The Scallopcaster

I decided that it was time to realize one of my long-standing guitar desires: a Ritchie Blackmore tribute guitar.Ritchie Blackmore: None More BlackWho's Ritchie Blackmore, you ask?

He was in this band called Deep Purple.

You may have heard of them.

They wrote some songs that were on the radio a lot in the 1970s.They had a live album called Made in Japan. It has some of their more well-known songs. It opens with a song called "Highway Star."A song that became kind of a signature tune for the band is called "Smoke on the Water":In case you haven't figured it out by now, I am being grossly ironic, dry, and even flippant.

Deep Purple is one of the top 5 most important rock bands ever.

The things that are now rock cliches are things that Deep Purple did as a matter of course, usually earlier than anyone else, too.

Having drum solos at concerts? 1972.

Playing in Japan? 1972.

Having concerts in stadiums (because they needed to)? 1973.

A brilliant, moody, unbearable, phenomenal guitarist?

Ritchie Blackmore. His whole life.Playing at high volume?Most Marshall amplifiers are 50 or 100 watts. Ritchie's are 200.Ritchie Blackmore wrote the main riff of "Smoke on the Water."

For that alone, you could say that Ritchie Blackmore is God.

But you can't, actually.

Why are they not the same?

Because Ritchie Blackmore played louder than God.

Deep Purple isplaying in Hong Kong May 10.

But Ritchie's not in Deep Purple any more.

He left Deep Purple to start Rainbow.Waving to his ex-bandmates...Rainbow headlined the first Monsters of Rock Festival at Castle Donnington in 1980.Rainbow's original vocalist was Ronnie James Dio. You know, the guy who replaced Ozzy in Black Sabbath.

Hisreplacement was Graham Bonnet, who was rocking the suits onstage a looooong time before Robert Palmer.They had a couple of songs you might recognize:So why am I giving you all this background?

Because I want you to understand how significant Ritchie Blackmore is for music that uses guitars as a foundation and keyboards as decoration, not the other way 'round.

His picks are significant too:Not only is Ritchie Blackmore significant and important, so are his guitars."Ouch...hot!"Ritchie Blackmore is most associated with the Fender Stratocaster. But his instruments have several interesting modifications that make his guitars fairly unique.

First, although the Stratocaster has three pickups, Ritchie had the middle one disconnected. He didn't like it and never used it.

It stayed there to fill up the hole in the pickguard.

He eventually had some strats made with the pickup (and hole) removed.

That's why the Japanese edition of the Ritchie Blackmore Signature Fender Stratocaster looks different than the AmericanSignature Fender Stratocaster:In case you can't tell what I'm talking about:That's a fairly minor modification.  The most drastic, and most well-known modification, involves scalloping.No, not those scallops!The fretboard of the guitar is scalloped, i.e. scooped out. The top guitar is not scalloped, the bottom one is:This decreases friction between your fingers and the fretboard. It feels strange at first, but you can get used to it pretty quickly.

So to build a Ritchie Blackmore guitar, I needed a white Stratocaster with a vibrato.

Where else to go but Warmoth? They werehaving a 30th Anniversary Sale at the end of last year. So I managed to get this Olympic White Straotocaster body for 30% offThe rectangular section is where the vibrato springs go.I'll need a pickguard that matches the Japanese version. Once again, Warmoth delivers:The pickups in this photo are actually just pickup covers to fill in the hole. See below for the updated version.I used a Wilkinson vibrato. They stay in tune better than the old Fender style vibrato. I also didn't want the volume knob in its original place. So I had the pickguard drilled for two knobs instead of three.

The last thing I need is a fully scalloped 'CBS-era' Stratocaster neck. The 'CBS' headstock is larger than the regular strat one:Normal headstock                    CBS headstockThanks to Warmoth, I have oneI used black dots instead of white because I wanted to give the impression of having noface dots, but I get easily confused, so I need them.You can see the scalloping here.Iused locking tuners, which are another improvement over the originals.

I also got a pair of Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound single-coil pickups, the same kind Blackmore uses.

The 'tone' knob is actually an EMG Afterburner, a preamp that adds 20db of clean gain (i.e. volume). Volume is good. More volume is better. Mr. Blackmore would approve..Here's the first mock-up of the parts.I've put the decals on the face of the headstock. I wanted to evoke the original while (of course) twisting it around a bit. I used a standard Warmoth logo and some custom decals I made myself.I know it's not an exact replica, but so what? It's my guitar and I'm building it!  I'd rather have my guitars fit myneeds, even if they're vague copies of other people's custom instruments. Now that it's all put together, I need to teach my neighbors the joy of "Smoke on the Water" at 120dB:

Dunh dunh dunhhhh, dunh dunh da-dunh....