Lets See All Them Axes

[Fred Sanford]

Nice looking guitar Fred!
Those "Uncle Matt" guitars are real keepers!

Steve

They've been favorites of mine since my first one, in early 1985. Some of the bargain models have issues, but that just makes 'em cheaper to buy.

je

 

[Fred Sanford]

Sorry for the wait, but here's the Melody Maker/SG in it's primered state. I just got the last of the parts for it and set them up for the picture(nothing wired yet).

Dragonfire four lead pickups and I have four push/pull pots to work with. Any input on wiring ideas? I at least want the coils splittable, but I'm not sure what to do with the other two switches?:scratch2:

I actually only ordered two push/pulls and two standard pots from an ebay seller and he sent me four push/pulls.

I had to modify the pickguard since it's not actually made for this guitar. That's why I had to put the bridge back farther for proper intonation.

I'm thinking candy apple purple for the finish...

Thanks for the pics, looks like a cool project. I have a '75 L6S that I had painted Garnet Red by a Mercedes Benz dealer, that's kind of candy purple-ish...I'll look for a decent pic, or take some tomorrow.

Two coil taps, two series/parallel switches? One coil tap for both p'ups, two series/parallel switches, one phase switch?

je

 

[gearhound]

My 1986, MIJ, Westone ST has issues.....the clown who owns it can't play worth a sh*t!?

Steve

 

[Fred Sanford]

@fred sanford; Another bunch of neat guitars!, all good lookers. That blue mustang-ish one has character, a maestro trem usually look pretty interesting, haven't used one, though (i'm bad enough with the fender trem)...is that the original neck?, looks like there is a little body overhang at the joint. Oh, and compared to my pure-crap stella by harmony, those tuners are straight as an arrow

Thanks, I got lucky on a few of my guitars...I don't look for "pretty", usually those guitars sell & the mutants stay with me. I've somehow managed to accumulate some nice ones.

Yeah, the Kazoo has character for sure. It's the original neck, and the fit is odd but it's stock. I've straightened the tuners a bit, but they really bind and it's tough to tune, then tough to keep in tune. Just for added annoyance, they also rattle when they're loose. They've gotta go.

je

 

[~Maxx]

...I have four push/pull pots to work with. Any input on wiring ideas? I at least want the coils splittable, but I'm not sure what to do with the other two switches?:scratch2:

There's lots you can do there. Phase reversals for each (or either) pickup. You could use one switch (or both) to change between different values of tone capacitors (I personally find this pretty useful). Or how 'bout a full coil tap switch? Runs all four coils inline for a quadruple humbucker. :guitar:

If it helps any, here's what I'd do (keeping in mind that I've never owned an SG, or that set of pickups)... I'd guess that you won't get much for decent tones by splitting the bridge pickup (but I could be wrong), so I'd use one switch to split the neck (experiment to see which coil sounds best on its own), another switch for the full coil tap/quad humbucker mod, switch #3 as a master phase reversal, and switch #4 to change between two different tone caps. That's just what I'd go with based on my preferences and experience. But by all means do what you think you'll be happy with. Let us know what you decide on and how you like it. :yes:

...the first up is a junker silvertone, starter guitar at best and of somewhat dubious quality, but hey, it's fun. I'm thinking of getting a couple new pickups, since the stock ones, um, stink.

I have an old Silvertone Kay from the mid '60s (no - I'm not that old - the guitar's about 10 years older than me!). My friends brother pulled it out of a dumpster and gave it to me. It's a real POS, but an interesting one. 19 frets, a wood bridge, p90 type pickups... There's an interesting "dry" tonal quality to it, probably from the cheap wood it's made of. Someday I'll probably gut it and rebuild it so it's actually useful.

Here is my special guitar, a '08 american standard... This needs new strings, the fender ones were alright, looking to try out something new, may look for suggestions around this forum before to long.

Here's a thread I started a while back on the subject. there's some good wisdom in there from experienced players...
Strat strings

Come to think of it - I should get back to that thread myself!


I'm in the middle of rebuilding two of my three guitars. When I get them done (I'm a slow worker ) I'll post them. I should have my black Strat finished this spring sometime. My "FrankenStrat" could be done by the end of the summer. Depending on my cashflow and ability to cut a custom pick guard.

Great thread!

 

[fotno]

Been a while since I posted to this one. I'm a big fan of "it sounds a whole lot better than it has any right to" guitars... My current favorite.

A while back I picked up this early 80's Gibson GK55/Moog Synth guitar for next to nothing. It came stripped of all electronics, most of the hardware, and rough looking; but the five piece neck and three piece body were solid, so I thought it'd make a good project guitar. Here's what it looked like when I got it home...

After the application of about a 50 gallon drum of elbow grease (that paint don't wanna come off), a few cheap bits and pieces, some fresh pots, caps and wire, and a set of vintage SG pickups, this is what I came up with.

Danish oil finish (had it around from speaker refinishing), some dirt cheap hardware (other than the pickups) and this guitar is nasty good. It ain't purty, and there's no reason it should sound and play as well as it does, but holy crap! I've played a ton and a half of Gibson guitars (Les Pauls, SG's, Melody Makers, Firebirds, Flying V's and Explorers etc.) in my life, but this is the best one, bar none. I would honestly put this old hunk of junk yard parts, up against any electric I've ever played.

One more pic, this time side on so you can see the action...

 

[33&athird]

Thanks, I got lucky on a few of my guitars...I don't look for "pretty", usually those guitars sell & the mutants stay with me. I've somehow managed to accumulate some nice ones.

Yeah, the Kazoo has character for sure. It's the original neck, and the fit is odd but it's stock. I've straightened the tuners a bit, but they really bind and it's tough to tune, then tough to keep in tune. Just for added annoyance, they also rattle when they're loose. They've gotta go.

je

Ha, I hear that...the strat is a keeper, i'll die with that guitar i've sworn to myself. Too much work getting it to let it free(taking down huge shrubs in the middle of summer, ugh). But while I admire the strat for a lot of reasons, I totally agree that "mutant" guitars hold far more charm than many of the pretty-boy trailer-queen types. Granted, some don't play as well, or feel as good...but sometimes, man, it just works.

Those tuners are sounding more and more like the stella's (by harmony), complete junk...the stellas are worse, but yeah, bad tuners are no fun. That's why, for the most part, the Stella is in "Au' natural" tuning (ie: sits a week and detunes itself).

I have an old Silvertone Kay from the mid '60s (no - I'm not that old - the guitar's about 10 years older than me!). My friends brother pulled it out of a dumpster and gave it to me. It's a real POS, but an interesting one. 19 frets, a wood bridge, p90 type pickups... There's an interesting "dry" tonal quality to it, probably from the cheap wood it's made of. Someday I'll probably gut it and rebuild it so it's actually useful.

Yeah, my silvertone is of no relation to the old ones, really. But those old cheap masonite silvertones, they are bizarre little beasties, and getting collectable for some reason, I guess people like the "mutant" guitar thing, they reek character.

Here's a thread I started a while back on the subject. there's some good wisdom in there from experienced players...
Strat strings

Excellent, thanks:thmbsp:

Been a while since I posted to this one. I'm a big fan of "it sounds a whole lot better than it has any right to" guitars... My current favorite.

Wow!...that's a cool looking axe. To think that wood was under that paint. I take it the pickup selector is a "custom" fit?, I haven't seen one by the bridge before.

All these custom guitars has me hankering to build one myself...I know one thing, i'm getting a badge from a old Armstong furnace for it, don't know the rest, but that's for sure. May throw in the Teisco Vega 66 pickup (square magnet) that I pulled from the bastardized yamaha acoustic I bought (hole where the pickguard was, terribly painted, I fouled up removing the paint, chrome sitckers for pickguards, one poorly mounted pickup, and it was originally left-handed, so i'm at least the third owner)

 

[Fred Sanford]

Been a while since I posted to this one. I'm a big fan of "it sounds a whole lot better than it has any right to" guitars... My current favorite.

A while back I picked up this early 80's Gibson GK55/Moog Synth guitar for next to nothing. It came stripped of all electronics, most of the hardware, and rough looking; but the five piece neck and three piece body were solid, so I thought it'd make a good project guitar.

Very nice! I'd have adopted that one, too.

Here's some newer/better pics of my Les Paul 55s- they still don't do justice to the guitars, but you get the idea.

Here's the 1974, its tobacco burst is turning into more of a cherry burst every year. I bought this one for $325 in a music store in 1985. This one's the "Wife", it's gotten new strap pegs (and I removed the nasty pointy things under the knobs), but is 99% stock, including the original case. Plays beautifully, it's the keeper of the bunch:

 

[Fred Sanford]

Here's the 1975 Les Paul 55, bought as a backup for the '74 (after a '56 Custom and '56 Special were found to be too dissimilar). This came to me with some poorly-done mods, so it's gotten all the improvements it needed, and now actually is a more viable guitar in some ways than the all-stock '74. Leo Quan Badass bridge (properly set for the string radius, most you see on this model aren't). Schaller tuners, dome knobs, strap locks. I really don't like the tobacoo burst on this one, so I've often covered it with various graphics. This one's referred to as "The Mistress'. This one cost me about $70 in ~1990...I bought a broken rack-mount digital reverb, fixed it & traded it for a broken 7.5' projection TV setup, fixed that & traded it for this guitar. This one came with a Gibson plastic "chainsaw" case that I sold, it now has a nice plushy modern case + a flight case for traveling.

 

[fotno]

Wow!...that's a cool looking axe. To think that wood was under that paint. I take it the pickup selector is a "custom" fit?, I haven't seen one by the bridge before.

The Moog synth wiring leaves me with an empty hole in the control cavity, so I threw the selector in that slot so I can reach it with my pinky. It was either that, or run the switch even further behind the bridge.

Very nice! I'd have adopted that one, too.

It was a no brainer really. Everything about the guitar was solid so I knew that it would at least be a playable axe when I got it finished, I just had no idea it would play as well as it does.

 

[Fred Sanford]

1975 Gibson L6S Deluxe

This one started its life as a factory-reject Gibson L6s Deluxe (stamped "BGN" instead of a serial #). I think I got it in a trade in 1985 or so, pretty sure I gave somewhere between $120-$160 worth of stuff for this guitar (just raw wood & frets) and a Peavey twin-style amp that later made me LOTS of money in another trade.

Neck is VERY small, very narrow at the nut. 24 frets, rosewood fretboard, maple body & neck. Body is like a Les Paul that got run under a steam roller- wider & flatter. It's a little headstock-heavy, exaggerated by the slippery strap I tend to use, but not obvious with any strap with some traction (like a fabric weave, or leather).

This was painted by a friend that managed the new-car prep department in a NYC Mercedes Benz dealer, it's a color I saw on a 1990 300CE & had to have it. Pics never really do justice, it's a tough color to capture...it's called "Garnet Red", and has a metallic purple element to it when the light hits it right. The pic of the back here is closest to accurate. There are a few little issues with the paint job, but it was a favor and I'm quite happy with it overall.

It's now got the Gibson Logo T-Top pickups (and tuners, and pots, and jack, and toggle, and...) out of my old '71 SG Deluxe. Schaller bridge, dome knobs, chrome pickup rings, black strap locks, Gibson seat-belt strap, and a home-made pickguard I designed (the original pickups were 5-sided, the central piece of pickguard covers parts of the old pickup cavities). I made the control cavity cover, too. On the reverse picture, you can see where the strings used to terminate with a string-through design, this bridge needed a little body routing to work but is a decent approach. The controls are a little unusual, I have two volume & no tone, with the bridge control closer to the player & the neck control further away, wired non-interactive when both are selected. Something I tried, and it's stayed that way for a while now.

Very nice tones for fingerpicked jazzy stuff, a bit edgier than you'd expect distorted (think SG pickups in shallow maple body instead of mahogany) but very usable.

je

 

[Fred Sanford]

~1968 Teisco Del Rey KET-230

We had about 10 minutes of sunshine here before the 50mph winds kicked in, so I grabbed another guitar out of storage & snapped some pics.

This one was purchased for $35 from a yard sale in the early '80s, and I've been slowly tweaking it over the years to become a better & better player. Still not tons of sustain, and still microphonic pickups, but it's a much more viable guitar now than when I first got it. I have all the original stuff that's missing from the pics (switch covers, flip-up mute, logo), the logo & switch covers will go back on some day when I'm bored, but the mute's destined to stay in the bin forever. When recording, the bridge-cover ashtray comes off & felt gets wrapped around behind the bridge & nut to kill resonances, and I'm thinking of packing something soft under the pickguard, too. This vibrato bar is really fun, you get maybe a step & a half of travel either way but it's just perfect & stays in tune 100%. Lots of surfy goodness, and a pretty cool switching system. Great out-of-phase sounds, think Robbie Blunt's playing on early Robert Plant solo stuff.

je

 

[Mystic]

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Lord almighty, that is the mother of all control cavities!

 

[Mystic]

This one started its life as a factory-reject Gibson L6s Deluxe (stamped "BGN" instead of a serial #).

The L6S cutaway is a little "sharper" than I remembered it being. Early 70s T-Top pups suck into all-maple body must have a somewhat brittle tone when cranked. It's almost as if you're playing a Lester, maple cap only, the lower mahogany slab having been removed.

 

[Mystic]

This one was purchased for $35 from a yard sale in the early '80s, and I've been slowly tweaking it over the years to become a better & better player.

Had a '70 Charger in that color (B5?).

 

[Fred Sanford]

The L6S cutaway is a little "sharper" than I remembered it being. Early 70s T-Top pups suck into all-maple body must have a somewhat brittle tone when cranked. It's almost as if you're playing a Lester, maple cap only, the lower mahogany slab having been removed.

Yep, and more than that- I don't have any tone control in line. It's not to the point where I'd call it "harsh" or "brittle", but it does need more of a "\" EQ setting than an SG, for instance, if you're upping the gain. Works to its favor for clean sounds, though, especially fingerpicking. Also responds well to old, goobery strings!

je

 

[Fred Sanford]

Lord almighty, that is the mother of all control cavities!

That Teisco and the Kazoo have big ol' bathtubs, too, and they're thinner bodies to begin with...I'll post up pics of them.

je

 

[Fred Sanford]

That Teisco and the Kazoo have big ol' bathtubs, too, and they're thinner bodies to begin with...I'll post up pics of them.

je

Wonder why these lack a bit in sustain?

 

[Fred Sanford]

Had a '70 Charger in that color (B5?).

That's funny, 'cause in the '80s when I got it, I touched up some of the dings with Testor's model paint, and one of the car paints matched exactly.

je

 

[Fred Sanford]

1995 Vantage VST 33 CE TBK

My only Made In Korea (Samick) Vantage, this one was actually bought new from a store (one of only two out the of hundreds I've owned). I'd done a few live shows with a Fender Catalina (no pickup, no cutaway, full-depth body) and wanted a stage acoustic. Piezo pickup, 3-band EQ, shallow body, "transparent black" finish- not great but not bad. Had its share of battle scars and held up just fine overall, probably deserves some touch-ups. Neck is a similar feel to many of my electrics, makes for an easy transition mid-set.

je