One more cheesy Czech guitar rescued from the grave: my Cheese Whiz-colored Jolana. Actually the official Wolf Lacquer name for this color is "Ivory" (yawn), but the color is more like banana pudding. The red pearloid pickguard and peghead overlay were my way of covering over a vast multitude of previous owners' sins, and dressing it up a bit in a cheesy Czech way. At least it's made out of decent woods. The body is poplar, and the neck is maple with a walnut fingerboard. I was so utterly horrified by its condition when I first got it that I neglected to take more than a couple of "before" pictures. It was a total MESS.

I bought this thing from Konstantin (Studio1525.com), as a white-enamel-drenched wreck, only because it had an original Ural trem unit hacked into it by his Russian supplier, who was obviously in a hurry to get it out the door.

The trem "routing" on this poor Jolana looked like it had been done with a dull pocket knife. So I stripped off all the crappy white enamel and refinished the neck (after refretting it) with clear lacquer and the body in "Ivory", made the red pickguard and the chrome-plated steel coverplate for the (disabled) trem unit, installed two P-90s, some good-quality used tuners and a decent used TOM bridge. I'm working on a logo for it too, but it's still pretty cool even without its logos. It sounds great too.


This guitar is owned and repaired by
Jamie Chivers