June GOTM

[Brendan]

June Guitar of the Month (for Guitars and Basses finished in May 2018)

Enter your finished guitar or bass here to be judged for the Pit Bull Guitars June 2018 Guitar of the Month.

Please remember:

For Guitars or Basses finished on (or before) the end of May 2018

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 June closes at the end of May 2018 (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!

[SamMoor]

So here's my Pitbull Guitar kit build. It is obviously a copy of that brand with an R that produced the legendary frying pan. I've wanted one of those (not the frying pan, the more common guitars) for a long time, but the originals are very expencive.
The kit did indeed contain everything needed apart from paint. However I was not happy with the tailpiece and the fact that that carved part of the body underneath the tailpiece is mahogany and therefore much darker than the top. I therefore went for a B-style tremolo which looks nicer than the included one, conceals most of the darker wood and is a cool Tremolo. I decided to go for the Guitarfetish Vintage X-Trem. I then added a wilkinson rollerbridge (had to fit dowels in the original bridgepost holes and drill new holes because the post distance is slightly different.
The pickups are also from Guitarfetish (minitron Liverpool), as well as the pots. The knobs and toggle switchare from Stewmac.
For the finish I used waterbased pigments, diluted with some water and applied them with a sponge. So the sunburst is basically a watercolours painting. I then appplied a waterbased Polyuretane finish, again with a sponge, in multiple layers. Turned out OK but definitely not as nice as if I could have sprayed it.

About the controls: I wanted the original 5 knob wiring with the blend knob. Once I was done with that and started trying the knobs I didn't like the way the blend knob works and changed the wiring so the 5th knob would funtion as a master volume. That is much better.
Finally the headstock: I changed the shape to a non symmetrical shape that is pretty close to the original. From an old piece of pickguard I made the big, white truss rod cover and engraved it. If you look properly you will notice that the writing is not only shaky and irregular, it is also not spelt like the real thing. Since the name giving founder of the company that makes the original was born in my home town in Switzerland I decided to spell his name like we pronounce it here. So no copyright infringement here. And now the pics.

[rook]

Stain looks great! Wow looks fantastic. You must be pleased.

[ChefBrianNYC]

For your consideration here is my first build...an HBB-5 semi hollow bass: The Rooster.

It's finished with ebony varathane sanded down to varying degrees and wipe on poly

Only mod is that it's wired in "stereo" where each pickup has its own channel. Like ric o sound but only the one jack. A simple adapter on the lead makes it a "regular" functioning bass if I choose.

All major parts stock except an allparts stereo jack and a Gibson 3 way switch I needed for it's 4th lug. I swapped out the cheapo pot metal screws where I could, replacing them with ones that had a patina that matched the guitar more.

I made the pick guard with the nifty stencil included in the kit as well as the switch plate. Rhythm and treble dont make sense to me...its either rhythm and lead or bass and treble...why the mixing? Now the world has its first rooster/hen pickup combo.

The inlays are stickers from Jockomo for $8 TRC without 2 screws because it's been a revolving door the last few days lol. And yes the strings are too short! (Still waiting on my set from pitbull that was missing from the kit)

It plays so much better than I expected it to. The pickups are hot and grindy, lacking a little punch...not the best for fingerstyle stuff but so perfect with a pick!

Doing a vid review/demo tomorrow cant wait to share it!

Thank you everyone for all the kind words and advice!!!!

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

[Andyxlh]

Well done, I really like both of these guitars!
The headstock and f hole decal I really love on the bass. Would love to hear how it sounds.
The trem on the R guitar looks good, nice sunburst too.

[ChefBrianNYC]

A video demo I hope doesn't detract points! Haha

https://youtu.be/l9Iq9LBJZJ4

[blinddrew]

Sounds pretty good to me.

[ChefBrianNYC]

Solo neck pickup is my least favorite and both together the preferred so far...there's still lots of playing to do though!

[nitroburner1000]

Whew, im finally finished, 14 months in the making and a brand new learning experience at every curve only smoothed over by this communities help, so A BIG THANKS GUYS.
Esp to...Weirdbits for the wiring help, Sonic Mountain and King casey for the headstock decal help, Simon for the technical detail, Wokkaboy, Dedman, Wazkelly, Frankenwashie, Chuck, Olisam, for the continued support, Zeromick for guidance, and all the others, you know who you are, without your help this project wouldnt be finished.

SPECS
As the JM-1 comes with a fender style bridge and is not setup for a jaguar bridge setup and tremolo assembly i had to custom route for the bridge and tremolo setup, custom make the pickguard from a blank.

This guitar is setup like a normal jaguar but with these differences.
The top horn switch in the up position activates the neck pickup with a separate volume and tone control set in the chrome addon.
When the switch is in the down position it activates the humbucker and the middle pickups with their separate bass, treble and volume knobs.
The difference her is that the lower 3 switches have been wired as 1) master volume 2) treble cut tone 3) bass cut tone. These are generally referred to as G&L Style PTB Tone Stacks. They have a very interesting sound.

The last 3 switches are on and off switches for the 3 pickups.

The body and headstock are finished in candy apple red with a 2k clear over the top. It has 4 primers, 3 silver basecoats, 3 cherry apple red coats, 2 clear coats, then 2 more cherry apple red coats finished with 4 coats of clear.

The headstock decal was redesigned by Sonic mountain, painted and applied by myself and coated with 6 coats of wipe on poly then polished.
Grover tuners, aftermarket knobs, and chrome accessories, and Warman pickups.

[nitroburner1000]

Some more...