NTL shop happenings 12/28 - 12/29

[Jeff R]

Murkat took in my two ESPs for some TLCs this past weekend. The cool part is they were hand-delivered (!) and Vonnie and I got to spend the weekend with Jay and Judy at their little farmhouse in the rolling (and snowing) hills of middle Tennessee. Fun, fun, times - they are great folks.

We did some fun stuff around Nashville, some tourist, some local, but most of the time was Murkat and I pushing the guitar modification envelope at his workbench. I came in with some wild ideas to ubersuper my superstrats. Jay both made them happen and implemented a few of his own mojostrokes from the trick bag, that he felt would make me shine more as a player.

Nice before-and-after photos of Murkat's handywork soon to come. I'll let him post the photos and some of the general details.

[Jeff R]

Teaser photo. Me, Von and Jay outside the historic Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry. We tried to get in and start up a little jam session but they saw our Floyd Roses and pointy headstocks and told us to get the hell out immediately.

[Jeff R]

Teaser 2.0 ... Jay took us to the coolest pool hall in Nashville. It was basement level and had just the right mix of dim lighting, cheap drinks and tobacco smoke to make it a great pool hall. Here I am responding to Jay and Von's doubt that I could make that hard cut into the corner pocket. FYI, the stacked empty kegs behind me? Yeah, south Louisiana in the house.

[murkat]

Who am I to sat no to a good time and guitar related stuff?

Jeff thought that the Duncan JB sounded good in his camo esp....

During friday night, hours after there arrival and several courtesy shots of Jagermeister,

I got out the solder gun and installed the last avail Murkatized wcr special...

I think Jeff piddled with a chessire cat grin...

Then He wanted to take it even farther....

[murkat]

Then there's the 48th street.

wow. dibs.

but...

after the camo got the murkat transplant and A/B ing against the two ESP's

Was decided to relieve the duncan custom from its duties in the 48th,

replaced with a more vintage, time period correct double cream Duncan JBJ from my private stash, murkatized as well

But... same as the last attempt to leave things as simple as possible,

The rajin cajin had to add more to the already please lets just leave it alone 48th.....

In between surgeries, Jeff laid down some ponderings on the Bengal

[Jeff R]

Okay, serious note:

Jay put one of his personal murkat-wind WCR Floyd specific pickups in my blue camo - he kinda figured out that's my baby so he took care of her.

I can not begin to describe how much definition it brought out in the guitar. In a word ... huge. Vonnie even remarked today as I was playing around the house that the guitar sound coming out of the amp is 3D. This is an unbelieably good, thick and balanced pickup. Just be on your game because it's unforgiving

Then, the 48th ... Dearest Jay coughed up one of his prized early 80s double creme Duncan JB pickups for my 48th Street strat, saying "it deserves it." How's that for cool? It gets better ...

The "new" old double-creme JB took the shrill off the maple but "kept" the maple zing if that makes sense, and just made the thing simply fucking sing.

Oh yeah, that's after Jay buffed and polished the neck and did a light fret level and clean up (holy shit he's so fucking good at that) and hit the body and even the pickguard with the whiffer wheels to make the finished guitar look as good as it sounds. The 20-plus year old black pickguard looks brand new.

Man, Jay, good job and thank thank thank you again. You are the man.

** now post the REAL pics of what we did to the guitars LOL **