November GOTM!

[Brendan]

November Guitar of the Month (for Guitars and Basses finished in October)

Enter your finished guitar or bass here to be judged for the Pit Bull Guitars November Guitar of the Month.

Please remember:

For Guitars or Basses finished on (or before) the end of October.

One guitar/bass per member per month.
It must be a Pit Bull Guitars kit (mods and upgrades acceptable).
Guitar or Bass must be finished and playable.

We need at least 4 photos:
· full guitar shot from the front;
· close up of the body finish;
· shot of the back of the guitar; and
· close up of the headstock (please, no brand name logos)


Please post your photos in this thread. If you are having issues posting photos on the forum, please email them to brendan (at) pitbullguitars (dot) com

Please note: This competition is open to amateur guitar builders only. If you are making and selling guitars for profit, you are ineligible. Also while there are some stunning guitars around - you never know what the judges are looking for, so we encourage anyone who's built a Pitbull during the month to enter!

Competition for November closes at the end of October (Perth Western Australian time).

The sorts of things we judge on include:
· How well have the body and neck been prepared
· Is the choice of finish for the style of guitar appropriate
· How well has the finish been applied
· How well has all the hardware, pickups, etc, been installed
· Does it have the 'Wow Factor'· Which guitar would you make a beeline for in a guitar shop. That is, which one would you most like to take home.

BTW - remember that the winner is invited to be a guest judge the following month!

[jarro_2783]

This is a left-handed JM-1A. Ash body, HSS pickups. I finished it just with poly because I really liked the grain and the colour. I also made up the headstock shape myself.

[prodpk]

Hi everyone. During a 08 month tour in Australia I purchased a TL-1 without accessories. I wanted to make a fabric top with an aboriginal fabric i found in Sidney. Back home in Seattle I pushed the theme further by carving the head-stock in the shape of a kangaroo footprint, a boomerang control plate and an aboriginal symbol on the back.
The top consists of the fabric with 2 coats of polyester resin and a 2K clear coat. I had to remove the binding and replace it once the resin cured. The neck is finished with true oil and 2K clearcoat.
Pickups and bridge are medium prices and purchased online. I wanted to show the most of the fabric possible so decided to get a pickup ring for the neck pickup and made the control cavity out of included pickguard.

Soundbite: https://youtube.com/video/4e0qYjEvAtU

[andybanks]

That's fantastic! Well done. What a great one off peice of art.

[FaustoB]

Beautiful instruments jarro and prodpk! excellent work!

[Andyxlh]

OK here's my shot:
PB4A Frankenbass
This is a tribute to the 'Frankenstrat' played by Van Halen, as it was in the early 1980's. There wasn't ever an official bass version, so I borrowed some of the key ideas from that guitar including:
- the striped pattern (as close as possible!)
- incorrect fit of tele neck on strat body rout
- quarter screwed to body (as a thumb rest in this case)
- eyelets for attaching strap
- Body routed and filled to resemble the standard holes in a strat body
- dummy front pickup and wire loop
- single volume control (labelled 'tone') in a cut down strat scratchplate
- Strat output jack
- Reflectors, blue paint, damage and rusted parts as the original

In the spirit of the build I used the Floyd Rose string retainer instead of the button on the headstock. the neck is unfinished timber, stained with coffee and dirt, and sanded to a silky smooth finish
Bone nut, volume capacitor and bournes pot from PBG
MM style bridge from my RC4-A kit, installed with mismatched rusty screws (including one off a 19th century hinge and through body ferrules. Interestingly the kit bass strings don’t have windings long enough to go through the body and make it over the nut, so I used some rotosounds 45-105
Machineheads are Allparts, Tonerider PB pickup, the front is a dummy from my RC4-A kit

[adam]

FBM-1 Build submitted by Warni from France



Hello!
I send you a few pictures or my recently purchased FBM-1 from Pitbull Guitars..
Raw Wallnut finish on the body and laquer on the neck..
Sounds great!
Hopefully it Will appear on your Guitar or the Month page!!
Cheers!
Warni

[Johnbamb]

Hi,
Here is my newest guitar. I was lucky to grab a junior kit before they disappeared.

I put a bit of thought into this as i wanted a specific look and sound.
The body and head stock pre-drilled holes were filled in.
I put a maple veneer over the mahogany.
Finish is Crimson spirit stains and duplicolor topcoat.
I added a natural binding and stained that yellow.

I offset the vintage style locking tuners. Body contoured and neck pocket re-shaped. The neck is attached with machine bolts. Red shim is alder to change the action/break from the original wraparound bridge.

The new bridge is a Wilkinson string through matched with a polished bar string holder. Pickup is also Wilkinson through a 500k concentric pot. Orange drop cap give a really warm fat sound. Last touch was a 3 ply pick guard.

[Johnbamb]

[lunaticds]

Presenting.. a bass guitar... 65 million years in the making...
Stained with the blood of its prey.. the JurassicAxe Thunderaptor







This is my first kit build - a TB4, stained in Karijini red then coated in Tru Oil. Build started in August and finished early October.
This build is heavily upgraded from the original kit:
- Gotoh Machine heads
- Gotoh Black neck plate
- EMG 35HZ Pickups and electronics
- Babicz FCH Bridge
- Custom TR-IV truss rod cover (TB-4 didn't make sense on this build).
- DR Black Beauties strings
- Tusq nut (Bone just didn't look right)

I've never been a fan of Thunderbirds. I especially never really took to the pickguards. I decided to get as far away as possible from the traditional Thunderbird style - a single stained colour across the body rather than dual toned or burst and no pickguard. Initially I planned on a more traditional truss rod style and was going to make one, but decided that simple was better, and gave me more space on the headstock.
I also wanted to go with a single colour over everything. When I first started staining the body it was really quite an intense red and I decided that intensity made it interesting, so I went with it.

It's by no means worthy of competing against the other builds this month, but nothing ventured nothing gained..
There are plenty of things that are not quite right, but it was a learning experience and I've wound up with a bass that I enjoy playing and my silly aversion to Thunderbirds is gone (except for those pickguards).