system, especially working with nitrocellulose finishes (or nitro), which most older guitars have. It's pretty nasty stuff.
If I end up getting more requests for finish work I'll have to farm it out, probably.
There's a guy around the corner that does custom car work. He has a spray shop in his back yard, and he drives a vintage Chevy Suburban low rider, with baby moon hubcaps, and a crazy paint job. Yup, I think he could handle it.

Here's a product I highly recommend to any guitar owner. Every instrument that crosses my workbench gets a liberal rubdown with this stuff. It's just a furniture polish, but it's made with orange oil, which not only does a fantastic job of cleaning a finished furnace, but it's especially good for fret boards, which for the most part, are unfinished. This stuff rejuvenates dry wood, gives it a deep luster. I've found that the lighter rose wood fret boards tend to dry out more than the darker type of rose wood, probably because the later contain more natural oils than the lighter variety.
I've only been able to find it in a spray bottle, lately, which works fine for hosing down the credenza, but for my purposes I need a spot applicator, so I just pour it off into a little sq**rt bottle. Hey, it also smells nice 😁

Speaking of porch-jamming, here's the completed mini speaker. My Champ amp, while one of the most compact amps around, was still a bit too much for what I wanted for use on the porch. I was after something small enough to tuck in under a chair, if necessary. And, yes, that says Volvo. I had the name plate from an old car of mine, so I stuck it on the front panel, just for kicks 🤪
I think it looks like it belongs, which just illustrates my theory that there's a correlation between cars and guitars.
I have a few options for what will drive this little guy. Whatever I choose will need to be battery operated, but at the moment I'm leaning towards building a 5 watt amp that will take the form of a stomp-box. Not really concerned about getting an awesome tone, although I think the speaker should sound pretty good. Again, what I'm after is a small package, but something that allows me to use an electric guitar when I want to, AND not wake the neighbour, or her yappy doggy.

Porch-jamming weather has arrived (almost), and it's time to get ready for covid to go away.
A couple of years ago I built two cajons, for a percussion instrument on the porch when we're out there playing music, which is a favourite summer pastime around here. There are several musicians in the neighborhood, not to mention my jamming buddies, Rich and Chris. And everybody in the family plays something.
The cajon is perfect for this, because it's compact, and isn't overly loud.
I decorated the front panel of one with a sort of South West native American design. The other one I left plain and sold it. In the construction I added a bass port, like a stereo speaker. It adds a bit more strength to the bass response, just like a speaker. I used some wood that I already had for the backs and sides, which is thicker than a traditional cajon, so they ended up a little heavier than normal, but the robust build adds to the tone, they sound really good, and being mostly used on the porch, I'm not carrying them around, so the added weight isn't really an issue.

I get a lot of acoustics coming my way that need this and that. Here are a couple with the same issue: a lose bridge. It's a common problem, but with a cheaper model it's hard to justify the work and expense to fix it. That said, I don't remember ever turning down a repair, if it's do-able. Some things however are beyond my abilities. You have to know your limitations.
Note the sparce amount of glue on the underside of one of bridge pieces. No wonder it came lose!

I use my little 6 watt Fender Champ amp a lot, but I found that it's a lot more fun, and sounds like a much more powerful amp when I plug it into an extension speaker, but I needed a speaker that was as portable as the Champ. I've always been a fan of 4x10 cabinets, and I decided to see how compact I could make one.
I'm really happy with the results. It's small and light, and easily fits into a back seat along with the amp. I was surprised at the bass response it has, but that's not surprising with the surface area that four ten inch speakers have. I've been wanting to try it with bass. I think it would make a good bass amp, as well.
Now I'm working on an ultra small version for porch jamming.

Here's an odd one.
I rescued it from a thrift shop. Found it lying there in rather poor condition with a bunch of other junk. As I stood back contemplating whether or not to grab it, a few others came over to check it out, but put it down again, chuckling or shaking their heads. Hmm, it needed a home, so much to my dear wife's annoyance, I walked out with it.
I had no idea about the brand, but it was obviously well made, and a label inside indicated it was made in Poland.
I tracked down a guy in Poland that knew a lot about these guitars, and with the aid of Google Translate, I was able to correspond with the guy and find out more about it.
It's a Defil Malwa, made about 1980. As you can see from the pencil note in the heel pocket, it was the 128th one produced. A Malwa is a type of flower, like a Mallow. I reshaped the neck to make it more playable, and replaced the tuners. They were very pretty, but not very functional. I also had to repair a split in the side, where the wood had dried out from not being stored properly, but that's about all it needed aside from a little TLC. The single coil pickups sound great. They really kick, and the way they're put together is super simple. They're like home made pickups! It turned out to be a keeper.

One of many repairs:
This Fender Telecaster needed a restring and set up, as well as a new push/pull tone control. The push/pull k**b activated a bright switch. I thought that was a pretty cool feature, so I put one into the Brantone hollow body.

Here's another new build. This is not a guitar. It's a Mando cello. It has four sets of double course strings, and is tuned like a Cello rather than a guitar. This puts it in the bass register. It has a very unique sound, not at all like a bass guitar. This build was also based on a sixties Japanese guitar frame. It appears to be all mahogany, or another related eastern wood.

This is the results of a complete rebuild of a Japanese hollow body from the late sixties. I took the liberty of personalizing it. It was originally an ugly tobacco-burst colour. I decided on a Gretsch orange. The back and sides became an unorthodox burgundy, but I think it works. The lipstick pickups I ordered online. They were stupid cheap, and I had my doubts about their quality, but it turns out they sound awesome!