Yet Another Jimmy Page Dragon Tele Build

[EyeOfZorro]

Ok, so here goes. First off I'd like to give a big shout out to all the Dragon build threads and their posters over the past few years that have inspired me, the_best_of_fools, FabGear, Tom Ferrington, Don Mare and many more that contributed their knowledge about Mr. Jimmy "Myth" Page's gear.

I was born in 1968 and my Dad saw Zeppelin on my birthday at MSG in 1977 and didn't take me. But I most likely was at home in front of his record player flipping through his albums like the little brother in Almost Famous anyway.

As that kid... my ultimate guitar fantasy was to play the solo to Stairway to heaven live at Madison Square Garden. Stairway was the first song I ever worked out on acoustic with a Tab book and I've had the fantasy my entire life. I only recently found out as an adult pouring through message boards that he actually recorded it in the studio with a Telecaster, through a Supro. Hence the wish to want one.

But it's become more than that. Once again Jimmy has teased me with Myth. What amp did he use? What was inside that Tone Bender? Did he even use the Tone Bender on Stairway? What was that painted on the guitar? Is that really a dragon head? Why exactly did he paint it brown? Was that lame story about someone else painting it really True? What was that under the pick guard? Was Mylar even around in 1967? What Crowley Spell did he cast right before playing the solo?

I'm not a luthier, I'm not a graphics person and I know less about guitar finishing. But I am under a spell...

And after chasing down many people for this project, many who even considered it have told me as long as I like their templates they'ld do it for me but after review, I've found myself wanting to change and tweek things, so I've decided I needed to do this myself. I just had a Fender Electric XII project completed by an amazing guitar finish guy Pat Wilkins and after seeing what he pulled off I could never imagine attempting to do a complete strip and 3 tone burst project on a Leo classic like that. When it was done I asked if he like to help me on my Dragon build and he shy'd away from this project saying it was out of his comfort zone and after talking to others who other these project guitars as commissions, I've found them to look too new and glossy for my tastes. Also at this point I've blown my budget and a custom paint job is out of the question.

And Jimmy's actual guitar... I would imagine, would probably look like if I were hired to paint it, NOT so glossy and perfect. So here goes....

[EyeOfZorro]

Here are my base assumptions on what he had...
1) A stock 1959 Fender Telecaster body, Neck Pickups and Tone Controls.
2) Stripped Paint with some sort of Shellac coating.
3) Humbrol Enamel Paints for model trains etc.
4) Home made clear pick guard with some rainbow reflective mylar material under neath.
5) Crazy light strings....

[paulvcarter]

I have never heard any info on the neck - We know Jimmy loved the neck most about the guitar and that he saved it and put it on the rosewood tele with B bender.

Does anyone know what the neck was like? Judging what Jimmy has said about some of his other favorite guitars the neck is likely small possibly round C

[EyeOfZorro]

What I've assembled....

1) Neck: Made custom for me by Bernie Hefner's shop. Rosewood Slab, over Maple. Thin D-Shape, Clay Dots with wide spacing at 12, no skunkstripe on back, Truss rod at heel. 7.25 radius. Not Flat like I've heard page do and with 6130 Medium Jumbo frets that are Stainless steel for Bending. I'm gonna bend this **** out of these frets and I wanted the frets hard and a good radius. I disagree with Page that you need to fight with the Telecaster. I went with a vintage yellow satin finish, no logo on the headstock and one string tree.

2) The Body is swamp Ash and made by Warmoth. I went with their standard Vintage Tele with a grain pattern as close as I could find to Jimmy's where his shows through.

3) Pickups are by Don Mare. His Graf Airships
With: 5.7 Bridge (Staggered AlNiCo 5 Bridge)
& 6.5 Neck AlNiCo 3 to "...simulate a highly degaussed AlNiCo 5 that was
found on the original."
I may change my mind and get the Live 6.6 Bridge but still thinking about it.

4) RS Guitarworks Control prewired kit with Luxe .1ufd/150vdc (ZNW1P1 Chiclet) capacitor. Just ordered the other paper in Oil REPRO Cornell-Dubilier .05ufd/150vdc Luxe ZYW1S5 Tubular cap to complete the so called Dark Circuit that was standard in a 59 telecaster.

5) Repro Ashtray bridge that I will have to drill to make into a Top loader.

6) Gotoh Vintage style Locking tuners. (You know he would have too. ;-))

7) Various other screws and jack cups, strap buttons etc.

8) A Brown pho Alligator (Dragon) Skin tweed style G&G Case with Green poodle interior.

9) 29" Violin bow & Repro ACE cathedral pattern strap.

[spook777]

Sounds cool...document the process if you can.

I googled and found a few reads for you:
http://www.marshallforum.com/guitars...ter-build.html

http://www.led-zeppelin.org/joomla/s...-live-gear/210

I think the hardest thing aside from recreating the painting, is finding the exact metal pickguard material. This guy makes the pickguards and from the first link it looks like that guy use aluminum foil and a clear pickguard.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PAGE-TELE-PI...item5641cfacf3. I've bought stuff from this guy and his stuff is pretty good and he'll do any pickup configuration and any material. Maybe he'll have some metallic material that's close.

[EyeOfZorro]

Here are the parts:

[EyeOfZorro]

Here is the rainbow mylar material I'm going with for the pickguard.
It has two sides this is the crazy bright side. The other side has the same rainbow reflection abilities but a little duller. Going to try both under a clear guard and play with cloudy glue like frosting techniques and surface sticky stuff to get the releif patterns I think match Jimmy's. I think the crumpled foil techniques have been way off the mark.
[IMG][/IMG]

[EyeOfZorro]

Thanks spook777! I found a guy out of Florida with WD Custom Pickguards who said he has a template ready and is sending me a stencil to review.

[EyeOfZorro]

[EyeOfZorro]

Working on the pick guard tracing tonight. Want to make sure the neck pocket is tight and the control plate doesn't sit on top of guard. Want to get the top side arch to come down even with bridge pickup height screw. On Jimmy's guard this top side is also a little bit lower than typical tele guards and uneven with the edge below the control plate. I often see these edges even with each other on peoples Dragon projects and this looks wrong to me. This tracing is gonna need some more work till its right.

[Berndizzle440]

This is a really sweet build! I think its awesome that people wanna recreate jimmys tele that not so many people even know he played one :) and I want that tone bender sooooo bad!!!!! ;)

[Rockdog]

Subscribed!

[EyeOfZorro]

FYI...That Tone Bender is NOT a JMI build. It was custom built by Nick Williams in the UK. http://www.williamsaudio.co.uk/
I bought an empty JMI case on Ebay and he built the circuit around 3 Vintage Mullard OC81D's and good quality guts. At a fraction the cost of D.A.M. (both time & money) or JMI. To my ear its the bomb! But the test will be... The Dragon Tele through the pedal into a Supro.

[EyeOfZorro]

Here's the shot of the inside.

Here's close up of the Tranny's.

[EyeOfZorro]

I don't mean to go off topic but The MKII Tone Bender was an extension of the Dragon Tele... ;-)

[EyeOfZorro]

Here's a close up of the neck that Bernie Hefner's shop cut for me.

[Manolete]

This looks amazing. I concur with your comment on pickguards, some people make them with tinfoil under the plastic and it doesn't look right. Oddly, Jimmy's looks burned in the videos, and it looks like the red 'dragon' paint also leaches under the plastic as well. Quite a bizarre finish, but I guess it flashed the stage lights around and such.

[MonkeyKing]

How is the B. Hefner neck? I was thinking about one, but got scared off by the other threads. BTW this is an awesome project you got going!

[EyeOfZorro]

Here's the straight deal on Bernie. The neck is killer! I love it. But again I've haven't played it yet and real test will be the set up. The Indian Rosewood is beautiful and the satin feel on the back is exactly what I wanted. I gave him very specific specs and at the time (D-Shape, Clay Dots space wide, No Skunk, Medium Jumbo frets, Stainless Steel etc) and he even dressed them and leveled them.

Here's the downside. He took 4 months longer to get it to me. And he wasn't cheap.
I've heard from someone that knows him, that he is really a shop of 1 and that explains the time and cost thing. If you want a good priced neck that will arrive on time I'ld hunt around. If you want a good neck Bernie's your guy.

[EyeOfZorro]

Here's a close up of the Don Mare Graf Airship Studio set.