Another arrow in the quiver.

I've been playing the Astro Jet quite a bit. It doesn't stay in tune with trem use as well as I'd like. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that yet. Ideally, it would be great if it held tune...but I'm not sure a) how important that is for me in the real world and b) if the major surgery I suspect it would take to fix it is worth it. I think ultimately it would require removing the zero fret, shortening the fretboard and basically converting the guitar to a conventional nut. That's some fairly serious work and alterations. Going to contemplate it for a while, but I think the next move is to try some 11s on it...that may get it closer to the ballpark.

I'm not sure how I'm gonna pay for it short of selling something, but I could not pass up my latest acquisition. It's on the UPS truck for delivery today. A (supposedly) 1965 Gretsch Corvette. Two pick up version with Burns vibrato, what appears to be the original finish, the original pickguard (though that extra knob is curious) and in overall very nice condition with no breaks or issues, so says the seller. The tuners are not stock...they where swapped out for Grovers (vintage ones by the looks of it). I'm pretty pumped....it was about $850 shipped.

From 1965 Corvette

Mods already

Just a short post to say I made a couple shims from a very old mahogany cigar box I picked up off ebay a while back. They're probably a 1/4" thick and went under the bridge pup. Allowed me to lower the pole pieces and get the body of the pickup close to the strings. Not only does it look better, it sounds much better. Much crisper response, a bit more treble (which is what I wanted) and tweaking pole piece height and amp settings I'm able to get that wonderful almost dissonent musical distortion `trons can do under gain. Loving it! Might shim the neck pup some now too as the output isn't balanced well anymore...and it'll help get the same tonal qualities I've found in the bridge pup.

This is a great read on adjusting Filtertrons, scroll down a bit:

http://gretschpages.com/articles/mals-big-guide-guitar-setup-and-troubleshooting/

May or may not be the last post on the Astro..

Brought the guitar with me to my girl friend's for the weekend. Lots of compliments from her and her dad on it, which was very nice. I got to play it quite a bit and begin the process of familiarization. It's a great guitar to sit and play and also stand, as it balances perfectly. My heaviest guitar to be sure, but still not too bad since it's under 9 pounds. It plays very well, but will need some tweaking. The E string seems a touch muddy, so I want to mess with pick up pole piece heghts on it. The G string is a bit loud, so those pole pieces need to be lowered.

The string spacing is comfortable, as is the neck profile. You can tell this was/is a professional grade Gretsch. I'm quite happy at this point and look forward to playing it a lot more in the coming weeks. Not sure when the next band practice is, but that will be it's first test of fire. Only real problem so far, is it does not stay in tune when the trem is used. Not 100% sure of the cause(s), but suspect a lot of it is the nut. I'm not 100% satisfied with how the first one came out, so I might just start a second one this week. I think I can improve upon it. When I initially mocked the guitar up the first time, it seemed to hold tune fairly well, much better than now. Obviously, I will be tweaking and trying things to get it back to that point. I will say the light fret level I did made all the difference in playability. It plays very well now.

Got a chance to shoot some photos saturday. Here's the gallery:

From Astro Jet Final