ShortScale.org

I met up with teh Kurdtz today to ask about the guitar, and got more than I had expected. Being a portrait artist (and a very good one at that), he took the arty-farty route and had some fun with it.

The formerly-SBL Jagstang was partially damaged in a house fire, but that had almost nothing to do with what you see. He stripped the poly finish off by hand, sanded and dunked the hardware in bleach, burned the head stock, inked the fretboard, and applied a few coats of burnt ochre and burnt sienna (oil paint!) on the bare body plank. He finished it with a matte clearcoat, then proceeded to burn it in strageic places before reinstalling the electronics. The neck pickup deal was done locally for about $35 by a somewhat reluctant electronics guys, who tucked the p'up cover with 6 LEDs and a 9v-powered circuit that responds to dynamics (loud=bright). Kurt is gonna send me some better photos, as he said the above shots don't give a proper color representation of the paint applied. Hmm...

I'll post them when I get 'em.

EDIT: um...edited

So basically LEDs light up when you strum the chord? Super cool

Yay. I hung out with Kurt for the weekend and he opened the trunk yesterday to pull out Teh Burndtz for some real shots. Lighting was low (after 6pm), but for what it's worth, here you go.

We're gonna need video for the LEDs in the p/up, but tbh it looks bad to me. Like it was just fished out of the canal bad.

its so hilarious in a good way.

like ohh fuck i wonder if that thing even makes noise not plugged in.....and then when you do plug it in, its got modern fucking robot lights in it

The house fire that destroyed nearly all he had only heated up the guitar enough to taint the color of the pickguard, with additional burning done only on the lower bout and headstock to give some real charcoal action. He chiseled off the finish and left just a little bit on top, and used burnt sienna and burnt umber (not ochre) oil paints to color the body. The fretboard is indeed painted to show wear, and he intentionally doesn't oil the fretboard, adding to the cruddy rosewood effect. Take a look at the headstock though. I don't know what it was, but gunk apparently oozed out of them due to the heat from the house fire (visible on the A string machine head). And yeah, he did in fact have the whole thing disassembled before doing the work and kept the hardware in bleach for a few days to corrode it just enough.

What can I say? The dude's a portrait artist, and the savaged Stang was his canvas for a delightfully ugly face. I dig.

thats.... pretty badass. its cool as a symbolic piece. i would ditch the led's though.

I REALLY like that!!! Not so much the LED's maybe if they were red? Na, no led's

what a piece of awesome.

indeed.
thats b'dass.

It looks Burninated.