GALLERY: Show Us Your Gear

"Richardson built this amp from a kit from AX84.com. He mounted in an old tool box, which s pictured with the face on and off."

"Stevens converted this Bogen PA into a single-channel Marshall-style 18-watt combo with a single 12AX7 and two ECL86 tubes for about 13 watts of output. He built the enclosure to mimic the two-tone blue cosmetics of vintage '70s Univox ""Group B"" amplifiers. The cab houses a Celestion Classic Lead 80 and a Weber Mini-MASS attenuator. He says, ""With humbuckers, it sounds very Zep-ish, but I usually use it for my '80s new wave thang."" "

"Scrase's DIY overdrive pedal has Level, Tone, and Red and Blue gain knobs. The pedal's glowing LED border changes colors based on which gain setting is active. "

Csencsits built this amp project with a cigar box. He has since turned the build into a class at his studio to teach other guitar players.

Jim Blackwell's Unconventional Instruments

"Blackwell built the hollowbody guitar on the left with a very thin, unbraced top. It is designed so the bridge and strings only interact with the center block and back. The Tele-style on the right is filled with concrete (as pictured). ""9.5 pounds and sustain for days,"" he says."

"Ralph was inspired by seeing Les Claypool solo and built upon the Whamola concept. He stripped the pickup, volume, and tone knobs from a ""pawn store P-bass knock-off"" and bought the rest at Ace Hardware. The wooden bore is a pine wheelbarrow handle shaved into shape and stained. The instrument has two stand-up bass strings to facilitate tuning to different intervals, and he added a hump-fret at the second octave, ""for some higher frequency mischief."" He adds, ""the sustain on this puppy is outrageous!"""

"Kerwood built these two Strat-style guitars with his dad. The red burst on the left was their first project built from a Warmoth body and neck, Schaller locking tuners, EMG humbuckers, a 3-way switch, Volume, and Tone controls, Wilkinson tremolo, and a custom tremolo cover and neck plate. The second guitar was built from a Warmoth body and Warmoth pro neck, Sperzel locking tuners, noice-cancelling Strat pickups from Guitar Fetish, Wilkinson tremolo, and custom neck plate."

"Jackson hand-made this guitar in 2004, shaping the body, curly maple top, and headstock, though the neck was pre-made. He used Rickenbacker single-coils and pearl-capped knobs. ""This thing plays like a dream,"" he says."

"Coplan built this gorgeous acoustic in his one-bedroom apartment from a StewMac 000 kit with Sitka spruce top and rosewood back and sides. He says he built 95 percent of it himself, with help on finish and setup from Mike Peters. The artwork was done by Marielle Seastrom. ""This is the first guitar I've ever built, and as expected there are a few flaws, but it turned out so much better than I expected and sounds fantastic,"" he says."

"Wanamaker his acoustic in fall 2010 under the guidance of Dave Nichols of Custom Pearl Inlay. It's modeled after a Martin 00 model with a spruce top, mahogany back and sides, and ebony fretboard. The abalone inlay was cut by hand and set himself. He says, ""The guitar has a beautifully rich sounding low and middle range and is terrific for noodling and songwriting. Itуs the first and only instrument I built to date, but itуs the only acoustic guitar I play now."""

"Pepka brought this badly-treated '62 Gretsch back to life with a hand-carved maple top and custom finish. The headstock was re-done with a hand-painted logo, ebony overlay, and mother-of-pearl inlay."

"Austrian reader PJ sent in photos of this guitar he built in the summer of 2009. ""I developed the concept, did all the 1:1 plan drawings, and most of the work,"" he explains. The guitar has since been signed by his heroes Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, joe Satriani, Steve Hunter, Michael Lee Firkins, and Richie Kotzen."

"Ruhs built these two amp heads from Ted Weber designs. The top amp is an 18-watt tube head in ""official"" 1969 purple. It has a treble, mid, bass mod and changes in the tone section to reduce noise and woofy bass. He says, ""It has a surprisingly good clean sound and the TMB channel sounds best cranked. Goes from AC/DC to some metal with a hotter pickup."" The bottom amp is a since-channel Java 40-watt head, which is supposed to be a variant on a Trainwreck Express, though he has changed the tone stack values to be closer to a JCM800. ""This one is a pretty bright amp,"" he says, ""so I have a three-way switch in the back to offer different levels of trimming a little high-end."" "

"Built or customized all of the instruments in this photo. The aqua guitar was made from a piece of redwood found on his property. He outfitted it with P-90-style pickups, Master Volume, and an active tone boost/cut. The double-neck guitar is his most recent build, and features active electronics on the bass strings as well as the guitar strings. It also has a piezo bridge in the guitar section. The guitar is semi-hollow, similar in construction to old Danelectros, and he says the overall design was inspired by the work of luthier Claudio Pagelli. Finally, Tracy customized his Line 6 AX2 212 combo by splitting it into a head and cabinet, replacing the particleboard cab with pine, and covering it in brown tweed. "

"Lovelace originally purchased this Thordarsen amp/PA at a swap meet. After finding that he couldn't repair it, he decided to build his own low-wattage amp. The result was his take on a classic Fender Princeton. ""I used as many of the old resistors and parts I could recycle,"" he says, ""I had a Deluxe power and Hammond output transformer. I used NOS power, rectifier, and preamp tubes. When cranked it has a great overdriven tone. When I push it through a 4x12 cab it sounds huge."" "

"Ware assembled his dream Tele from a variety of sources. The body was lightly relic'd by MJT Custom Aged Finishes, the neck is a soft V 12-inch radius from Protocaster Guitars, the pickups are '67 Tele pickups from Klein Pickups, the controls are modern Tele from RS Guitarworks, and the pickguard and neck plate are both Fender. The hardware is Callaham guitar parts."

"Loechel, an aerospace engineer who makes pedals as a hobby, based this build off of a late-'60s Sola Sound ToneBender Pro Mk II fuzz with a matched set of three NOS black glass Mullard OC75 germanium transistors. It was his first pedal where he etched, drilled, and soldered a PC board from scratch. The name and graphics were inspired by U2's ""How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb"" album. Loechel says, ""The sound is warm & raunchy highly musical organic fuzz tone with a nice punch in the midrange, like that used by Jimmy Page on early Led Zeppelin recordings such as the song Communication Breakdown, and inspires a pretty good version of U2's ""Vertigo"" as well. This pedal really sings and those sweet germanium transistors produce that legendary Tonebender Mk II sustain that just goes on and on, feedbacks easily if desired, and yet cleans up nicely with a roll of the guitar volume knob."""