ksdaddy Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 It's amazing how we can have many guitars go through our hands in the course of a lifetime and sometimes there is one that stands out on it's merit alone, despite it being junk. I ran a guitar shop out of my house from '85 to '87. I kept maybe 25-30 guitars in stock. I was only able to get new Kents, Phantoms, and Corts, but I tried to keep a few used Gibsons and Fenders in stock. Very small scale but I did repairs, consignments, and trade ins. I tried and fell flat on my face. Oh well. A friend bought a junk electric at a yard sale for a quarter. The brand name was Holiday. It as a generic Kay/Harmony thing from the early 60s, with the single cutaway plywood hollow body and no f-holes. They made thousands of them in all price ranges and brands. The black sparkle Silvertone in Bryan Adam's Summer of '69 video would be an example of an upper end model. They're on ebay all the time, it's not like I can't find another. But I fear I'll never find one with this one's charm. This one had been stored in a garage and all the finish was flaking off. It even had cat poo on the headstock. He gave it to me as a joke. Well, it was slow that week (actually it was slow every week) so I tackled it. I removed whatever finish was left, masked off the binding, sprayed it black and then clearcoated the living snot out of it. I put tuners on it that actually worked. It had the generic wooden bridge and trapeze tailpiece, both of which were junk but they worked. I put it on the rack for $50 or $60 and it was gone in a few days. The guy brought it back a week later with a request I hotrod it. I installed a pair of Kapa (Hofner style) humbuckers and off he went. I saw it in the local pawn shop a couple years later with the words "Rockin' Ricky" emblazoned on the upper bout in white paint. They usually came with surface mount pickups, usually blank chrome ones. I think this one had a gold foil insert, similar to the Ry Cooder Teisco style but I think they were actually made by DeArmond. This thing had a tone like no other. I can't say it sounded 'good' in the traditional sense but it had an appeal from a cheap guitar I've never encountered before or since. A couple years later I bought a NOS 1964 Kay with hang tags and a pristine black sparkle Silvertone with about six knobs and a stick shift. They were cut from the same cloth as the Holiday but they just didn't have the magic. Maybe it was the foil vs plain top pickups, who knows? The foil one was smaller I think, comically small. I'm sure Rockin' Ricky is long gone and it technically got ruined by the Kapas anyway. I've just got a hankerin' to find another. Preferably with no finish, cat poo, and a 25 cent price tag. Just a nostalgic rant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DWP37 Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Was the silvertone the "Jupiter" model? I've always wanted one of those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Arcadius Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 We love nostalgic threads, don't we? I really enjoyed reading the story man. There is something about my beginner's-guitar, my Epi SG Special that I just can't define. It sounds hideous overdriven, but I love it's clean sound, the slim neck and the fact that I can play high in the neck with ease... If I could only make it stay in tune... I guess everybody needs a ''beater'' as well, except from his ''shiny swords''... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted December 4, 2009 Author Share Posted December 4, 2009 I believe the Silvertone was the Jupiter model. I didn't know it at the time but I think I've seen them called that on ebay. My very first guitar was a junk Kay acoustic. I destroyed it in an early attempt to refinish it. I stripped it, then left it down cellar where it disintegrated. Too busy playing air guitar to "Slow Ride" in '76 I guess. I'm currently bidding on an exact duplicate. I'm sure it's just as much a POS as the one I got as a hand me down in '66 when my brother got his baby blue Mustang and Heathkit amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DWP37 Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 I didn't know heathkit made amps. I aquired an old Heathkit tube tester a few years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted December 4, 2009 Author Share Posted December 4, 2009 Yeah, it was a kit. He bought the kit and then paid some other high school kid to assemble it. I think it had 2-12's, reverb, and tremolo. He did a lot of garage band Ventures stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DWP37 Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Awesome. Found a few on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/Heathkit-Model-AA-81-35-Watt-Mono-Tube-Amplifier_W0QQitemZ390092819723QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVintage_Electronics_R2?hash=item5ad3580d0b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted December 4, 2009 Author Share Posted December 4, 2009 I think his was similar to this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/Used-Heathkit-TA-16-2X12-guitar-amp-Reverb-and-tremolo_W0QQitemZ260515896271QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3ca7f51bcf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 I know the story of that special cheap-*** guitar. At one time I decided I needed an acoustic archtop as an "unplgged" alternative to my L-5. After shopping for low end Gibsons (L-50 and down), I decided that if I was looking for a "student model" guitar I might as well go straight to the bottom. I noticed on e-bay that a guy had two 50's Silvertone archtops for sale, and lived only a few hours drive away. The wife agreed to take a "Sunday Drive" with me to the Missouri/Arkansas border (insert Dueling Banjos music here), to look at the guitars. It turns out he had two 50's Silvertone archtops, one was a Harmony built without a truss rod and a neck that looked like spaggetti, but had all it's parts, including the pickguard. The other was a Kay built with a truss rod, but the neck heel had pulled so far away from the body the Elmer's glue that someone had added looked more like a bead of caulking. I figured that between the two guitars I had enough "good" parts to make one playable guitar. I picked both guitars up for $125 (probably overpaid, these guitars new sold for about $20 and $35 dollars respectively), and headed back north before anybody told me to "sqeal like a pig". I spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME on this project, including having to completely replace the dovetail on the neck heel (never even heard of anybody attempting this before), neck angle change and neck reset, replacing some fretboard markers (melted the plastic dots steaming the neck off), added side dots, new bridge and saddle, new nut, etc. Anyway, the point to this story is that once I strung it up (and the neck held), I strummed the first chord, and my wife and I looked at each other and both said something like "holy crap batman". This $35 guitar had just been waiting to sing again after 40 years or so of collecting dust and mouse droppings. It's voice was surprisingly loud and clear, the tone was well balanced, and it had just the "woody" acoustic archtop tone I was looking for. Having decided I still hadn't put enough time and money into this $35 dollar guitar, I the installed a fingerboard mounted Kent Armstrong pickup, and bought a real nice gig bag for it. I liked this guitar so much that I actually performed our acoustic sets and shows with it for three years (retired the Ovation Elite). The ONLY reason the Silvertone got "retired" was that I picked up a 1947 Gibson L-7. The old Silvertone still sits out in the basement, strung with 13-56 flatwounds, and loves to be played. I'd never sell it (couldn't even recover my parts costs, much less the labor), but I'm sure one day I will give it away to a young budding jazzer, I actually have one in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Too bad HeathKit quit making kits. Too bad kids / we lost interest in puting sweat equity into simple electronic devices like this that made them quit making the kits. I think HeathKit... what was HeathKit.... still exists in some other form under some other name.... but no kits. My first attempted foray into the build it your self world was an digital, LED wall clock. I think I responded to an ad in a Popular Mechanics... Probably an old one because I never got the catalog I requested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted December 4, 2009 Author Share Posted December 4, 2009 I spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME on this project You ain't tellin' me nuthin brudda. Another fine Kay product Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 After all.. the 'Ramblin' Wreck' was quite a looker after she got all gussied up. Have you been in contact with the good professor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted December 5, 2009 Author Share Posted December 5, 2009 Oh it's not done yet. I'm hoping to shoot the final coats of tinted lacquer tomorrow. Prof Lanegger had a fatal heart attack while vacationing in Turkey in 1992. I was relieved to find out it wasn't because someone brought the Kay back for another *cough* "repair". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrosurfer1959 Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 Ksdaddy you are either a truly dedicated and caring conservator of old instruments or completely frickin nuts and some of these photo shoots over the years show a confusing combination of both. wait I just remembered the pencil. Yep NUTS it is. As always though nice job and the miserable wreck reborn looks pretty good again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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