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Post by leeophonic on May 8, 2024 20:57:31 GMT
Funny how you talk about something one minute and the next something pops up. I know phones and alexa are actually listening and other devices profile you. The iconic guitars for me are more recent, Ry has his coodercaster strat, the blue strat, the round neck rickenbacker Bakelite, and the single pickup valco which he played with John lee hooker. The various acoustics are less well known but are featured on various recordings. The guitars in the ebay listings are interesting but not iconic or worth mortgaging the house for, let alone the provenance Lee
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Post by leeophonic on May 8, 2024 20:23:20 GMT
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Post by leeophonic on May 6, 2024 20:51:05 GMT
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Post by leeophonic on May 6, 2024 20:43:51 GMT
I currently have a nice re-issue 1921 Koa Martin, the story from it's previous keeper is it was part exchanged against a Bentley before coming home to Guitar lovers as opposed to being used as collateral . Will get a picture up when I can access my phone.Cars and Guitars there is a thread there waiting to happen.
Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 21, 2024 16:12:14 GMT
comprehensive background of this model The First Epiphone Electric Guitar… This 14 3/4-inch-wide Grand Concert size guitar weighs 7.10 lbs. and was Epiphones very first electric model. The arched top is laminated maple, the flat back and sides are also laminated maple single-bound in white pyralin. The one-piece mahogany neck with a scale length of 25.50 inches has a nice "V" profile and a nut width of just under 1 11/16 inches. The single-bound rosewood fretboard has 20 jumbo frets and inlaid pearl dot position markers. Headstock with gently pointed peak and metal Electar logo plate. Individual open-back Grover 'sta-tite' tuners with oval metal buttons and slot-head screws. Large style black plastic pickguard. Single Epiphone Model M Horseshoe Magnet pickup situated in the center of the top with two wheels for adjusting the height. Three controls (volume, tone and rhythm) all mounted on the treble bout. Epiphone octagonal black Bakelite knobs with small pointers. Rosewood bridge on rosewood base with two height adjustment wheels and Epiphone trapeze tailpiece. The serial number (" ?") is stamped onto the treble top-edge of the headstock. Affixed (by four screws) to the back of the guitar is the original cloth covered 3/16 inch plywood panel measuring 6 7/8 x 7 inches which covers an aperture of 5 7/8 x 6 inches (with rounded corners) which allows access to the electrics. "Electro was a competitor, to be sure, but Epi's foremost competition would come from Gibson. The Electar line was announced in November 1935, just as Gibson was testing the waters with it's first electric, a metalbody Hawaiian steel guitar. Although Rickenbacker's first offerings had been metal, metalbody guitars didn't fly under the Gibson banner, and Gibson replaced the model with a woodbody Hawaiian at the beginning of 1936. The Gibson pickup had a metal plate protruding from the coil upward the strings. The end of the plate was notched so that the three highest-pitched strings appeared to have individual polepieces. When Gibson put it on a standard guitar, there were initially no notches, but in later versions the area under the second string was notched. Obviously the output was not always even across the entire pickup "bar" (to the player it looked like a bar rather than a plate)... Catalogues never showed it, but most of the Epi hollowbody electrics made prior to World War II had a large padded plate on the back that could be unscrewed and removed for easy access to the electronics. Although most musicians found it unnecessary to fiddle with the pickup and controls, it was that very feature that would bring an emerging guitar star named Les Paul into the Epi camp in the 1940's. Epiphone electric guitars had another unusual feature: a metal plate noting that the instrument was made under license to Miessner Inventions, of Milburn, New Jersey. Miessner held several patents on electric keyboard instruments and claimed that all electric guitars utilized their patents. Epi complied with Miessner's licensing demands and listed 10 of Miessner's patent numbers on the metal plate attached to each instrument. Other makers fought Miessner, however, and Miessner's claims were eventually settled and dropped. In a letter to dealers dated June 29, 1937, Epi reported that sales had doubled in the last year. The overall rise in popularity of the guitar undoubtedly contributed to the increase in sales. But part of Epi's success was based on it's image as an innovative company,, an image enhanced by the Master Pickup and a barrage of new features introduced in 1937 including the following: The Mastervoicer Tone Control, the catalogue claimed "enables the player to obtain a great variety of effects varying from a muted tone to that of the strident banjo with one turn of the knob."... Epi's "thrust rod" - obviously a play on Gibson's truss rod - was, like Gibson's, an adjustable truss rod in the neck. But unlike Gibson's, which adjusted at the headstock end of the rod, Epi's adjustment was at the body end of the neck, and it did not require removal of a truss rod cover. (Walter Carter. Epiphone The Complete Story, pp. 33 - 34.) "The Model M was introduced in 1935 as the first Epiphone electric guitar and was produced until about 1939. The body was the 14 3/4" Grand Concert size with a laminate maple pressed top, maple sides, a flat maple laminate back and a one-piece mahogany neck. The top, back and neck were bound in single-ply white pyralin. The rosewood fingerboard was inlaid with dot position markers at frets three, five, seven, nine and fifteen and a double dot at the twelfth fret. Tuners were a simple open-back design with either plastic or metal buttons. The peghead came to a gentle point and featured the "Electar" name. The instrument was finished in a sunburst on the top and chocolate brown sides, back and neck. The tailpiece, pickguard and adjustable bridge were the standard Epiphone design used on acoustic instruments of the time (though the pickguard was somewhat smaller). Besides having a flat back, two other ways in which this model differed from the acoustic archtops of the time were that the neck was mounted flush with the body rather than elevated, and the top was horizontally braced. This heavy bracing, according to the 1936 Electar catalogue, "properly supported and dampened [the top] in order to avoid after tones and acoustic feedback." This instrument was fitted with the Model M pickup, a rather bulky horseshoe magnet pickup which was mounted through a rectangular access hole through the back. This hole was approximately 4" x 6" and was covered with cloth-wrapped plated screwed to the back. The pickup was mounted to maple blocks glued to the underside of the top and projected through a hole cut in the face of the instrument in the bridge position. The poles of the magnet wrapped over the strings and included two magnets under the strings. The visible part of the magnet was nickle-plated on early models; later models featured an "oven-backed, black crinkle finished." Volume and tone controls were mounted on the lower treble bout in a line parallel to the strings. The input jack was also on the top near the edge and the control knobs, in an octagonal shape with a small pointer, were black, Bakelite. The earliest examples from 1935 lacked the tone control, and the volume also incorporated an on/off switch... An innovative, though short-lived (less than one year) feature, was the "Rhythm Control," announced in a letter to dealers dated June 29, 1937. This consisted of a third control knob on the face of the instrument. It was said to "enable the player to execute the fastest rhythms without blurring or running together of chords."... The Electar Model M was discontinued by 1939. (Fisch & Fred. Epiphone The House of Stathopoulo. pp. 116-117).
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 17, 2024 18:40:46 GMT
Yes the Valco bridge plate when first fitted was abrasive, so it has been lightly de burred to make palm placement more usable, although my hand sits more on the bridge. Regards Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 12:18:27 GMT
I use medium Gauge strings, tend not to like coated ones, insurance and value, can be subjective but if you were to replace the guitar in the region of £1000 to 1200 they are currently out in the wild for sale, also some more expensive according to condition and model. Look after it and enjoy it as it already has a story to tell.
Regards
Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 12:05:50 GMT
Fantastic to see Ronnie letting rip with the old Zematis, interesting slide finger placement, and they could do with a few more Amps, interestingly Rich Robinson also has a Brass Fiddle edge Dobro.
Lee
These are good also, must go to Japan.....
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 12:02:52 GMT
Fantastic to see Ronnie letting rip with the old Zematis, interesting slide finger placement, and they could do with a few more Amps, interestingly Rich Robinson also has a Brass Fiddle edge Dobro.
Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 11:52:09 GMT
Jc and Angelina great to see them again, they make up a quater of the National Breakdown service I have the Bracknell show on VHS somewhere with JC ripping up the hot Hula..... Regards Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 11:33:11 GMT
Pedals are another Rabbit hole, Michael could do a whole section devoted to them and we would still be posting, it is another nothing better only different debate on all of them.
Regards
Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 11:29:55 GMT
Lovely guitar, if I did not have other rods in the water it would be in my net.
Regards
Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 11:18:21 GMT
Yes eccentric but that is most of us into this stuff I guess.
Regards
Lee
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 11:06:04 GMT
Cooderbird 20 years in the making..... Or more accurately a few months in the hands of an expert luthier and the remainder of procrastination and accumulation of parts. So where do we start, I saw Johnny Winter in the 90’s he was going through the motions with the Steinberger cricket bat until he got the Firebird out of the case and the magic happened, already in my database was Ry Cooders strat which had the Valco string through bridge at the Bridge so the nucleus of an idea was more or less there. Cooderbird, what else could I call it In the early 2000’s a good friend and neighbour introduced me to her brother (Mathew) a talented carpenter who was down from Scotland and was pricing up a bespoke staircase for his sister which I also joined in on to make his efforts worthwhile, two weeks in the sunny south, set up a workshop and build & fit two bespoke staircases. Over the course of this I got to know Mathew and he was mad about the craft and the properties of wood, he mentioned his stash back home and I discussed the most resonant of woods Paduk to which he answered I have planks/billets of that and will bring you some down. So a few weeks later & in possession of the Paduk I took it to Dave King who fashioned/mated it to a figured maple cap and cut to the shape of a reverse firebird. Around this time I was supplying Dave King with Valco lap steels to be cannibalised into his tele coodercaster builds and I kept one for myself and on his recommendation sent a pickup unit off to Spencer Mumford of Shed pickups in Wales for a electronic overhaul with new pole pieces Bobbin and magnetic field refurbishment, additionally the plate was trimmed and re-plated (all to a fantastic standard). Ebay was throughout a constant source of distraction but I managed to secure three still boxed new re-issue Danalectro lipsticks so that was the neck pickup sorted, also various other components finding there way to me as time kept moving apace. A local guitar shop (In Tune music) closed down and the six in line tuners were marked at 50% or less so they are added to the stash of parts. Another friend good friend asks for help in clearing his father in laws Garage, Gerry the father in law in his working life had been a site Forman of building sites , and for hobbies he made snooker cues with a lathe and ancient circular saw akin to a magicians cutting the assistant in half (I later trimmed my finger with this in 2018). Aside from the machinery there were ancient hand tools and the pot of Gold I was hoping to find the Billets of mahogany in the rafters for decades, so I now had the basis for the neck with old growth mahogany. All of this accumulation and procrastinating goes on for over twenty years, in the interim Offset guitars become trendy and there are numerous bespoke guitars out there but I still had an idea as to what I really wanted in a guitar, this was to progress rapidly from October of 2023 when I was introduced to Mark Silk at the London guitar show, I knew of his work from social media but was yet to meet and put my ideas to someone who could understand my idea/concept and bring it all together with the understanding and experience to tackle not a fixed project but a series of ideas and suggestions which would take shape. Neck so I discuss with Mark how about a Bigsby headstock???, 44mm at the nut, 25” scale, oh and lets have it bound with maple to tie in the frets and match the cap on the body. When nearly complete I suggest a Walnut veneer on the face of the peghead and a carve volute to expose some of the south American mahogany lurking behind, unfazed this is how it evolves. Already strung up I question if we can age the nut material, as luck would have it I have Deer antler lying about from the brother in law of Mathew the original carpenter, unfortunately for Mark Silk it needs machining and sanding which I know from experience is not a pleasant one, however the Antler nut is now in place. The Neck is separate to the body with a four bolt retainer but with the sapwood there is an illusion of a through body construction. Body so I discuss with Mark how about a .German carve as opposed to binding which would be the easier option separating the maple cap from the Paduk back, this would cause issues later in the finish process as it became obvious Paduk has an unrivalled thirst and sucks the moisture from adjoining timber in a selfish frustrating fashion, Mark Silk applied in the region of 17 coats of oil based finish with sanding betwixt this process (Guitar or more likely Bentley!!!) Toning and colouring and going with the grain as opposed to a blanket application, it found it’s own finish point (enough is enough). We discussed a pickguard and a custom option is devised by Mark Silk utilising a maple base with matching Walnut veneer to the headstock, both are treated to a Gloss makeover to distinguished from the matt of the body and neck, to the rear the access plate for the electronics is matched to the mahogany of the neck, again joining the dots and referencing the original timber source and my good friends father in law Gerry. Electronics from the get go it was two volumes blending with one master tone, this I knew would work from previous experience with a Lollar powered Godin Radiator build that I Cooderised back in 2006 or so, there is still the opportunity for an out of phase blend but it allowed a blending option or all or nothing bridge or neck, each since completion offers a different range of tones, effectively two guitars in one. The knobs however were originally all chrome then decided to compliment the original Valco unit with cream pickup cover thumbscrews and the chicken head for the tone blend, Mark Silk complimented this further with cream/ivory coloured strap buttons and jack plate. Although the Valco unit was strong I could not resist a more powerful set of magnets produced from Rick Aiello who is well know within the steel guitar community in the US, the leaflet that came with the Ni Bro magnets warns, will interfere and or disrupt Pace Makers/heart monitors & they will erase any magnetically stored data, is there a better advert So that’s about the strength of it, over twenty years of conception and accumulation of core elements, both Gerry and Mathew are no longer with us so the material has resonance and with Mark silks patience skill and understanding a new old guitar is out in the wild, hope you like it but I understand it is divisive with the body shape not being everyone’s taste. PS The Telebird is now in the starting blocks, guess what that may contain.... Lee Attachments:
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Post by leeophonic on Apr 16, 2024 10:58:14 GMT
Well worth checking Charlie out if he is in your area. I previously told the story when coming to a town near me I was going to the gig, Charlie was touring with just a guild 12 string (travel light I guess) but he had some great tunes on resonators, National Mule etc. To ensure the night had the variety I wanted to see I took along my Beltona single cone and dropped it on Charlie, use it if you like. He did for half the set !!! Regards Lee
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