2000 - Jackson Surfcaster (1996 Made in Japan)

Ever since I saw a 12 string version in a music shop back in 95 I wanted one of these guitars. Later on I discovered a photo in a magazine with Scott Ian playing one (I think it was the Charvel model). The guitar looked out of place, but right at home with that metal guitarist. For some reason I didn't buy it. Can't remember why.

Soon after I'd finished school and I was broke for 4 years pretty much. At 19 I had an accident that rendered my left hand useless for music for over a year, I'd cut the membrane to a tendon while cutting a cardboard tube with a stanley knife. It's been 13 years and still not quite right. I forgot about guitars for a couple of years and just got on with working for peanuts.

It wasn't til I moved to a city in the south that my interest picked up again. I lived near a cool guitar store and there was the Surfcaster hanging on the wall all cool and black with the cream coloured binding. It had to be mine. I was broke, but I had to have it. I picked it up on a loan with some financier. 50% in 6 months the remaining 50% 6 months after that.


While I loved it, I really didn't play it that much again til about 2004 when I joined a local band... to play keyboards! (another story for another post).

Over time I realised the stock duncan designed bridge pickup was really microphonic.

I mounted the pickup upside down intentionally,
because I wanted more bass on the P90 coil.

Sounded terrible and the wrong kind of honk. I swapped it for a Paf Pro as that pickup had proven a good choice on Mahogany guitars. Not for this one. It sounded wrong, can't describe it well, but the tone was just not right and it didn't mix well with the Kent Armstrong lipstick pickup in the neck.
I let it stay that way for a while. A couple of years later I bought a Guyatone guitar which had the most amazing pickups. Not quite P90'sbut kind of close. That Was the sound I wanted from the Surfcaster.

I tried a GFS Mean 90 in it, but the tone didn't work well. Not enough bottom and a little too hot.
After that disappointment I nearly sold the guitar. In an idle google hit I stumbled upon the Seymour Duncan P-Rails. The Aussie-US dollar exchange was favourable so I took the plunge and bought the P-Rail bridge pickup.

The P-Rail is an unusual pickup with a p90 voiced coil on one side and a Strat voiced Rail pickup on the other side. It looks weird, but works!  I did the recommended wiring setup and used push/pull pots to swtich between P-90, Strat, Series Humbucker and Parallel Humbucker. The neck pickup even rejects hum in the middle position if the P-90 is selected.


This made the guitar tone improve beyond belief and got back on the rotation of favoured instruments.

Keep you safe from the cold by TheAwesomePowerOfRockets

Timeline

Year	Age	Brand	Model	Type	Price
1991	13	Unknown	Nylon string	Guitar	$0.00
1992	14	La Grange	Strat	Guitar	$250.00
1993	15	Marshall	Valvestae 40w	Amp	$450.00
1993	15	Samick	ES-335	Guitar	$350.00
1994	16	Marshall	JCM800 (100w Brown Face)	Amp	$800.00
1994	16	Epiphone	Les Paul Std	Guitar	$500.00
1994	16	Aria Pro II	Green Guitar	Guitar	$0.00
1994	16	Sovtek	Big Muff	Pedal	$150.00
1994	16	Sovtek	Small stone	Pedal	$150.00
1995	17	Teisco	s100p	Synth	$60.00
1995	17	Marshall	JCM800 (50w combo)	Amp	$0.00
1995	17	Fender	Gray Clapton Strat	Guitar	$2,100.00
1996	18	Yamaha	qy300	Synth	$1,300.00
1996	18	Peavey	5150 Combo	Amp	$2,000.00
1996	18	Fender	Telecaster - Mexico	Guitar	$700.00
1996	18	Maton	NS225	Guitar	$900.00
1996	19	Yamaha	12 string	Guitar	$0.00
1996	19	Digitech	TSR-12	Pedal	$400.00
1997	19	Peavey	Classic 50 Head	Amp	$800.00
1997	19	Ibanez	Joe Satriani	Guitar	$700.00
1998	20	Ensoniq	DSK1	Synth	$400.00
1998	19	Coronet	Rever/Tremolo	Amp	$0.00
1998	20	Teisco	SG	Guitar	$60.00
1999	21	Boss	GT-5	Pedal	$1,000.00
2000	22	Jackson	Surfcaster	Guitar	$1,200.00
2004	25	Korg	Wavestation EX	Synth	$500.00
2004	25	Vox	Pathfider 15r	Amp	$200.00
2004	25	Laney	Foldback	Amp	$250.00
2004	25	Behringer	BX1200	Amp	$250.00
2004	25	Fender	Banjo	Banjo	$700.00
2004	25	Digitech	Bad Monkey	Pedal	$50.00
2005	26	Yamaha	AN1X	Synth	$500.00
2005	26	Roland	Juno 6	Synth	$500.00
2007	28	Korg	MS10	Synth	$900.00
2007	28	Alesis	Ion	Synth	$800.00
2007	28	Electrix Pro	Warp Factory(Vocoder)	Rack	$300.00
2008	29	Roland	Juno 60	Synth	$550.00
2008	29	Sequential Circuits	Prophet600	Synth	$670.00
2008	29	Korg	MicroKorg	Synth	$750.00
2008	29	Korg	Poly800	Synth	$300.00
2008	30	Epiphone	Valve Jr Combo	Amp	$180.00
2008	30	Teisco	Bison	Guitar	$300.00
2008	30	Electro Harmonix	The clone theory 1974	Pedal	$250.00
2008	30	Boss	SD-1	Pedal	$65.00
2008	30	Boss	DS-1	Pedal	$65.00
2008	30	Boss	RE-20	Pedal	$250.00
2008	30	Ibanez	FL9	Pedal	$100.00
2008	30	Ibanez	Autowah	Pedal	$100.00
2008	30	Digitech	Whammy4	Pedal	$250.00
2008	30	Electro Harmonix	#1 Echo	Pedal	$99.00
2008	30	Behringer	Virtualizer 2024	Rack	$150.00
2008	30	Behringer	TP300	Pedal	$40.00
2008	30	Crossfire	Tremolo	Pedal	$40.00
2009	31	Epiphone	Valve Jr Stack	Amp	$400.00
2009	31	J&D Luthiers	Jagmaster	Guitar	$180.00
2009	31	Guyatone	LG127-T	Guitar	$700.00
2009	31	Epiphone	Les Paul Std	Guitar	$450.00
2009	31	Electro Harmonix	Hog	Pedal	$500.00
2009	31	Fulltone	Mini Dejavibe 2	Pedal	$300.00
2009	31	Line6	Rotomachine	Pedal	$75.00
2009	31	Behringer	RV600	Pedal	$50.00
2009	31	Behringer	RM600	Pedal	$80.00
2010	32	Mosrite	Ventures	Guitar	$1,800.00
2010	32	Line6	m13	Pedal	$500.00

1995 - Fender Stratocaster - Eric Clapton signature model.

I'd inherited a bit of money when I was 15 or so and went out to buy a good guitar.
The nearest city had a much bigger musical instrument shop and they had some pretty nice Fender and Gibson's. I was on a bit of a Derek and the Dominoes buzz after hearing the electric version of Layla on vinyl.

Also I'd become obsessed with gray. Most metal heads go for black, but I went for gray and I was into a lot of different stuff in my listening time. Metal was for playing!  This guitar was excellent.
Easy to play neck, great action and active pickups(which i bypassed for a time as I was sick of paying for 9v's). Into a bigmuff and my old Marshall JCM 800, this thing was made for monster noise, not easy listening!

It had suck bottom end and was just brutal on the ears.

I didn't have the guitar all that long as I changed schools and got into synthesizers.

 Guitar case is lined with orange fur. Perfect!

This was quite a bit before VST's and cheap PC's so I traded it in on a Yamaha QY300 and controller keyboard. Probably one of the dumbest decisions of my formative years. The guitar would be worth a decent chunk of change now and I still can't play the piano!

Neck: Bolt on Maple.
Body: Alder.
Pickups: Fender Gold Lace Sensor.
Bridge: Blocked synchronised tremolo.
Electronics: TBX active circuitry.

1996 - Fender Telecaster - Made in Mexico

This one came along when in the summer after I turned 17.
It was dented and chipped on the back and had a Seymour Duncan Hot-Rail in the bridge.
Perfect!

I was playing in a death Metal Band at the time and had the obligatory  mid 90's long hair.
Old ladies would cross the street when they saw me coming!

This guitar was about to have a very hard life.
I still hadn't gotten over my customising phase and wanted the paint gone back to wood.
After seeing Jimi set fire to his strat, I figured setting fire to the paint with lighter fluid would cause it to bubble off. I didn't know much about physics at the time, but I could see that the paint wasn't doing anything!
When the flames went out, the paint was still in tact!

I must've got my hands on an orbital sander as the paint is quite thick and I'd never have had the patience to get through the lot by hand.

Eventually I got it back to the primer on most of the body, which let the wood show through, but protect the body from at least some of my sweat. The neck had all of the finish stripped off with a razor blade. Super smooth! Can't say the same for the edges of the body. As mentioned earlier, I was in a death metal band at the time and we played fast! Every show we did caused me great discomfort and actually caused me to blister and bleed on more than one occasion. I had a scar for years afterward.

This is what the guitar looked like when I bought it, again I never took a photo of it when new.

At some point I began hanging around with this hippie guy from Highschool.

HE was pretty good at painting, so I commissioned him to paint my guitar in a vista similar to the record cover of Amorphis' "Tales From The Thousand Lakes". It looked pretty cool, but he never finished the job and it didn't get sealed, so every time I played the thing I got oil paint on my clothes.

So back to wood it went. And I took out the neck pickup.

The cavity was too hard to sand out, so I cut up pieces from the comic book "The Maxx" and glued them in.

I used the characters Julie & Mr Gone as there were no suitable illustrations of The Maxx himself to place in the cavity.

Modded with a Teisco Style vibrato.

The Guitar stayed that way for years. I'd forgotten to hook up the ground wire from the bridge to the control plate, so I wedged a flat spanner across the gap. It looked so punk! Another thing I was obsessed with was removing the controls from my guitars. I bypassed everything and just wired one pickup to the output.

Some crazy idea about minimalism.

Around 2005 I drilled holes through the body for added sustain. They don't line up, but the guitar has less twang and more bang. Gives it a different tone. Suits the humbucker pickup.

Repaired the holes from the vibrato with a bit of wood filler and olive oil.

More recently I tried to install a Teisco style vibrato on the guitar abut couldn't get it to sit right and it just didn't want to stay in tune. The guitar just sat there waiting for me to bring it some love again.

A friend of mine had seen a photo of it with a bakelite scratch plate(as pictured above) and wanted to buy it straight away. He's a big fan of Springsteen and always wanted a guitar as seen on the cover of "Born to run".

We'd been drinking heavily at the time and I thought nothing of his offer afterward.

But sure enough, the next week he was still keen for it.

I told him the brief history and he was still keen for it.

At the time, I was in the middle of getting some cash together to buy a Mosrite so I agreed to it.

I spent the next week giving it some care, fixed the neck angle, filled the holes from the tremolo and setting up the action and intonation. The guitar was back in business. It actually plays and sounds quite nice.

Since there's only one pickup in there, I modified the selector switch to be a variable capacitor for the tone control, which works nicely.

I now kinda didn't want to let it go, but kept telling myself I did.

So I kept my side of the bargain and just yesterday have passed it on to my friend, who I know will look after it. In any case I suppose I could always get it back if I really wanted it.

The only thing I din't like about the guitar really was that it hurt my hand to play. The neck is just a little too wide for my stubby fingers. I have a feeling it'll come back to the family one day.

God Given by TheAwesomePowerOfRockets

1994 - Epiphone Les Paul Standard - First time around.

The memory is a bit hazy, but I think maybe I was 15 when this guitar came along.
I bought it for $500 from the brother of a girl I'd been hanging out with for a while.
He was moving onto a tobacco burst reissue of the real deal. Unfortunately that guitar was just for keeping under the bed. I was terrified of damaging it, so I only played it once.

But my Les Paul copy on the other hand was built to be played!
It was the classic sunburst with the rippled carve top. My guitar teacher was a snob and ridiculed me for buying a copy. I didn't care. This guitar was ace. It had a great feeling neck, and when I pulled the Paf Pro from the Samick 335, the guitar had a real rock n' roll bite to it.

Other than that it was stock.
I'd graduated to heavier strings and really got to appreciate the sustain and feel of the guitar.
Ever since then I've not used anything lighter than 11 gauge and went through a period of using 13-56 gauge.
The neck was flatter than the more recent Epiphone's I've played and the top was very nice, the light rippled on the wood in the light. I had removed the scratch plate and the pickups were uncovered cream coloured.

My original Epiphone Les Paul copy was very close in appearance to this one.

If you want a nice mahogany bodied guitar and have the time to test a lot of them, go track down an Epiphone. Mine was from 1992, but I've played recent versions that are quite good too.

1993 - Samick ES-335

My 2nd guitar.
The guitar shop where I took lessons had a limited range and I think the only catalog available (maybe I could afford?) was Samick.

I wanted a Les Paul, because I was into Guns N' Roses at the time, but didn't like the way they'd extended the horn past the heel of the neck joint. I settled on, actually fell in love with the 335 copy. It looked great and when I had it in hand, it felt and sounded AMAZING! A proper guitar.

The body actually had mahogany down the middle and a couple of cheap humbuckers in it.
I eventually bought a  Dimarzio Paf Pro to slap in it and then the tone of the guitar really lifted.

From memory it cost about $350 including the case and it's one guitar I regret selling.
I have my doubts a re-purchase would live up to nostalgia, as is the case with another guitar from later years.

Not my actual guitar, just another example from the web.

1991 - La Grange Strat Copy

The La Grange looked like this, but I have no pics of it before it met Mr Band-saw.

Like most kids, I started with a pretty low quality nylon string.
I can't remember the name of my original now, but I soon got tired of it and coerced my mother into buying me an electric guitar!

This was before the internet and I lived in a large rural town/small regional city (depending on your perspective). The guitar was tracked down via the local "trading post" and from memory came with an amp and cost $250.  Back then I knew jack all about guitars and this looked as good as a real Fender to me so the deal was done. My first electric guitar, like a big boy!

It was branded La Grange, had 3 single coils, a basic vibrato and broke strings all the time.
I used light gauge d'Dario back then and broke an e or be string at least once a week.
As all music equipment addicted people know, their first guitar is usually their gateway into GAS-ville.

I couldn't afford anything at the time as I was 13 and had no job.

My guitar teacher gave in to my request to "customise" the poor guitar and I discovered that guitars could be made out of plywood!

Along with changing the shape, he filled in the tremolo hole and made it a string through body non trem guitar to improve the sustain.  Think there's a chunk of mahogany in there filling the gap.

The neck is now a total mess. I thought that making it fretless was a genius idea, but the reality was that I'd pretty much destroyed the guitar. Maybe one day I'll find a replacement neck and all will be well.

Mr Band-saw, bring me a dream....

Uh... fretless wonder?

Doubtful though....