Kickstarter!

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SULLY GUITARS IS ON KICKSTARTER! 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968033833/sully-guitars-workshop-upgrade

Over the years, I've invested thousands of dollars into tools and materials, and I've been able to build some fantastic instruments with basic entry level tools. 
 


If you've been a fan for long, you've no doubt watched Sully Guitars grow, and it's been incredibly validating to have many of you along with me; from simply watching a video, to taking a class, to ordering a guitar of your own, I could never be building guitars full time without your support. 

Please check out my Kickstarter and become a backer; 2015 is going to have a LOT of great things, and I cannot WAIT to share what's on the horizon with you!

A long overdue update!

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Wow, a lot has happened since our last update. Lots of fun stuff, and some sad stuff, but if you're ready to read, I'm ready to drag you through it.

Shop updates

In dire need of a re-org, I spun the shop counterclockwise 90 degrees, made some mobile tool stands, bought a cool old drill press, a new planer, and I made a sweet 3 piece neck-blank-smasher-togetherer kinda thing. Oh. I also added the ever important beer bottle opener to the bench. I like it; it has a nice message. Who knows, maybe I'll hire him for some PR work in the future.

 

Finished '71 prototype number dos

Yep. It's done (okay, I gotta make a truss rod cover, but close enough). Mahogany body and neck, maple cap, kickass honeyburst in an even cooler burst pattern (thanks to Stike at Rowyco Kustoms in NC) Tone Pros wraparound bridge (LOVE IT!), and some KILLER pickups from Habanero Guitar Parts (a subsidiary of Grover Jackson's GJ2 company). There's a Habanero Classic in the neck position, and a yet-to-be-named model in the bridge position that I'm testing out. It's wound a little hotter than the Habanero Classic (which is generally around 8-9k) and not as hot as a Habanero Spicy (generally around 16-17k). I wonder if I can get them to call it the Habanero "That Sully Really Loves." I'm guessing not, but I'll ask.  Anyway, this one is a screamer like it's sibling. And yes...numero trois is underway. It'll have a mix of what I like most about each of the first two. Makes sense, eh?

 

 


John Corabi acoustic

Mrs. Sully and I caught John Corabi's show at Trees in Dallas; what a great show. Along with material from The Scream, Motley Crue, and Union, he did his killer cover of Aerosmith's "Seasons of Wither" which happens to be the greatest song ever written. By anyone. We got to chat a bit after the show and geeked out about how much we love Aerosmith. Super nice guy, super great show.  

A surprise from Dee J Nelson and Andee Blacksugar

Andee Blacksugar is currently touring the world as Peter Murphy's guitarist, and when the tour landed in Chicago, he and Dee J Nelson got to hang out and have a blast. I got to chat with them a bit via Face Time, and it was a lot of fun. I really hope that they'll get to record something again in the near future.  Andee got to check out Dee J's Sullys (a Galaxy V and his newer 624T), and he really loved the 624T. There's a '92 in the works for Andee, so I'll have to remember the awesomeness that I put into the 624T!  

The Peter Murphy LION tour came through Dallas on the 30th, so Mrs. Sully and went, had a great time, and got to hang out with Andee after the show. A ton of fun, for sure.

Rest in peace, Aslan

And the sad stuff. We recently had to help end the suffering of one of my greyhounds, Aslan. He was just short of his 14th birthday (most greys live to about 12), and his arthritis was finally getting the better of him. He was the happiest guy ever, and never met a stranger. He was at his best when we had a house full of people; he'd go see everyone and work the room so well that sometimes we'd call him The Mayor. He's definitely missed, not just by me, but by his other greyhound companion, Nico. She's having a hard time without him, and I guess that means we'll find her a pal soon. 

Oh yeah...guitars! 

There will be some stuff finished up and outta here in the very near future. There's a white 624 that was just buffed out as of this writing, a mahogany 624 that just got a really killer red dye applied to it (it looks like red velvet cake in person), a neck thru Galaxy V that's about to get it's finish applied, a CRAZY topped purple catfish that's about to be buffed out, and oh man...soooo many many more. There are a bunch of guitars in the build channel, so you'll be seeing a lot of new stuff soon!


New dates announced for guitar building classes!

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Ahhh yes, my dear, at long last, fortune has smiled upon you!

Come take a class with your ol' pal Sully! You've seen the videos and pictures from the classes, and let's face it,  you want to come to Sullyville, build a guitar, and have some tacos. Come gain some experience, and have a great time! It's like guitar fantasy camp, but you don't have to pay five grand to say hi to Paul Stanley.

So without further yammering on, I'm happy to announce the next batch of dates.

Spend some quality time with ol' raspy!

September:
Neck building class - September 5-7 ONE SPOT LEFT!
Body building class - September 13-14 ONE SPOT LEFT!
Complete build class - September 22-27

October:
Body building class - October 4-5
Neck building class - October 10-12
Complete build class - October 20-25

November: TBD
Classes are small and sell out quickly, so get in touch to reserve your spot! 

Logo fest, GoPro test, and all the rest!

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Yep, ol' Sully's been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Let's start with some headstock logoing, shall we? Yep. 

Let's logo some headstocks!

Five headstocks, two with binding (the white one has ivoroid binding and hard to see in the pic), one gold logo, one black, three silver. Oh, and I had to clear coat the plum crazy painted truss rod cover, too. I also figured that it'd be a good time to test out the GoPro camera and you can watch it all happen. 

Since you no doubt enjoyed the music (a collaboration between Dee J Nelson and Andee Blacksugar), get it here!

Taco shirt order update

To those who signed up for the pre-order of the Guitar Building Academy/Taco Appreciation Society t-shirts, thank you for your patience! The first batch of shirts had some printing issues, and the replacement batch should be arriving this week. Thanks again for hanging in there.  

Sending the Plum Crazy big rock machine home

Yep, this little dude is done and will be going to its owner very soon! 

Want one like it? Well, send me a quote request and treat yo self!


That's it for now, time to get the shop ready for a neck building class this weekend!


Movin' along, singin' a song, gettin' shit done.

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Hey kids!

Getting a little paint work done before the next building class starts; this time, I'm shootin' headstocks. One of the cool things about using masks for logos is that you can paint them whatever color you want. In this case, I went gold. We have one headstock painted Plum Crazy, while the other is just clearcoat over ebony. MMMMMMMMMM ebony goodness. I love ebony. 

After I applied the stencil and mummified the necks, I got shooting. Truth be told, the gold logo on the purple wasn't my favorite, so I sanded it back and reshot the purple. I followed it up with a black logo, which looked wayyyy better. Once the headstock was cleared and buffed, I decided to paint the truss rod cover to match; why not? It's already got a painted switch tip, so there's some consistency, which is cool. Really happy with how that turned out, and that one should be going to its owner shortly. The gold logo over ebony was one of those that came together effortlessly; gotta love when that happens! 

As you can see, there are five more necks whose headstocks have been primered; lather, rinse, repeat!

Sometimes reminders can be very helpful!

Sometimes reminders can be very helpful!

 

What a week!

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So here's what's new:

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Shirts

I figured that I'd throw together a design for the students in the building courses, but with the response that its received, they just MIGHT be available to everyone. However, if I open up the gates, students will get theirs free of charge. 

Everyone knows that ol' Sully prefers his meals in a tortilla and that a taco is never really far from his mind. So why not give a taco shoutout on a shirt? Exactly. 

Want one? Of course you do. Details to follow.

Road trip!

Took a little jaunt up to Tulsa, OK to hang out with my pal Pete (Sully Guitars VP of Electronics Engineering). We wired up the plum crazy Catfish, checked out Jake E. Lee's new band, Red Dragon Cartel at a private event for Lava Cable, and if that wasn't enough, we shot a demo video for the '71. Oh! I also recorded a cover of Calling Dr. Love with the '71; replacing all of the guitar parts with my own.

If you're going to wire up a purple guitar, and you have purple wire available to you, you'd kinda be an ass not to use it, right? Right. We also got crazy and grabbed some green wire and made an output jack braid with a nod to the clown prince of Gotham City, The Joker. 

So all that's left to do for this one is to paint the headstock, dress the frets, and send it to its owner. Good times!

Red Dragon Cartel - Lava Cable Anniversary event

To celebrate their 10th anniversary, Lava Cable brought Red Dragon Cartel - Jake E. Lee's new band for a show and a Q&A with Jake. Jake has been one of my favorite guitar players since I was 13, and I was psyched. Pete and I were right at the stage and I got some shots.

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The band played a short set, but man, they were killer. Go get their record if you haven't already. Go on, I'll wait. 

In hopes of getting a chance to meet Jake at the event, I brought one of my only non-Sully guitars; my custom shop Charvel that was as close to Jake's original Whitey as Charvel would allow at the time. Jake chatted with me about the guitar, and how he likes to have his pickguards laid out. He signed the back of the headstock and Pete took the pic. 

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Calling Dr. Sully

After the gig, Pete had an idea; "Hey Sully, you wanna record something with the '71? I've got a ton of songs broken into stem files......."  He had Calling Dr. Love (one of my favorite KISS tracks), which I was happy to record, so we fired up his Kemper Profiling Amp, and we were off. Take a listen, won't you? Gene, Paul, and Peter are still on there, but that's ol' Sully playing the part of Ace (...well, and Paul's guitar, too).  I do have to say that hearing my guitar tracks mixed in along with the original tracks makes 8-year-old-Sully pretty freekin' happy.

More videos? Jeez Sully, did you sleep? 

Yep, I filmed a demo of the '71 prototype, and I've got a bunch of video to edit. Stay tuned! Here are a couple of pics from the shoot (starring a portion of Pete's Wall of Amps). 

Oh, I also did a demo video for Panama Guitars - they're the makers of the white cabinets that you see in the pics. They're made of tonewoods and sound pretty bitchin!

Wrap it up, Wordy Mc Worderstone!

So yeah, that was most of my week. I'll work on getting the '71 demo video edited as well as part 2 of Dee J's 624 T demo. And y'know....finish up some guitars, too. I just gotta get over the cold from hell. ugh.

Build updates

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Hey kids!

This super sweet plum crazy metallic Catfish is almost done. I started the assembly and strung it up over the weekend to test it out real quick, and it's one super loud guitar! It's gonna sound great plugged in, I'm sure. It'll be wired up this week, then disassembled so I can paint the headstock. Once that's done, it's outta here and off to its new home. It's fun to watch these little rock machines leave the nest.

As if one purple catfish wasn't enough, there's a second one that's getting close to being finished. That one still has a fair amount of work to do, but I figured you'd dig some progress pics. Who doesn't dig progress pics? Jerks, that's who. 

Videos...?

As some may have noticed, there haven't been many build related videos as of late. That's because I'm saving that for something rather special that will be announced in the next month or so.

However....

I'm heading up to Tulsa, OK to visit my pal (and Sully Guitars VP of electronics engineering) Pete this week. Pete has a ridiculous amp collection and we'll be doing a demo of the Sully 71 prototype. We're also going to go see Jake E. Lee's new band, Red Dragon Cartel, so that'll be pretty sweet. Anyway, look for the '71 demo video in about a week or so. 

...and then?

Besides those two purple lovelies above, there are a couple of 624s that are just about complete, so stay tuned for that!

...and thennnnn?



Uncle Sully's Kickass Guitar Building and Taco Appreciation Academy (USKGBaTAA for short)

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Want to have a fun guitar building experience with your ol' pal Sully? Hell yes you do! Especially now, when a new class has been announced! So stroll over to the Building Courses page and get in touch! 

Another weekend comes to a close and another guitar building course is complete! Steve and Chris came to Sullyville and made themselves a kickass 624 body to take home with them. We had a blast, for sure!

“Yeah, great, Sully, but I’m sick of seeing other people have fun doing this. How can I get in on this awesomeness?!?!?!”
— You
“Don’t hate; participate! Come sign up for the 4/26-4/27 class!!!”
— Sully

Look at all the fun you could be having!