Pictures!

[John Lyons]

Here is a guitar I just finished covering for a guy in Western Diamondback Rattlesnake skin. Go ebay!
It's a 90's Carvin guitar. I painted the white EMGs and refinished the neck as well.
Getting the color texture and pattern of the skins to match and flow well was a BITCH!
I put about 15 coats of polyurathane and laquer over it as well.
As you can see it's snowing here. Putting on laquer coats in 15 degree weather is fun!
Poly is much easier (less smelly)  to spray in the workshop...only 35 degrees in there!
My favorite part is the striped tail section on the back.

John

[Izzy]

It's a 90's Carvin guitar.

You Mean Charvel?

Charvel Model 6?

[jonathan perez]

John, you never cease to amaze!

[rockgardenlove]

TBH it looks pretty hideous if you ask me...good job nonetheless though.

[QSQCaito]

 

HOw did you get that guitar finish so tidy and nice, 11/10.

Altough i wouldn't do that, its absolutely amazing.
BTW, does it affects sound?


Bye bye

cheers

DAC

[petemoore]

  Looks cool, and like it's had it's last molting season!

[g.]

vintage Heat Machine / half modular :
inside : triwave picogenerator + ben's dual tone generator + green ringer

Hi, thank for you reply
It's an old french portable heater from the 50's.

[phaseman]

  I'm out of words!!!! Even though I personally don't like the idea of a "snake(sh)" guitar, the work it self is waaaay beautiful!!!!



   

[John Lyons]

 It's A Carvin for sure. Usa made guitar, not sure they get out of the US much....
It took a lot of time with a razor knife and glue to get the pieces feathered in to make the surface smooth and look continuous.
The striped look is from the bottom of the snakes "beely" where the skin is a lighter color. The back of the guitar shows more of the patchwork. I was starting to run out of material to work with...I tried to keep the top more uniform since you see it all the time.
The fun part is picking off loose scales and getting it smooth but not sanding off the color and down to bare wood. After the fifrst couple coats of finish the scales were very sharp, like covering your guitar with 30 grit sandpaper!

It may effect the sound slightly but the neck is the main resonating object and I removed the paint and took it down to bare wood. Then added a thin coat of poly and sanded back to a satin finish, smooth!

Hideous? Well you may or may not like it but it's surely unique, I dig the color. The guitar is for someone else, they just asked me to do it.

John

[chaddhamilton]

John,  I think it's kickass.  how many hours for that one??

Chadd

[KerryF]

TBH it looks pretty hideous if you ask me...good job nonetheless though.

Well you can have your opinion but I think it looks sick! 

[oldrocker]

My wife has a snake phobia so this would be a good way to stop her from touching my guitar.   Nice job there John.  Is there any top coat over the skin like clear poly or anything?

[Cliff Schecht]

How do you like the Kahler tremolo on that Carvin?

[markm]

Nice job on that Snakeskin Guit John! 

[oldrocker]

Hey Cliff,  I added an old Kahler to my old Flying V and it's great.  Much better than the old bridge I had on there.  The action is smooth and got lucky with the intonation.  It stays in tune great and I can whammy that bar down to the strings sticking on the PU magnets and it boucnes right back.  It works better than the orginal setup on the Randy Rhodes Formula copy it was mounted on originally.  I know most people don't like the old Kahler Flyers but I love mine.

[John Lyons]

I've never owned a kahler before (this ones not my guitar) but I really like the feel of this tremolo. It's supper smooth and well made. Comes back to tune all the time and has all sorts of adjustments. String spacing, intonation, Spring tension, Temolo Arm swing tension, height, top loading strings, fine tuners...

Oldrocker, Yes many coats of poly on this guy. Then a few coats satin laquer to dull down the sheen.

I probably spent 5 hours just putting on the snake skin. Then you figure stripping the guitar, sanding, refinishing the neck, and many coats of finish, painting the Pickups, wiring, and putting it backs together, intonation, and setup...jeez, maybe I should have charged more!

John

[tungngruv]

That's killer John! Reminds me of Warren de Martini from Ratt. I guess the next question is how long before the snakeskin pedal?

[John Lyons]

Not long to wait at all tony!

I have this one built but not occupied yet.
Still needs to be "sealed" and then it will get more golden and darker toned.





Then I have the one on my site covered in python skin...



I guess you could say that these "go to 11" because they are real snake skin...but yeah! Ratt could have used something like this. 

John

[cloudscapes]

Those snakeskin enclosures are insane!
A pedal I finished several days ago:



Transformer/diode based ringmod. Carrier can be either the internal carrier synth (dual 14106 with cutoff filter) or external source, switchable by stomp. The thing has changed a bit since the photo was taken. The external carrier dongle was removed and I stuck a 1/4" jack on the upper-left corner. Input preamp can be switchable with the little toggle hanging out the bottom. I'll eventually build a better revision to put it in a better place! It's a very dirty-sounding ringmod! It's fien for the type of music I do, but my next ones will be a bit cleaner I'm hoping. Right now using 10k:10k transformers from smallbear. I'll try others eventually.



Enclosure is 4.5x3.5x1.25-ish. Coated it in navy blue, drilled, printed a design, then caked the whole thing in about 15 layers of clearcoat!

[jlullo]

I was down in the basement today, messing with my fuzz face, when i realized i never posted pictures of my Ross Compressor!

Here it is: