I hope to do some updating in the coming weeks.

I've been taking and editing some photos in prep for adding some updates here. Projects to be discussed are my mid 60's Spanish Jomadi, my late 50's/early 60's Harmony and I'm not sure what else as of yet...

Jomadi...

From Jomadi

Rocket...

From Harmony Rocket

Ach...it's been ages.

Haven't updated in a long time. Not that I haven't been busy doing things and with life, but I just haven't been diligent recording it all here. I'll try to do some catch up in the coming weeks. I suppose a good place to start would be the latest addition to my Gretsch stable.

I found a listing for a "1965 Corvette project guitar" on one of the forums a few months ago with no price. When I e-mailed the guy and asked how much, I was surprised at his answer. It raised my suspicions there was more than met the eye wrong with it, but I decided to go with my gut feeling and make the buy.

Once it came in I knew why I got it for $450. Broken headstock. It's not the most elegant repair, but it has proven very strong and the guitar seems to suffer no ill tonal effects from it. Otherwise it was a great deal. All original except the pickguard, pots and knobs. I also got a spare set of Van Gent tuners, a spare trapeze tail piece as well as a good condition original `63/`64 pickguard. Plus a old set of Grovers I need to sell that might bring some coinage.

Really, all the guitar needed was some TLC and assembly plus a few parts. The pickguard had disintegrated and corroded many of the metal pieces on the body. The screws where so bad, extracting their remains was one of the bigger jobs. I used a soldering iron to heat them, then backed them out with some pliers. None broke, no damage to the body, so it went well.

After a thorough cleaning and polishing of the body and frets, I cleaned all the metal bits which took a good deal of time. Then I got it assembled and added some modern knobs and added a pickguard repro I took a chance buying from ebay. It ended up being a perfect fit, so I got lucky.

Now, it's one of my favorite players. I keep it at my girlfriends so I can play on the weekends, That 1965 Hi-Lo Tron sounds freaking glorious. I played this guitar at my band's (IDK) last gig through my Silvertone 1484 with both channels jumpered and completely cranked. I was sooo happy with my tone that night. I also did my first solo with IDK on it and got some nice compliments afterwards. All in all, a fantastic addition to the stable.

Here's a gallery with some photos of it before and after (click on the pic):

From 1965 single pup Corvette