bea
AmBASSador of the F Clef
(engl: problem child).
This one will describe a decade old history of a mistreated archtop. It is actually a thread, but so intensive that i think it is better posted here.
It is about an old thinline archtop. A real archtop just with narrow rims. Teardrop holes, black rose sunburst, lots of perloid. Very narrow neck.
The guitar has a history. It must have been made in the early 60s as a prototype or by a student. Never finished, i saw it without hardware in the factory, when i brought my student guitar for a correction. I must have been 16 at that time. Although it was a simple and relatively low budget guitar, it would have been a beauty if it had been finished. A year later in the school orchestra my fellow at the same stand came up with it. And he did "gibsonize" it: modify the headstock to open book and with the Gibson logo, increase the pickup holes to mount humbuckers. He gave her golden '71 T-tops with Gibson Logo and increased the small holes for pots and switches to something irregular.
Unfortunately he cut through the bass bars in order to mount the neck pickup. So the guitar lost itst stability.
A few years later i bought it for him to the price of the pickups and the case. He sold it because of the stability problems. I played it for a few years as well and then decided to go for a real archtop without all those problems and annoyances. Mostly the neck (lacking a trussrod) was not straight anymore.
When the archtop was there, i decided to try to repair and to modify it: straighten the neck and try to compensate for the broken bass bars. I also did a neck reset - i wanted a neck angle closer to that of an ES335. A good opportunity because the neck became loose by the heat and humidity of the neck straightening process. I also gave her a new tailpiece, a new bridge and new plates for the electric parts, all from maple.
And thats the result - many years after my then little children had their fingers on the pickup frames too often:
In the meantime i spent a lot of time and effort to stabilize the top which was sunken in at the damaged bassbar. With very limited success.
So a few years ago i did some major work to make it playable again....
This one will describe a decade old history of a mistreated archtop. It is actually a thread, but so intensive that i think it is better posted here.
It is about an old thinline archtop. A real archtop just with narrow rims. Teardrop holes, black rose sunburst, lots of perloid. Very narrow neck.
The guitar has a history. It must have been made in the early 60s as a prototype or by a student. Never finished, i saw it without hardware in the factory, when i brought my student guitar for a correction. I must have been 16 at that time. Although it was a simple and relatively low budget guitar, it would have been a beauty if it had been finished. A year later in the school orchestra my fellow at the same stand came up with it. And he did "gibsonize" it: modify the headstock to open book and with the Gibson logo, increase the pickup holes to mount humbuckers. He gave her golden '71 T-tops with Gibson Logo and increased the small holes for pots and switches to something irregular.
Unfortunately he cut through the bass bars in order to mount the neck pickup. So the guitar lost itst stability.
A few years later i bought it for him to the price of the pickups and the case. He sold it because of the stability problems. I played it for a few years as well and then decided to go for a real archtop without all those problems and annoyances. Mostly the neck (lacking a trussrod) was not straight anymore.
When the archtop was there, i decided to try to repair and to modify it: straighten the neck and try to compensate for the broken bass bars. I also did a neck reset - i wanted a neck angle closer to that of an ES335. A good opportunity because the neck became loose by the heat and humidity of the neck straightening process. I also gave her a new tailpiece, a new bridge and new plates for the electric parts, all from maple.
And thats the result - many years after my then little children had their fingers on the pickup frames too often:
In the meantime i spent a lot of time and effort to stabilize the top which was sunken in at the damaged bassbar. With very limited success.
So a few years ago i did some major work to make it playable again....
