Check out my Garbagecaster

[Regis]

Check out my guitar I got out of a trashcan, I call it my "Garbagecaster".

I used to have a redneck family live next door to me. Eventually they moved out (Thank God) and left a mountain of trash by the street for the city to haul away. I was going out to my car one day and shaking my head at it when I noticed the headstock of a guitar sticking out of a trash can. I pulled it out and it was in pretty rough shape, see the picture.

It started life as a three pickup Yamaha with a cheap Floyd Rose knockoff. There was a dent in the side of the neck and half the bridge was missing, it had sharpie marks all over it. I was going to part it out but after looking at it I decided to rebuild it. I took it to my friend Danny who filled in the routing for the tremolo, and it was he who decided to paint it gold.

I then took it to my guitar fixit guy Kerry who installed a hardtail bridge and shaved where the neck meets the body to decrease the angle for the new bridge.

Then it was my turn, Danny designed a pickguard for me and I cut it and cut the holes for the pickups, then wired it up. I bought a cheap Strat pickup and a cheap P90 off Fleabay, both alnico, and wired it like a two pickup Gibson. I need to get a creme colored pickup cover for the P90.

I have about $90 into it.

I was fair surprised at how it played and sounded. The neck is different from what I am used to, it's a real flat radius, but it plays real nice and those cheap pickups sound pretty damn good. The pics are from a birthday party jam I hosted last Saturday at my house.

The links:

Before
After
Guitar face: Inspiration, not Constipation

[tuberattler]

Ya gotta love it when it's on the cheap, those are fairly nice playin' guitars but you're gonna have to learn to keep that headstock nice & sharp..real pointy!!

Cool find, I like the gold color..rock on!!

[Don Symes]

Nicely done!

My trashpile find was a Viellette-Citron bass (a low-end model, sadly) in playable condition, but I had to sell it soon after.

[Regis]

Thanks, Don. Not quite up to John Fishers level where he takes junk found on the side of the road and builds master quality instruments, but it's a lot better guitar than I expected.

I have an old Peavey guitar I am going to do the same thing to. Gotta figure out what pickup configuration to put in it.

I've been wanting to experiment with winding my own pickups, and I bought an old sewing machine in a thrift store. I have a couple of junk humbuckers I can use for parts.

[bob p]

Nice dumpster dive! I think it would only be fitting if you could play your dumpster dive guitar thorough my dumpster dive amp:

Garbage Amp

I saved the amp from the garbage while I was helping to clean up at a Senior Citizens center. It had been set aside and forgotten in a boiler room for many years because it was making horrible noises. All that I had to do to fix it was to remove a knob and tighten up the nut on one of the volume controls so that the pot would stay grounded to the chassis. The tubes are all original Silvertone branded. The output tubes are RCAs. Not sure about the preamp tubes, though.

[Regis]

That is so cool, Bob!!!

I am more of an amp guy than a guitar guy, I wish I could have that kind of luck. Finding cool amps for little or no money is damn difficult these days, people put them on Fleabay and try to get stupid money for them no matter what kind of junk it is.

[bob p]

yeah, it was cool to get the amp, but it was pretty darned ugly when i got it. it was sitting on a shelf in a boiler room, and the plaster ceiling had been flaking apart for years. the amp was caked with 20-30 years of accumulated dust and plaster and it looked just awful. we were clearing everything out of the boiler room after a pipe had broken and everything was going out into the alley. i asked if i could have the amp and they were glad to see me take it. sometimes it pays to be a volunteer.

the photos that i posted are "after" photos that i took after i had cleaned it up. i didn't think about taking a set of "before" photos, but if you can imagine, the entire amp was covered with 20-30 years of dust and had damp plaster caked all over it. i had to chip globs of plaster off of the knobs which are still stained. i used some stainless steel cleaner on the faceplate and inadvertently removed some lettering. i used laundry soap and a soft brush on the tolex and i was surprised that the tolex came out as good as it did.

the good news is that even after setting in a boiler room for 20+ years, the amp didn't require any parts to be serviced or replaced. it sill has the original "world" brand 'lytic caps. i haven't even tried to put it on a scope or take measurements. the amp sounds fine (in the Silvertone dark sort of way), so i haven't spent any time tinkering inside. the wiring is all PTP.

chassis pics

my only regret was that the 2x12 cabinet with the ceramic Jensens was nowhere to be found. believe me, i looked all over for it. if i had to guess, the original owner kept the speaker cabinet and trashed the amp head because it was making alot of noise. i orginally thought it had shorted tubes. i have to admit, the volume control wasn't the first place that i looked for the shorting sounds. i discovered that by accident.

although i'm glad to have found the amp, i think i must have used up my allocation of luck in finding it. i guess i can give up all hope of ever finding that old plexi that's sitting in the corner of a boiler room somewhere...

[Regis]

So how does that amp sound, Bob? I've heard conflicting reports. Some say it sounds like ass, others say it's a monster blues machine. I've wanted one for a while, but complete rigs with speaker cab and amp, unmodded, go for stupid money.

[tboy]

I really dig the way you have the jack plate mounted, Reej. Great idea!

Originally Posted by Regis

I took it to my friend Danny who filled in the routing for the tremolo...

What did he use to fill the hole? I have a messed-up Ibanez V I'd like to convert to hardtail.

[Regis]

Originally Posted by tboy

I really dig the way you have the jack plate mounted, Reej. Great idea!What did he use to fill the hole? I have a messed-up Ibanez V I'd like to convert to hardtail.

I wasn't there when he did it, but basically he cut the hole out to an easy shape, then cut a piece of wood to fit, then just glued it in. He filled the depressions with wood filler then sanded it down flush. The reason there is a brass plate underneath the bridge is that when I took it to my guitar guy Kerry to mount it, he said the wood was too soft for the screws to bite into. The brass plate gives it something to bite into. Danny disagrees, he said he used hardwood for the filler wood so whatever.

I mounted a creme cover on the p90 and cut a truss rod cover tonight, it's finally finished. I'll post some more pics when I get a chance. I gotta say, a dremel tool made this project a lot easier. It would have taken a lot more time and work without it.

[madialex]

Cool Guitar, I'm kinda likin the wallpaper you have on the computer myself.

[Regis]

Originally Posted by madialex

Cool Guitar, I'm kinda likin the wallpaper you have on the computer myself.

A Les Paul, a Strat, and a Junior on the left and a girlie pic on the right and what does he notice?

It's not just wallpaper, it's a screensaver. You should have seen the married guys crowding around the monitor when it kicked in.