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Showing posts from February, 2026

"The Truckster" - A CBG for the Versatile Player (Personal Build) - The "OG"

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  Okay, okay, okay...I've shown you a couple of customer builds based on "The Truckster", my own personal vibrato-equipped hotrod, but you haven't really gotten a good look at the OG yet. Well, here it is! This is one I built for myself, as something to show off and freak people out when I do the hired-gun or fill-in gigs. After all, what's a better way to demonstrate my builds than to play them myself??? Much like "The Goose" that I built specifically for use in W4WVK , I made this with some elements in common with my SG guitars, and instead of the proprietary "bass" pickup needed for when I'm handling those split guitar/bass parts in "the VK", this one has a normal humbucker in the neck. Coil-splitting on each volume for the two humbuckers (via push-pull pots), and a master tone control, plus a volume control for the hidden piezo discs that can get a cool lo-fi acoustic-y sound.  Where I used a short Maestro style vibrola on The...

Oliva 135th Ann - O135GTHT "Gold Truckster Hardtail" - Custom Order

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  "Tay"-k 2? Tay liked his golden-hardware-equipped Truckster so much that he ordered a second immediately. This one he was sharing with his uncle, and was to be a hardtail version, but otherwise the same instrument. What an awesome nephew, right??? So I basically built a clone of Tay's, just with a Wilkinson top-loader "Strat"-style bridge instead of the tune-o-matic bridge and vibrato tailpiece.  Like with Tay's vibrato-equipped model, the "HT" still features a pair of Firebird-style pickups (with independent volumes, master tone and a 3-way switch) plus a hidden piezo disc with a volume control for the nasty lo-fi old-school CBG tones. As you can see, it turned out very nice, with all the same tones and playability as the previous one. I have to say, while I personally have never been a huge fan of gold hardware, it seems to really work on these, giving them an elevated classiness that just "pops".  The neck features matching gold spli...

Oliva 135th Ann. - O135GT "Gold Truckster" - Custom Order

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  When my buddy Tay saw pictures of my "Truckster" build (I'll share that one with you guys later, it's pretty badass, if I do say so myself), I was asked if I could do a similar one, but with gold hardware. I figured, "why not?"  So I got to looking for some gold parts (some were easy to get, others had to come from specialty locations), but I wanted it to be as close as possible in overall makeup to mine.  From the knobs to the strap buttons to the corner protectors to the finishing washers, I wanted to make this "pop".  I did choose for this one to have one of my "regular" necks instead of the 3-on-a-side headstock like mine, just for consistency with some of my other builds that have started making their way into players' hands, and this one features matching gold split-shaft vintage-style tuners and string trees. A pair of Firebird-style pickups (with independent volumes, master tone and a 3-way switch), a roller-saddle bridge an...