Bedlam Guitars

07/05/2026

The painting frenzy in the workshop continues while the weather is good! This time we've got a hybrid - a T-shape body, routed for S-type pickups and hardware. Ash body, and my own take on the vintage 'Butterscotch Blonde', which wasn't actually a colour in its own right. The originals in the '50s were a pale cream colour, and the lacquer topcoat turned yellow with age to give the butterscotch colour we are used to now.

The lacquer isn't completely opaque, and I allowed the grain of the ash to show through, as on the originals.

This will be getting a plain black pickguard, vintage tremolo, and the maple-board neck I carved last week. That has a '54 T-style neck shape, and I'm quite excited to get this one finished.

07/05/2026

If I've done this right, I should now have an Instagram account, here:

0 Followers, 0 Following, 4 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from John Roberts ()

01/05/2026

Sun's out - Gun's out!

The paint spray gun, that is. Perfect weather to try a 3-colour burst on an ash S-type body. Never done one before, and I think it came out OK. If you're wondering about the green bits, I originally painted the body a translucent green and it looked rubbish, so I stripped it. I couldn't be bothered stripping inside the cavities (ooeer) as they will be hidden when the guitar is finished.

Ash has a very pronounced grain pattern, and this one was too nice to cover up. I enhanced it by using a contrasting grain filler, then applied an overall coat of translucent yellow (which I forgot to photograph), then a burst of red. It looked pretty cool at that point, but 2-colour bursts like that look better on a Lester. An S-type should have a proper 60s 3-colour burst, so I applied a light border of Tint Black.

A small bug landed on the wet lacquer near the forearm chamfer. I'm afraid he's not going to make it, but the paint is going to be OK once it's cut back.

28/04/2026

A busy couple of days in the workshop, and we have two bodies and two necks grain-filled and sprayed with the first coat of sanding sealer.

That's almost five years of work at my usual rate...

25/04/2026

I often get asked if I made the guitars I show on my FB profile. Actually, the question is more like, "YOU, made THAT? REALLY?!", in a rather incredulous voice. I don't know why that is. Apparently I don't look like someone who can make things. That's a bit depressing, given that I spent ten years of my life building jet engines for aircraft. While it wasn't actually rocket science, it's about as close as most people will get. If I can do that, why is it so hard for people to believe I can make a guitar out of bits of wood?

Anyhoo. The actual answer is, "mostly". I build as much as I can, or as much as makes economic sense. Sometimes I might get a really good deal on a pre-cut body, and I picked up a load of ready-made necks a while ago for very cheap price.

'Partscasters' made out of bought-in components are fun and a good way to get a nice-quality guitar without spending silly money, but I firmly believe that you have to carve the neck if you're going to claim that you made the guitar.

This week's mission is to finish carving the necks for some guitars I threw together to demonstrate my pickups. To get them up and running I used bought-in necks, but now it's time to replace those with ones I made.

Just to prove I've made at least one neck, here's a bunch of photos of me doing it yesterday afternoon.

25/04/2026

Another Partscaster, this time built as a replica of the one used by Judas Priest's Glenn Tipton in the 70s. I'll get some better photos of this one after I make a new pickguard - the blank sheet I used for this one had a scratch on the inside that I didn't notice until I installed it. It isn't quite finished in these photos - it has three control k***s now!

Pickups are a pair of my 'Comets', and are very close in specification to the ones in Tipton's guitar. I used a Kahler tremolo like the original, but instead of the locking nut I used locking tuners and a low-friction nut.

I didn't make the neck or body for this guitar, although I did paint and lacquer both with traditional nitro-cellulose.

This was built as a demo guitar for a show, but I might be open to selling it once it's completely finished and set up properly. I already have several twin-humbucker guitars in my collection, so this one is spare. I'm supposed to be reducing my collection, not growing it. I'm also supposed to be running a business, so I can't keep all the stock for myself!

25/04/2026

A 'quick build' Partscaster, assembled to demonstrate my own pickups for a guitar show. We've got Early 60s pickups in the neck and middle, and '68 T-Style bridge pickup in an S-Type cover at the bridge. We didn't make it to the show this time, but the guitar is ready for the next one.

I didn't make the body for this one - I got a ridiculously good deal on a pre-cut alder blank - but I did add the forearm and ribcage chamfers, and paint the body in Surf Green Nitro-Cellulose. The neck - complete with colour-matched headstock - is all me but I'm not happy with the way the strings come off the nut at a slight angle, so I might revisit that. Fingerboard is a Rosewood substitute called Sundari, which was an interesting alternative while rosewood was on the CITES register, but I don't think I'll use it again. I've got plenty of Asian rosewood in stock, and rosewood has been de-listed.

The rest of the guitar is fairly standard S-specification, but in a T-style body. I wasn't going to get too attached to this one, but it's awesome! Definitely a keeper.

24/04/2026

I completely forgot I hadn't uploaded any pictures of the finished 'Dusty' guitar, so here they are. I should really have taken some proper studio shots of it before I handed it over to its owner - my brother, Pete - but these will do for now.

I originally built this one back in the late 1990s, to Pete's specifications. This was before the Internet, and I was stationed about 500 miles from where Pete lived, so we posted a piece of paper (which I still have) back and forth until we had agreed on the shape. It was supposed to be a dyed 'whale blue' colour, but I hadn't really mastered the skills at the time, and it came out a really dark green which didn't show off the grain very well.

Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy to source decent timber for necks as it is now, and the piece I was sent turned out to be rubbish. We didn't know that at the time, but not long after it was finished, the neck bowed and twisted. Eventually it got so bad it was unplayable, so we decided to rebuild it using as much of the original as possible, correcting some mistakes, and adding some of the features I didn't know how to to do when I first built the guitar.

In the years since I built this guitar, I've levelled up several times and now have the skills to fit a 5-way switch into a solid wood top, and to spray a proper sunburst finish.

Everything you see here is entirely hand-made by me, apart from the metal hardware. The body is solid ash, chambered to reduce weight, with a 1/8" solid maple top. No veneer in 'ere. The neck is maple, hand-carved to Pete's specification, with a zebrano fingerboard, bound in matching zebrano to hide the fret ends. I also wound the pickups, the neck and middle being my Early 60s vintage-authentic spec, and the bridge custom wound to suit the guitar, although we may revisit that. It overwhelms the single-coils a bit so we might try something with a bit less welly.

The rebuild was a fairly massive job, involving removing the fingerboard, re-flattening the neck, replacing the truss rod with a dual-action one, installing and fretting a new fingerboard, and completely rebuilding the headstock. And refinishing it - all done in-house. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. It doesn't just look pretty, it actually works the way it was originally supposed to.

If you are in the West Midlands and have a guitar which need some attention - from string changes through to headstock repairs, refrets and even neck replacement, have a word with Andy at https://www.facebook.com/andynevillesguitarworkshop and he will sort you out. My own, hand-made pickups are also available exclusively from him.

16/03/2026

'What made up words do you use in your family?' - 23 incredibly wholesome examples of everyday gobbledegook👇

23/04/2025

Another example of the work I often get from Andy Neville's Guitar Workshop. This time I'm adding a neck and middle pickup to an EVH Frankenstrat body. The owner supplied a pickguard for S/S/H layout, but wanted all three cavities large enough to accommodate humbuckers, as he's already got a few guitars I've adapted to three humbucker format.

Because it's a replica of Eddie Van Halen's guitar, the body came with a huge cavity rather crudely cut out for the bridge humbucker. I reshaped this, added a couple more cavities and painted it all with conductive paint. I'm assuming Andy had the fun job of putting it all back together and wiring it up, but I haven't actually seen it yet!