Well it was a pretty long journey to this guitar. It all started because of a single P90 pickup. That sparked a guitar build project that took on a life of it’s own. Here is a journal of how this guitar was conceived and created:

01-27-2012 06:24 PM
1 LP Body, 3 P90s and a Bigsby

The “Black Chromey” with humbuckers

The Gold Top Humbuggy option:

Flat Black

Flat Black w/Pinstripes

02-10-2012 12:33 AM
I have decided the Gibson ’60′s Tribute had everything I want – flat laquer black paint, chambered body, routed for two P90s, perfect candidate for a Bigsby and Vibramate and it’s a real Les Paul! I purchased one site unseen from a shop off the web and I’m hoping for the best!

03-04-2012 03:00 PM
So The Bigsby is done.
I ebonzied the neck to get it closer to the black body.
I ground down a mexican peso until it was thin enough to work as a poker chip.
Next week I’m supposed to get my dogear routes. I may go soapbar is the dog ears are going to be a pain to adjust but I love the look of dogears.
Some photos (the peso pic is before i dyed the neck)….

Pained the Bigsby red:

My mock up with dogears:

After I ebonized the fret board to get the neck to be as black as the body:

My Peso poker chip. This was a coin my Dad brought back from one of his many Mexico trips:

[hr]
Also – I was wanting some silver/chrome for the poker chip and could not see paying someone $15 for a chrome washer. After I had the peso idea I was on ebay and it hit me that after my Dad died I found a bag of coins in his closet. I dug it out and found a nice peso in there. So now there is part of my Dad in the guitar. Nice.

03-05-2012 10:49 AM
Pickups
I’m pretty firm on going with the VintageVibe P90s set of three. I like the whole magnet concept:

03-07-2012 02:18 PM
Routing the LP
Where it’s at! So I dropped her off at Glasers today. 3 soapbars coming up. About to order the Vintagevibeguitars p90s.

I just got back from Glasers Instruments – the best luthiers in Nashville! They said it would be 2 weeks but it was only one day. The only thing left is for my VintageVibe Guitars P90s to show up. I’m going to bolt on the Bigsby and start the wiring this weekend.

03-09-2012 12:55 PM
Nick from Glasers did the routing:

The LP with the P90 covers slid in. I had to route the existing holes corner radius for the non Gibson P90s to fit:

There is no sign for Glasers but the mailbox gave them away:

Wiring (Les Paul, 3 P90s, 6 way rotary switch from Stewmac, push pull pots:
So Deaf Eddie came through again! I know I like P90s but I have never had 3 to play with before. Deaf Eddie hooked me up again! Go check out his site. Here is the schematic:

and here is what it does ala Deaf Eddie:
PULL the bridge volume, and it puts the bridge pup out of phase. This will affect throws 2, 3, & 4, you can make them spikey and/or sweet, but also nasally and thin, DEPENDING on how you balance the volume of the bridge pup with the other volumes. Lots of tonal variations here from working the volume knobs.

PULL the tone control, and it puts the bridge pup in series with the neck pup. This is a “brute force” tone (usually). This will affect throws 1 and 2, and the series combo should be BIG and FAT, and probably a tad louder – some players think they hear a little high-end rolloff, but it’s just the bass coming on gangbusters. A side effect of series combos is that the bridge pup will “disappear” from throws 3 and 4, as it is shunted by the presence of the neck pup.

PULL BOTH, and the bridge is in series/out of phase with the neck pup. On almost all the axes I have – single coil or humbucker – throw 1 will be a stinging solo voice, and I like it a lot. Sounds best with some overdrive/crunch. Throw 2 will be a tad mellower, and the other four throws will again be missing the bridge pup.

The red chicken head will point down at the neck pickup. With this wiring here is how that works ala Deaf Eddie:
“the sweep is all on the “neck” side of the arc, with “up” as the neck and go clockwise “down” as the bridge”

03-10-2012 10:48 AM
I put the Bigsby on and the knobs just to see how she looked. I think the Bigsby bar looks better than the Chet bar but I have found a Bigsby with Chet bar is a lot more controllable for me. It comes close to Strat trem with the Chet bar. The Chat bar also stays in the perfect place for me. I don’t have to go hunting for it when I need it.

03-15-2012 10:02 AM
1. She looks killer!
2. For the first time ever I got the wiring right on my first try! (I had one ground that popped off but after a resolder all was good!)
3. Where the Gibson P90s were like, “that sounds pretty good!”, the VintageVibeGuitars.com P90s were like, “WOW!”
4. I got to play it for a while with some throw away strings and now it’s off to my friend and luthier JFK at Virginias Music Center. He is going to make sure the frets are good and round them off, do a setup and make her right.
5. I’m going with .10s

I should have her back tonight!

Changes – The volumes are dependent so I think I will rewire it to be independent this weekend.

To do:
If I can bring myself to do it it still needs to be pinstriped but man it’s looking good the way it is!

(She isn’t fully put back together in this photo but she is fully functional!)

03-25-2012 12:41 AM
She is finished just in time for guitar night. The only thing left are the pinstripes and I’m going to have to warm into that idea. I like so much right now I don’t think I can stripe it just yet!

It was passed around quite a bit at my guitar pull last night and even the guys that didn’t want to like it ended up playing it for a long time. The chambered body of the ’60′s Tribute seems to really add to the tonal characteristic of the guitar. You can almost get an acoustic sound out of it but it will also get severely gnarly as well. I was afraid after all the thought, time and money I put in the guitar I might end up not liking it but man do I love it. The action is also great – super fast. The B70 with Chat bar is also very smooth and responsive. And totally by accident the balance is perfect. I don’t know the actual weight but after adding the extra p90 and Bigsby it is still lighter than my Epiphone Pro FX but now feels substantial like an LP should. My luthier commented that the combo of the chambered body and the Bigsby somehow really opened up the sound. Audio clips soon but today I have to do my first mow of the season!

So my wife’s Dad was running around back in the 60s with a guitar and head full of songs. In the late 90′s he would visit us in Nashville and hang with our song writer/guitar picking friends. Nashville can be a hard place to hold your ground in that world sometimes but he always fit right in. He did this great version of St. James Infirmary Blues. After he passed away last year I really wanted to learn it. This weekend I was working on it and then remembered I had a recording of him singing and playing it. I ran his version through the PA and started playing behind the song on my Les Paul. After a few notes I got the chills. Then I realized I had to record it. It was like playing guitar with him again.
This is for Ang and her Dad…

So I’m in the middle of my Les Paul ’60s Tribute build. I have gutted the guitar and I’m working on what I want to do to her. Since the LP is flat black I have to work some red in there. Today I took on the project of painting the black part of a Bigsby B7 red. Good news, it looks just as badass as it it sounds!!!

Here is what I did:
First I tried to do it with One Shot enamel and my squirrel hair pinstriping brush. That did not work. I found a can of red spray craft paint that worked with metal and applied light coats.

Here are some photos from the paint process…

Then I hit it with my head gun and sprayed it again. I put on four coats. My Bigsby cut out left a lot of black around he letters so I shot some of the spray paint into a plastic cup and then got my pinstriping brush out and painted around the Bigsby logo until it was pretty perfect. I’m excited that it came out so nice.

I started rewiring my guitars years ago. Getting into a guitar and changing it to my specs and needs is always interesting and the rewards are pretty high. My last nightmare wiring job was my Les Paul. I wanted the Jimmy Page wiring and finally got it going. Not too long ago Acme Guitar Works came out with the new ToneShaper for the Les Paul. I had to have it and here is why. When you wire a guitar there are a lot of options you can choose from – vintage wiring, modern wiring, different pots, different capacitors, etc. These decisions have to be made before you wire the guitar. Every option changes the tone of your guitar. Of couse the goal is to hit that tone that you are looking for and the thing to remember is we are all usually looking for a different tone. If you didn’t like what you heard it was time to open up the guitar cavity and rewire – new pots, caps, etc. TONESHAPER TO THE RESCUE!

Prior to the ToneShaper it was almost impossible and a huge chore to A/B the different tones you could get with different wiring options. Not so with the ToneShaper. They sent me a unit to evaluate and install into my number Les Paul. The beauty with the ToneShaper is that you can flip a few mini switches and A/B everything. Vintage vs. modern? Not a problem, just flip some mini switches and in seconds you can hear both. Need a treble kit with your modern wiring? Just flip a switch. Want to see what pots work best with your pickup? That is simple and fast as well. My humbucker was a four wire so with an push/pull pot I can now go from humbucking to series or parallel. Too damn cool! The install was a breeze and man it’s cool to be able to listen to all the tonal options the ToneShaper has to offer.

I shot two videos of the Tone Shaper for the Les Paul. One is for the install:

The other video demonstrates to the ToneShaper.

I hope these help explain how the ToneShaper works and thanks to Acme for the demo unit. My Les Paul loves it and so do I!!

Captain Beefheart’s Ten Commandments For Guitarists:

1. LISTEN TO THE BIRDS That’s where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren’t going anywhere.
2. YOUR GUITAR IS NOT REALLY A GUITAR Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you’re good, you’ll land a big one.
3. PRACTICE IN FRONT OF A BUSH Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn’t shake, eat another piece of bread.
4. WALK WITH THE DEVIL Old delta blues players referred to amplifiers as the “devil box.” And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you’re bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts demons and devils. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
5. IF YOU’RE GUILTY OF THINKING, YOU’RE OUT If your brain is part of the process, you’re missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.
6. NEVER POINT YOUR GUITAR AT ANYONE Your instrument has more power than lightning. Just hit a big chord, then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.
7. ALWAYS CARRY YOUR CHURCH KEY You must carry your key and use it when called upon. That’s your part of the bargain. Like One String Sam. He was a Detroit street musician in the fifties who played a homemade instrument. His song “I Need A Hundred Dollars” is warm pie. Another church key holder is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty making you want to look up her dress to see how he’s doing it.
8. DON’T WIPE THE SWEAT OFF YOUR INSTRUMENT You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.
9. KEEP YOUR GUITAR IN A DARK PLACE When you’re not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don’t play your guitar for more than a day, be sure to put a saucer of water in with it.
10. YOU GOTTA HAVE A HOOD FOR YOUR ENGINE Wear a hat when you play and keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house the hot air can’t escape. Even a lima bean has to have a wet paper towel around it to make it grow.

By Don Van Filet/Capt. Beefheart

I was in my local music store World Music Nashville a while back and ran into JFK. JFK was doing a fret job on two guitars that belong to Eddie Perez. Eddie currently plays for Dwight Yoakam and has also played with The Mavericks. JFK was telling me how low of an action he was getting with his fret job technique. Enough from me, lets hear from JFK about the whole thing…

I have a thing for surfy, spaghetti type guitar playing. Maybe it was my western fixation as a kid in Texas. My Gretsch was built to sound nice and twangy for that very reason. So in the spirit of that I did my version of Link Wray’s Apache. Who is Link Wray? Why he’s just the guy that invented the fuzz/distortion sound and the barre chord. I think of Link as a big old cinder block in the foundation of rock. I also have a nice dirty Texas blues song call “Sloe Gin Blues”. Please play them, download them and enjoy them. If you like them please sign up as a fan so you can see what else blows out of my head and on to the strings!

LINK TO BILLY HELL MUSIC:
http://www.reverbnation.com/billyhell

LINK TO “APACHE”:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_6601717

LINK TO “SLOE GIN BLUES”:
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_6451515

If the question is, “Billy will you try to do as many things as possible to one guitar as you can?” then the answer would have to be Hell yes. I can’t really stop myself and I enjoy it so why should I? When looking for wiring schemes for my Les Paul Plustop Pro/FX I found out that the Jimmy Page wiring scheme is the most complicated and that was all it took. While rewiring a guitar can seem intimidating it really isn’t. It’s just a bunch of wires and all you have to do is make them look like the wires in the picture. Sure you need to know how to solder but that isn’t very hard either. Making your wiring look pretty…now that is hard, and while I have done it a few times usually it looks more like multicolored spaghetti and I’m fine with that as long as my guitar works when I’m done. After my initial attempt I decided the tone knob wasn’t working for my Pearly Gates Neck pickup. I took a look and realized I had left out the Russian oil and paper tone capacitor. I popped that on and BAM! All was well. The only issue I’m having now is I don’t seem to have control of both volumes when I have both pickups running at once. I’m going to dive back in and see which wires might crossed. Other than that I’m really digging the Jimmy Page wiring. there are tons of tonal options (22) and while tonal options can lead to you doing nothing but fiddling with your knobs I still think more options are better than less.

A big thanks to Deaf Eddie and his schematic I used:
http://www.deaf-eddie.net/drawings/jp-lp.jpg

Every year I make a show in Columbus, Ohio. This year I didn’t go. No big deal right? Not according to this video!