Made around 1989
The story:
This is The "Bowling ball Telly" a project I worked on back around 1998 for a friend: Rob Bird. At the time he was the leader of Bonedust, not the more recent punk band from the west coast, but the Chicago based alternative rock band, and he was the only true member of the band, so in fact he was Bonedust in and of itself. He has an exceptional ear and plays guitar with great nuance, emphasis and ease. More recently he gave up the guitar and now plays ukelele going by the moniker Populele.
I did not build this guitar in its entirety, but I did make it into a superb instrument of exceptional quality and playability in my signature style, with exacting craft and smart technology. Before I get into the build, some history:
A few months after working for the Pumpkins, I got a job at Washburn Guitars in what they called "The Custom Shop" on Elston Ave. near Pulaski Road in Chicago. Rob Byrd who I had known for Years got hired some months later. At the time I started there Grover Jackson was the plant manager, and he was great, as were most people there, but the corporate management were terrible:
They made engineering decisions with no engineering experience what so ever, and against the engineers and Grover's recommendations. They bought up other companies in an effort to expand their product line, only to ruin them through mismanagement. Worst of all they treated their employees like dirt and blamed, even fired some of them for their own mistakes! They breached our contracts for profit sharing under the pretense of not having made a profit, when they were on the list of most profitable small businesses in Chicago at the time, as reported by the media, in the evening news.
In 1997 they hired the ex CEO of Saturn (the car company), in an effort to save the dying company and to fix what was not broken. He also knew nothing about guitars, or the clientele. Grover bailed out, and I was offered his position by the Saturn guy, but the corporate office refused to promote from within, and hired some one else who also knew nothing about guitars. Things only got worse and I bailed out too, and opened my own shop. The Saturn guy left a little later, and Washburn was to move to the far suburbs. Most of those who were left did not have cars, did not want to commute two hours to get to work or have to move, and requests for raises to accommodate were turned down. A lot of product went in the trash and out the back door with angry and disappointed employees during the move and closing. None of the stuff could ever compensate for the losses of those employees.
Rob set out to acquire as much of it as he could to make a complete instrument from the parts, by convincing those who had them, that they could not get a whole guitar out of a mere bridge or set of tuners. It would be like trying to build a car around a mere shift lever and a steering wheel.
One evening at Rob's apartment; I think it was his birthday, I saw his stash of parts and he told me how he was going to put them together. Knowing his level of skill and understanding of the procedure, I had to point out that he would never succeed, and offered to do it for a great price, as long as he told everyone interested who did the work, and to recommend me. One hand washes the other.
The build:
The mahogany body was a Washburn prototype finished by one of the major bowling ball companies, it was supposed to be destroyed, but made it out the back door in perfect condition. I fine sanded and oil finished the exposed wood in the neck joint and electronics cavity, to prevent drying, cracking or moisture from migrating into the wood; who else does that? I also lacquered the pickup routs in black to accent the black hardware and seal them too.
The Birdseye maple neck was one of the best looking pieces of wood I had ever seen in all the years I had worked at Washburn, but it was also the first time I ever saw it. It was slotted, but not fretted and was unfinished. It had cheap black plastic dot inlays, and the headstock was neither telly nor squire, but closer to the latter. I find both the squire and the Washburn headstock to be esthetically unpleasing, and Rob agreed. Since making it telly style would have required adding wood, I had to do something else and after toying around a little, the scalloped thing worked out best.
As far as the inlays are concerned: I got the material by cutting it out from underneath the neck plate, and was really careful to make the plate fit perfectly into the resulting recess, which I also oil finished. The stuff was so tough that I had to sharpen the blades frequently, and cutting it made my fingers hurt!
Because the material was really thin and sanding the inlays down to far could have had bad results, I had to level the fingerboard and make the recesses near perfect, and then level the fingerboard less than a hair more, before adding the jumbo stainless steel frets and leveling them very accurately, the only way to Eliminate fret buzz and get that super low action that so many players demand.
Lucky for me, the neck was slightly oversized and did not fit into the body, so I had room to make the perfect fit. Washburn's are normally the opposite, and I had to spend way too much time there matching necks to bodies with few good results, and was often ignored by the guy's in the wood shop to leave some extra meat on the necks. Last but not least, I shaped and burnished the back of the neck to harden up the surface and finished the whole thing in oil.
Since Rob only had mismatched hardware and some of it was missing, I went for the black on chrome scheme, which worked out well and looks good. Had I had another set of the same tuners in chrome I would have used the same scheme on them, but money was tight. The bridge is by Wilkinson as I recall, and of much higher quality and weight than those made by Fender. I tried to talk Rob into a black graphite nut, but his budget would nut allow it.
It has Seymour Duncan pickups, and in case You have not noticed, the controls are reversed, making it easier to control the volume mid song. It should have had a three way switch, but all Rob had was a four way (monster switch), so I wired it so that the two mid positions have both pickups on, but in and out of faze from each other.
The internet buzz on this guitar:
I searched the internet in June 2011 to see if I could locate some lost friends, and as I was popping names in the search box, it dawned on me that I should pop my own name in, just to see what I would find. I came across a post in a forum on thegearpage.net from April 1992 wherein someone had been looking for me. Here is the original post and some relevant threads, slightly edited to spare its authors from embarrassing spelling and grammatical errors:
wrxplayer:
Does anybody know how to find Baker Guitars? The website seems to be down. Thanks.
Responses to Finding Baker, then:
wrxplayer:
Perhaps I should provide more info. I just bought a guitar that I'm told was made by a guy named Bob English. At one time Bob had a repair shop in Chicago and toured with the Smashing Pumpkins as their guitar tech. I heard that Bob English is now part of the management team at the "new" Baker Guitars. I'm trying to find out if they're the same Bob English and if so would like to contact him and find out more info on my new guitar. Thanks for any relevant info.
Brockburst:
I am in Chicago and I think, but am not sure I know what guitar you are talking about... have any pics?
wrxplayer:
I'm told the guitar was built for Rob Byrd. Rob at that time was lead in a local Chicago band "Bonedust". Rob is currently producing pop tunes on the ukulele under the name Populele. Here's the pic. Is she it?
Bizzwriter:
Wow -- stunning guitar whoever built it!
Swimrunner:
Interesting scheme, very nice looking neck.
The next thread is from a good old friend and my room mate at the time of build. His call name on the gear page reveals his true identity to me. I had lost contact with him years ago, but he did not reply to the message I left him through the gear page.
Griffinity:
English Guitar... Yes, that was made by Bob, I watched him do it back in the day.
I had all but forgotten the bowling ball Telly in the turmoil of life, and had no pictures of it, as with most of my work from around that time. Needless to say I signed up to the forum, posted a reply and sent wrxplayer an invitation to contact me through the private message feature of the site. Then I saw the dates of the original postings and most of them were from 04/13/2009, It is now almost exactly four years later. I did not expect to hear from him after so long.
Much to my surprise wrxplayer got in touch with me the very next day, and I got right back to him with the story behind this strange instrument. He has furbished me with Pictures, making this document possible and I can not thank him enough for it. He had meanwhile sold it, but assured me that it was not that he did not like it, but that he sells most of his instruments after a few years, and buys another one that looks interesting.
I have never worked for Baker guitars, but Bob English is a very common name.
There was also a post from a few Years later on harmonycentral.com, when Wrxplayer decided to sell it, he wrote:
The guitar has a one piece mahogany body, birdseye maple neck (without any sticky finish), Seymour Duncan pickups, and Grover tuners. The neck is "C" shaped, I'd guess it has a 9.5" radius but I'm not sure, and has really nice looking inlays that match the finish. Some say it looks chunky in the pics. It's not a fatty neck. I'd call it "normal" (not big, not small). It also has Dunlop strap locks (and strap included) and jumbo frets with lots of life left.
Wrxplayer sold it for $740 but it is easily worth upward of $2,000.00, maybe more! After all, it is a true one of a kind, and the craftsmanship is exquisite.
One more thing:
If You are, or know the current owner of this guitar then You, He or She are welcome and strongly encouraged to contact me, as I would love to hear from You or them. Also, if You can get it to me (South Bend Indiana) I would love to Inlay my logo into the headstock (for free of course). I still have enough of the blue material set aside for just that purpose. I never got around to it back then because Rob Byrd needed it for a show, and it never made it back to me.