Gretsch Jupiter

[avengers63]

We all know I like the less conventional body shapes, so let's see what becomes of this.

Here we have the production model of the guitar Gretsch made for Bo Diddly (RIP). It's gone by various names: Billy Bo, Jupiter, and Thunderbird being the most common.

It has a mahogany body and neck, ebony fretboard, thumbnail markers, 2 TV Jones pups, and a very Gretsch-like control set with a clunky-seeming layout. The back & neck are painted black, the top is red.

The neck & headstock are bound in cream. The body is bound in cream/black/cream. The Tele jack cup was NOT what I was expecting. I suspect the original had a different plate, but that's just a guess. The back appears to have a pretty big round over.

I find it interesting that there appears to be a belly cut. I wouldn't have thought it would have been so. Then again Bo Diddly was never a small man, so it makes sense.

This one has been on the back burner on a very low heat for a number of months now. With all of my other projects now finished up (except for the Deco, which I swear is possessed with a demon of incompletion), it's time to pull this out and get to work.

[Ripthorn]

This should be fun to watch, since you have a way of putting a creative twist on whatever you take to. The Gretsch shape I want to build is the corvette. We'll see if I ever get to it, though. What are the finishing plans, etc.?

[avengers63]

That Corvette has a lot in common with the Rickenbacker 600.

[avengers63]

Here's teh first - and most noticeable - change...

....gold hardware.

Before my income went into the tank last month, I managed to pick up some Gretsch covered HBs. Clearly, they'll not sound the same as some TV Jones. The thing is, I can't afford $250 for a set of pups. I didn't want to put the effort I'll be putting into this thing and then drop some $20 imitations into it, so I went with some genuine Gretsch as the next best option.

You'll also notice the 1/4" plain maple top. I wanted some tonal balance to offset the mahogany body a bit. Not a noticeable change once the paint is on, but a change nonetheless.

The next change is the binding. Instead of cream, I'm going with black. 1) I think this will look better with the red top & gold hardware. 2) I'm leaving the back of the body & neck natural, so the black binding will still show up. I've also put a red pinstripe between the black & headstock/fretboard. This draws color from the body paint and continues the colors in the body binding.

For the inlays, I tried a product called Inlace. It worked well enough, but I don't think it was really intended for areas this large. Either that or I haven't totally figured it out yet.

Instead of ebony, I went with a cocobolo fretboard. I had this blank sitting around for over a year, waiting for the right guitar to put it on. I wanted something bore high end, considering what coco looks like. This project is perfect because of the thumbnail markers.

The neck wood is another change. I've wanted to make a rosewood neck for a long time, so this one became chechen. Nothing major to show on that one just yet. The wood has darkened a bit, so it's not as pretty as I'd like it to be when I show it to you.

[Ripthorn]

I did something like inlace on one of my builds (just epoxy with stuff mixed in) and quite liked the results. Inlace is used a lot in turnings and is sometimes used to fill burl voids while adding color and such, so I think it can handle thumbnail markers no problem. This should be a fun build.

[avengers63]

I needed to do the binding before I did any top routing. What I wanted to do was the neck pocket, but because of the odd shape, the neck pup needed to be placed first. And to do that right, I needed the binding in place.

The only ting set in stone was multi-ply, black on the outside, and red on the inside somewhere. I didn't have very mych thin plastic binding left, so I had to be careful with it's usage. I have some b/w/b fiber, but it doesn't bend around tight corners well. In the end, I finally landed on B/w/r/w/b. This really made the red pinstripe pop out.

Now, if you look at this picture again, you'll see the sharp interior angle.

There's no way in he11 I'll ever attempt to buff out an inside corner like that, so the original plan was to round it over. Then I saw other pics revealing that the area IS curved. The binding has the sharp corner, but the area behind it is filled in with binding and rounded off. Killer! So...... I needed to chisel out the area after the initial routing of the binding channel.

I actually did the binding in three stages. I laminated with acetone a b/w strip for the innermost part and a r/w for outside that. The thick black outside that was it's own section. The inside b/w was super-glued on first. To that, I laminated the r/w to it with acetone. That was a LOT easier than super glue! The outside black still needed to be glued in, but doing it in sections worked out a LOT better than in thicker chunks. I learned that from the mirrored Iceman.

Here's a section that I scraped smooth....

...and here's the whole thing.

Still pretty rough, but it's supposed to be rough at this stage.

[avengers63]

This is all I've been able to get done since Sunday: routing the pups & drilling for the bridge/tailpiece. It's been a pretty busy week for me, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up until next week.

[avengers63]

bump - update coming soon

[avengers63]

Controls drilled, cavities routed, and back rounded over. The cavities are a little rough, but it'll all be under the covers, so I' don't really care.

You'll notice the hole right below the pups. This is a recess for the pickguard-mounted master volume pot.

[avengers63]

All drilled, routed, shaped, and sanded. I'm right at the lip of being ready to start finishing the body - just a couple of touch-ups to do first.

I bought some Behlen's nitro & vinyl sealer. I need to experiment with the sealer/finish and the red paint before going off half-cocked.

[avengers63]

And now the the labor intensive part of the neck is done.

I wasn't quite sure how the maple accent on the heel was going to turn out. I'm pretty satisfied with it.

[RestorationAD]

This is shaping up to be a very nice guitar... I feel some Diddley vibe.

I like the heal detail.

So why does it look like it has a flat spot right before the headstock?

[avengers63]

So why does it look like it has a flat spot right before the headstock?

got me

That's where the scarf joint is on the back of the neck. I probably did a little extra sanding there and didn't realize it.

[brian d]

Isn't that a special feature... the "first position thumb rest"™ pat. pend. etc. :-)

[Stewey]

I do like the look of that maple heel.

[Osorio]

I do like the look of that maple heel.

I do too, it gives a hot-rod look.

[avengers63]

No pictures, just an update. I buffed the neck up to 4000 grit and soaked it in linseed oil. I might put the decal on the headstock and put some more lacquer on it today. Or maybe not.

The body has some sealer on the face. It's all paint-prep.

[avengers63]

I did the paint test. Both the vinyl sealer and the nitro ate the paint. crap

[avengers63]

PAINT!!!!

Here it is after painting. I laid about 8-10 mist coats, then sanded it smooth with 220 and gave it another few coats to even everything back up. It's a pretty bold red, but the florescent lighting is making it look orange.

And let me testify..... scraping the paint from the bindings without scraping off any from the body is really hard! There will be touch-ups.

[Osorio]

I love to do this scraping work, the job reveals itselfs.

Nice job!!

[WezV]

it looks vermillion - which sounds much cooler than orange

[avengers63]

As long as we don't venture into pumpkin, spice, or something like that, we can keep the man cards.

[avengers63]

I'm finally spraying the w/b poly. Another few weeks (or months factoring in procrastination) and she'll finally be done.

[avengers63]

I should have all of the finish sprayed this week. Then it sits for a week or two, depending on my level of procrastination. It should be done by Halloween.

[avengers63]

I got it all buffed out and polished up over the last couple of days. I also got use of SWMBOs camera until I can get another for myself, so I can finally do some updates.

I'll most likely be doing the assembly this evening and starting the wiring tomorrow morning.