handmade backporch music makers
Here are some of the new amps. Prices range from $70 to $100. The catch is they’re only available at the table. You will need to come down to either of the two shows this upcoming weekend!
One Holiday Bazaar Friday, November 30, 2012 from 12:00pm until 7:00pm at Selkirk Montessori 2970 Jutland Rd.
and
The Owl Designer Fair Friday, November 30, 2012 at 6:00pm until December 1 at 6:00pm
1240 Gladstone Ave Fernwood NRG Community Centre
This minimalist guitar has a sweet tone and decent volume. A fully-fretted maple neck gives you an octave and a half worth of frets (such a deal!). A piezo pickup allows for amplification and its neck-through-body design makes this a backpackers dream. There’s just enough height in the action for slide playing as well.
This was the only guitar to make it back alive from the pre-christmas feeding frenzy that was the Owl Designer Fair. It is truly a survivor. Over 20 of its companions were taken prisoner, to be played in basements, at BBQ’s, and put on display like display-things…
This fine little instrument weighs in at around 10 lbs! A zombie-clubbing axe with a walnut neck, oak fingerboard and various bits and bobs of metal including the one-of-a-kind aluminum truss & ring bridge (guaranteed to transfer AT LEAST 45% of the string vibrations to the body. But what the hell, it’s an electric!).
It was purchased this past weekend to be shipped overseas on a clandestine mission to some undisclosed nordic country, to woo fair-haired Scandinavian blues-lovers.
I found this old Alberta Springs “Oldtime Canadian Sipping Whiskey” box at a thrift store. It was well worn: a bit rough around the edges. I also had in my possession a fine old bottle opener with the stamped lettering of “T.S.F.M. Caswell’s Saskatoon” which seems to be a clothing retailer (possibly defunct) in that fine city. They were a perfect fit. A bit foothills, a bit prairie, a bit provincial, but all business.
I originally made this one a 2-string thing, but added an extra string and it made a hufge difference in sound and playability. It’s fretted up like a dulcimer. It has a little bit of purpleheart wood for a bridge and an old square nail from my turn-on-the-century house for a nut. The neck is oak, rife with tool marks and treated with my home-brewed oxidized iron dip, finished with a couple of coats of oil.
This is a great conversation piece, and when the conversation goes flat you can play some old-timey mountain tunes on this prairie-born instrument.
Here are two new amplifiers waiting for pickup. Antiqued boxes finished with amber shellac house a hand-wired solid-state amplifier circuit. One of the amps has a “variable bass port” tone control consisting of a hole and swiveling ladybug applique (only the most hi-tech gadgets here)!
The speaker covers are antique samples from a wire mesh distributor in Vancouver. The speakers are 20 or 25W and come from a set of bookshelf stereo speakers.
This smoking beauty is built in a large Don Tomas box and has a nice loud sound and great sustain.
It features a burnt mahogany and aluminum bridge and nut ( aluminum salvaged from a chain link fence stiffener bar), a mystery mahogany neck with fret makers cut into the surface and filled with glitter.
