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):
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| From 1965 single pup Corvette |
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