- •Cheap Guitars•
- Proas, Sailing Canoes, Chinese Lugsails, Plywood Boats,
- Tube Amps, Wanda the Cat, Odd Sails from Polytarp, This & That & Bamboo
I actually play bass but I love to do reggae-style, R&B, "Steve Cropper" riddim guitar. I own three Fender basses (a 66 Jazz, a 72 Tele which has been customized to resemble a 50's Precision bass, and a blue Mustang with a racing stripe). I eBayed an Aria copy of a Mosrite bass a few months back which is extremely nice and sounds good. I am partial to Ken Smith strings and it sounds even nicer now - it's a sort of utility bang-around bass and I have a set of Gotoh tuners which I've had since about 1985, and these will go on it. For some reason I enjoy buying, playing, and working on cheap guitars, not basses. I change pickups, change bridges, put tung oil on the fretboards, and once in a while do nothing. These aren't collector guitars, they're nicked and dinged, and I won't buy one unless it looks played. I was just exchanging email with someone who's also into these things. We were discussing how to get a good cheapo working. Usually I'll listen to the pickups, first and see if the neck is a mess or not. Slight fret wear doesn't bother me. If it sounds interesting, the next item is intonation. If the bridge is hosed I look about for a new bridge. Next tuners - it doesn't matter if the tuners are good if the guitar can't be intonated. If the tuners need replacing I usually go with the cheapest (eBay or Stew-Mac) decent replacements I can get. Usually this is where I stop with the major stuff. I have considered new nuts but at the moment have only replaced one. I am looking for a few more cheap guitars... I am in no hurry here, in fact, I'm not as busy fiddling with instruments as I was a few years back.
I'd like to say there's a master plan in operation, but there ain't. Sometimes my list changes. I usually buy black guitars, it seems. I used to shop a lot at Daddy's Junky Music in Boston when I lived there, but now I live in Maryland. Mark, in the Cambridge store (Mass Ave, almost in Arlington), is a real hero as far as I'm concerned. Maryland is pretty quiet as far as guitar shopping as I'm on the Eastern Shore. Good for boating, sandbars, and farms, not so great for guitars. Keep scrolling down for pix. |
My cheapies:
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Here is El Excelsior, disassembled and
ready for refretting. All the pieces came with this one. I love the artistic greenburst and black color scheme. The
pickups sound good though the neck needs a fretboard planing and
sanding and I may just buy a new neck for it. ![]() |
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The neck is bolt-on - actually so is the Black Widow's. |
2.0 09/02/99
2.1 05/30/00
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