Guitar stuff - Guitar Gallery

The Family Portrait,as of April 21,2009

Back row: Martin Shennandoah D-2832,Dad's no-name classical,Ibanez ART-420
Front row: Koontz & Thurston/John Sprung Black Telecaster,Jay Turser JT-134QMT

Here's a closer look at the Black Telecaster. The overall concept was insipred by a set of Teles with dual humbuckers that Roger Griffin built of Schecter parts for Pete Townshend in the late 70s and 80s,when he was tired of lugging irreplacable old Les Pauls all over creation. The Strat neck concept was courtesy Steve Morse's renowned four-pickup "Franeknstein Telecaster". There's a relief on the back to make it more comfortable to play sitting down.

I ordered the body on layaway after seeing an amazing flame maple Strat neck at John Sprung's old American Guitar Center shop on Viers Mill Road in Wheaton,MD. He had Koontz & Thurston build and finish the body,mated it to the neck,and set it on a stand in the shop while I paid off the layaway. While it sat he had several people ask if it was for sale. Once it was paid off and I got it in my hot little hands I started in on the wiring. There's a DiMarzio SuperII neck pickup and a Duncan SH-4 JB bridge pickup. I'll describe the rest of the wiring below.

It's had a bit of a hard life,replete with knocked-over guitar stands,belt buckles,watch band buckles,at least one night in a leaking car trunk,a neck replacement resulting from a hideous,uncorrectable S-bend in the original neck,and,well,25 years of being my "daily driver" so to speak. Oh,and it could stand some fret work. One of these days.

Since everyone who sees it asks... the knobs read,top to bottom (right to left in the picture): volume,neck tone,bridge tone; the switches,in the same order: neck PU in/out of phase with bridge PU,neck PU coil cut,bridge PU coils in/out of phase,bridge PU coils in series/parallel. I blame Donald Brosnac for the inspiration for the mad-hatter wiring setup.

This is the new kid on the block. I've always wanted something to scratch the "Les Paul itch" after losing track of my cheap white Hondo. Well,this more than fits the bill. It's light weight and comfortable. The fit and finish are first rate,and the spalted figuring on the top is stunning. It has active pickups,which sound pretty darned good.

Dad bought this for $10 off a guy on a street corner in some or other Italian city back in the 1950s when he was in the Navy. It's maybe worth that today. It doesn't sound all that good,the tuning machines slip like crazy,and the neck is a proverbial baseball bat. But I still remember thinking how cool it was when Dad got it down and ran through some of the tunes he knew.

The semi-hollowbody looked pretty sweet hanging there in the rack at the shop,and I've been pretty happy with it. It does have a few minor ailments - the G string buzzes where it hits the tailpiece (hence that scrap of velcro),the neck pickup's a bit bland,and the volume control for the neck pickup's a tad inconveniently placed for pinky volume swells. I've gotten a stop tailpiece that I'll install eventually to squash the buzz and get a bit more sustain; I'm looking into various pickup options (I'm thinking Duncan Jazz and JB like I had on the old KT long ago); and I'm considering swapping the pickup selector and neck volume around,a la what Phil Keaggy did on his Yamaha SA-2000.

Last but not least,the Martin. The Shennandoahs were a short-lived experiment,wedged in between the inexpensive made-in-Korea plywood Sigmas and the genuine article,made in the USA Martins. The top is solid spruce,the back and sides laminated rosewood. The bits were roughed out in Korea,then shipped to Nazareth,PA and assembled at the Martin factory. It came equipped with the original Fishman Thinline transducer,which sounds pretty good through the PA.