edit: this has turned into a long-winded, thinking while I type brain dump... I'm not a guitar player, and before I go ask dumb questions on a guitar message board and get flamed into oblivion I figured I'd ask among guitar playing friends... and get flamed into oblivion I've got (what's left of) an old imported Japanese guitar. Looks like a Sorrento E-10 with slightly different horns, or a Conrad Bison (same manufacturer according to Google Almighty). http://www.vantage-guitars.com/m-history-02/ This thing has had a rough life. Could probably tell a few good stories, or maybe a lot of really bad ones. I want to see if I can make it any way playable again. The pickups and electrics are long gone. I do have the pickguard for a template so I can make a new one and the pickups can be any shape or size, I'm not worried about originality, this thing is way past that. It's a solid body, only about 1" thick. I don't really want to get into serious wood(re)working... Kinda liking the '60s surf guitar looks of the Danelectros with 2 lipstick case pickups. Repops seem to be readily available too, but now we're into vast uncharted territory for me. What kind of pickups? Switches? rocker switches don't seem to be easy to find, so I'm guessing I'll use toggle(s). Wiring? Capacitors? Suppliers? What else am I going to need? I have the tuners. Missing the nut and tremolo arm. I can find and read various wiring diagrams, but I don't know much of anything about the differences between pickups and their relationship to sound etc. I was looking at these, but no clue if I'm even on the right track, let alone which ones to choose... https://www.guitarfetish.com/KP--Pro-Tube-Lipstick-Pickups-Chrome--Kwikplug-Ready_p_21994.html I don't really want to spend a lot of money, this one isn't worth it. Anyone got any ideas (other than maybe lighting it on fire and pushing it out to sea)?
What are your plans for it? The reason I ask is if the goal is to play it, first make sure the neck is straight (not twisted) things like that, or maybe it wouldn't be worth spending money on. What I'm getting at is one of the mistakes beginning players make is trying to learn on a defective instrument or one that isn't setup right. This has to do with string height at the bridge and nut and so on.
I've got another guitar that I'm attempting to learn on, not too worried about that aspect. I just want to tinker with this thing and see if I can get it running again, on the cheap, and putter around the yard a bit. I don't need to be doing any smokey burnouts or sub-10 second passes with it. Sighting down the neck there maybe a slight, as in barely discernible, twist. I'm actually surprised that it looks as decent as it does, it's had a bunch of really bad rattle can paint jobs and it was entirely covered in plaster for a photo shoot once. It's a miracle that it didn't end up in the dump. I got a PM from another HAMBer who suggested I throw a set of strings on it without the pickups etc. to get a sense of things, so I'll start with that.
That does have a really nice 60's vibe to it. Cool shape. I would second making sure it is still playable. Maybe have a luthier look at it with regard to neck alignment. Without getting too involved, a trained eye ought to tell you quick if it is in the ballpark. Something to be suspect of old imported guitars is to see if the neck has the frets in the right place for intonation over the whole neck. I know a few guitar players reading this are now asking "is this guy for real?" ... don't laugh. Some Fender(!) guitars that were made in the Phillipines in the 60's can't pass this test. Old Fender Jaguars. Pretty much unplayable.
Again, I'm not a guitar player, just a tinkering hot rodder. I'm not sure that superb playability is my number 1 priority with this old guitar.
The suggestion of stringing it first is a good one. Necks can do funky things when they are not kept under tension of the strings but you seem to be missing the top of the bridge where the strings would sit (kind of tough to tell in your pictures but it looks like it is missing). Their should be a piece that sits on those posts with the two round nuts on them in front of where the strings pass through the tailpiece. Those allow you to raise or lower the bridge to adjust string height and usually would have adjustable saddles to adjust the intonation by changing the length of the string. It should look something like this: If that is missing you may end up having to replace the entire Bridge/tailpiece as finding a replacement that fits may be tough. You can buy some inexpensive complete hardware packs from https://www.solomusicgear.com/product-category/parts-2/hardware-packs-2/ in Mississauga. I have bought a couple of guitar kits from them and the quality is ok for what you pay for it. They also have a wide range of individual parts of varying quality. There are basically two types of pickups when you get to that stage, single coil and humbucking. Single coil are as the name states a single wrapped coil. They tend to be thinner sounding and noisier. Humbucking are two sets of coils wound in opposite polarity this makes them sound thicker and warmer and they don't hum like a single coil (hench humbucking). Single coils can be wired so that two of them are active at once like on a strat with a 5 position switch so in two positions on the switch the 2 active pickups act like a humbucker. The lipstick pickups you linked are single coil but they do offer humbucking in that style as well. they are the ones that look like two of the pickups stuck together on the bottom of the page. Hope this helps a little. Good Luck!
Since this is cheaper grade guitar, I'd get the pickups, pots, etc off eBay, Like a Chinese Fender Strat. You may get lucky and only have to solder a few wires, rather than the whole thing. Plus u could always make it a single humbucker guitar and make your own pick guard and it's easy to wire up. I love fixing up old guitars just like cars. You can also replace the neck from ebay, measure the pocket of the body and look for one that size and also the same number of frets. Once u get a new neck u can plug the old holes on the neck and re-drill new ones. Very straight forward.
I pieced both of these back together all from eBay, except the pick up in one. The one on the left is rare, they made less than 830, called a Fender Straight Six. The one on the right is a Jimmy Shine So-Cal Strat, kinda rare too, took me awhile to find the neck, black reversed headstock.
The world we live in today, there's a lot of how to videos on youtube etc., lots of people making partscasters and of course the Chinese are happy to flood the market with incredibly cheap parts of questionable quality. The bridge and tailpiece seem to be complete, other than the tremolo arm. The bridge was assembled wrong so it looked like it was missing parts, but I think it's all there. I picked up some of those aforementioned cheap pickups and a wiring harness online, and I'll have to make some sort of new pick guard. The original chrome one is cool, I'm not going to chop it up, I'll have to see what I can pull together. Should have updates at some point soon. HRP, the back is solid, no access panels or strings through the body. The neck is bolt on.
This is the Antiquated forum, everything we talk about here is OT that's why we're discussing here and not the main board. Like lawnmowers, furniture, signs... and old guitars.
I've used those GFS pickups in the past (my semi-hollow I have now has GFS P90's). I like them. Sound good, the price is right. But don't cheap out on switches, potentiometers or the input jack...good pieces really aren't that much more $$.
This is just my opinion, and most others probably won't give 2 shizzles one way or the other. Just try some different pickups. If you try something and it doesn't work, try something else. It's your axe, make it something you like to play. Try some different stuff. Set it up with light strings, or set it up with heavy strings...I never knew how heavy the strings were that Stevie Ray Vaughn used. His guitar was like a cheese grate, 13s on the top. Most players I knew would use slinkys with 9s on the top. That's a huge difference. What better to use as a test bed than a guitar with no pickups?
Almost a year and a half later... yes I move slow... digging through a box of old crap (that's all I have are boxes of old crap... most of it really is crap) and I found a Tim Horton's coffee can containing pretty much every missing piece from this old guitar. Seem to be only missing 4 screws. Needs some work (remember I mentioned in the first post on this thread that it got covered in plaster for a photo shoot a long time ago?)... Well I cleaned up what I could clean up and replaced the pots and input jack, but I'm not quite ready for the reveal yet Anyone know what the 2-way switch is for? The 2 paddle switches select the pick-ups, but I can't figure out what the other switch does, and without knowing what it does I don't know how to wire it. Probably obvious to most, but I just ain't that smart. There is a small capacitor or something on it, so something related to tone maybe? Can I bypass it? I found a video of a guy playing the same guitar, but even when he flips the switch it doesn't seem to do anything. I don't have a lot of luck embedding video but I'll see if this will work...
Cleaning my basement during quarantine I found a tub of guitar parts. Pups, covers, screws, nuts, tuners...you name it. It's been so long since I touched any of it I tossed it out. D'oh!
I bypassed the 2-way switch and... nada. So I'm back to thinking I'll just replace the pickups, switches etc. That's almost as bad as throwing out old car parts
It looks like it may be a Teisco or Kawai guitar. Their pickups are usually weird shapes and sizes. There is a guy on eBay selling some of that stuff repop pretty cheap. I'll have to look it up. Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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