h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

the best electric guitar is the one that makes you want to pick it up and wring the very life out of it. It is a personal choice but it is a topic to which the answer has never been found.......

Les paul - sounds fat looks cool
Strat - Sounds like a chiming bell or like god in the right hands(hendrix)
SG - tony iommi + angus young.....
O Hagan les paul neck through body - Me

Desert rock rules...

Mini cooper S

You forgot the Telecaster.

I'm building a Telecaster clone with a Jazzmaster neck pickup in the middle position and nothing in the neck position.

I've been gathering parts for awhile and I just got a Chinese Tele knock-off body real cheap- some kid didn't get the guitar back on the holder just right at the music store and it fell three feet.

Leo did us a real favor. Even the cheap copies are easy to work on.

A guitar you put together with your own hands always has a feeling that no factory unit can give you.

As for Gibson's I think the Howard Robert's Fusion model holds the most mystique for me. The best ones have a sound post under the bridge. But I've never liked the Gibson bridge very much. Too much stuff sticking up. I'm a bridge-palmer.

Ahhh..Tele's. I've got my eye on a '72 Thinline. Gotta save my pennies.

Good choice.
Original or reissue?
Warmoth has nice body blank.
Which pickup arrangement?
The custom or the normal?

I'm lusting after a yellow Gibson Faded Double Cut Les Paul, or a faded SG...Right now I'm playing a 30 yr old German guitar. The brand name is "Klira"...it looks like an orange sunburst strat with a black pickguard, Les Paul style pup switch and tone/vol knobs. It's got largish single coils under these pup covers that have a "klira" isignia carved into them. It's pretty cool. I'm running it through a black russian Big Muff and Dunlop Crybaby, into a crappy Fender combo. I'll be using it until the insurance goes through on a 1964 Sears Twin Twelve 1484 (aka 'the poor man's twin reverb') that i received damaged.

"1964 Sears Twin Twelve 1484 (aka 'the poor man's twin reverb') that i received damaged."

Hmm. Was that a Baldwin-made amp or an Alamo?

Neither. It was made by Sears, Roebuck, and Co.

http://www.jt30.com/jt30page/silvertone/ampgallery.html

Umm, sorry. Sears never "made" much of anything. They had various things made for them by manufacturers who made "house" brand amps, guitars, furniture, clothes, tools, silverware, shotguns, TVs and stereos for Sears, Montgomery Wards, J.C. Penney and Woolworth.

When I ask a question, there is a reason for it.

http://www.jt30.com/jt30page/silvertone/ampgallery.html

See if the model 1483 in the drop down menu under the Silvertone 1400 series isn't similar to your amp.

The 1484 is very similar to an Alamo combo amp I used to have, except for it being one-piece instead of two.

I have disassembled my #2 project guitar today. It has survived 8 years of use and abuse, but as with the previous project, #1, if I don't create some impetus, then I won't get around to finishing #3.
The whole point of these projects is to learn.
The playing is almost beside the point.

I don't think I am reinventing the wheel, either. While messing with solid body guitars is not grand luthiery, like building a c3llo or an archtop, it is a form of engineering.
It is also true that a bad player can make a $12,000 instrument sound like a cigar box with a paint stirrer attached and a good player can make a cigar box with a paint stirrer attached sound marvelous.
But if I make a mediocre guitar for a mediocre player, then I think everything evens out.

I checked on the back of it. It's a Model 1484. Took it in to a Vintage Music store a few days ago, and according to the guy there, it'll cost thirty bucks to repair the cabinet, twenty for a new power tube, and fifty bucks to take it apart and clean it. I'm hoping that'll bring it up to ass-kicking condition. If not, a re-tubing will be in order.

What's it use, 12ax7s?

http://www.triodeel.com/sil1484.gif

Yep, and 6L6s and a 6cg7.

Wow, you learn something new every day.

I used to work in a tube amp factory in Pflugerville.

Did you get to test new ones out?

No. Unfortunately, that was the province of the owner, Gerald Weber and the resident guitar whiz, a guy named Terry.
But I did develop a nice bit of tinnitus in my right ear from hearing
harmonics played at dog-killing levels!

Interesting bit of news:
http://www.stratcollector.com/newsdesk/archives/000239.html

"The jury said that Maria didn't win the guitar because she seemed to be more talented than the other girls..." Seems to defeat the purpose of a guitar contest. You know what's a cool Fender that I want to play some time? The Toronado.

Hrrm?

The "Coronado"?

The old semi-hollow-bodied thingie from the beginning of the CBS era?
Some of which came in the "wildwood" injected style.

http://www.inode.at/theessink/images/coronado.jpg

This here thing?

You're welcome to it.
The few I've seen that were playable over the years were very similar to the Univox 335 copies: microphonic pickups, cigar-box feel bodies and odd necks.

The Starcaster, on the other hand, seemed to have a vibe of it's own and I wouldn't find finding one of these:

http://www.peterdirnbek.com/images/oprema/kitara01_velika.jpg

Despite the 3-bolt neck, (a CBS innovation that Leo had actually patented after the '65 takeover!) these seem to have a sound and feel different from the Gibson's and their copies. Of course, since the 'buckers are Seth Lover-designed.. Hahaha!