Epiphone Texan Twelve String

[dbrit1]

Hi folks, bought an Epi Texan 12 for my son. The serial number is 1160194 and indicates it is of the Norlin strain. I tried the Guitar Dater, but came up empty handed. Anybody know of any other source for dating this piece. It is in pretty good condition, and I want to be able to tell him what he's got. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Nelson]

Hi folks' date=' bought an Epi Texan 12 for my son. The serial number is 1160194 and indicates it is of the Norlin strain. I tried the Guitar Dater, but came up empty handed. Anybody know of any other source for dating this piece. It is in pretty good condition, and I want to be able to tell him what he's got. Thanks in advance for your help. [/quote']

 

He has a guitar that was made between 1972 and 1980 in Japan by Matsumoku (Aria) for Norlin.

 

If the interior label is a smaller blue rectangular label that says "Epiphone- Kalamazoo Michigan" it was made between 1972 and 1976. If it's a larger white rectangular label and it says "Epiphone-A another fine product from Norlin-Lincolnwood, Illinois" it was made bewteen about 1976 and 1980 and that's about as close as you're going to get as far as a date.

 

Nelson

[hunter3705]

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but I recently had a bad experience with a similar guitar and wanted to share what I learned with you. I bought a Texan FT-160 12-string, used, that I was told was mid to late 70s vintage. I cleaned it up, put new strings on it and notice that in order to get the primary strings in tune, I had to practically torque down on those tuners with a piece of pipe! The strings were so overly taunt that I was afraid one was going to give and I'd lose an eye or something. More than once during my attempt to tune it, one of the bridge pins let go and flew across the room with enough force to make the dog run for cover! I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was going on with this guitar, but I knew something wasn't right. I took it to a very old and reputable music store here in Baltimore and as soon as the guy saw the guitar he said, "I don't need to see it, let me guess, ......" and he went on to describe exactly what had been going on. Turns out that these particular models had a major design flaw. If you look through the sound hole at how the neck is joined, you'll see that it looks almost like a mummy or something, it's been wrapped up with some sort of fiberglass-like wrap. According to what this repairman said, the design worked ok with 6-strings, but couldn't handle the increased tension of a 12-string. The neck mount gave under tension and the whole neck would start to move forward. Because of this movement, you had to tighten, and tighten the strings to try to get them in tune. He told me that sometimes they could be fixed by puting one or two shims between the neck and the body - forcing the neck to angle back away from the front, as it's supposed to. He said sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. He would not even accept the guitar to work on, and suggested that I try fixing it myself. I ended up giving it to a buddy of mine who understood the problem, and was willing to tinker with it. He hasn't had any luck so far, but hasn't given up. I hope that your Texan is fine and works well for you, but I just wanted to share with you what I learned. Good luck with it, Alan

[TommyK]

Here's my tutorial for >>>Repairing a broke neck Norlin Epiphone<<<

 

If it has some mummified fiberglass reinforcement, it is most definitely not a factory fix. Looks like someone else had taken a stab at repairing. I've seen some really odd stuff out there for this fix. Mine is almost transparent... and works.

 

If the tuner has to be cranked with a pipe wrench.. there's something else amiss. The tuner's bad or... not sure how long you've been tuning guitars, but my newbie brother had a problem with over tightened strings breaking. He was tuning his son's new Christmas guit tar to his daugher's piano. Unbeknownst to him, the guitar is actually a 'transposing' instrument. This means it plays music one ocatave below what is on the printed page. He was crankin' them wa-a-a-ay too tight.

 

If you have pins rocketing out of their holes, like I used to. Your pin installation technique needs to be modified. The balls of the strings must be firmly against the bottom of the sound board before, during and after pin installation. Sometimes the pin grabs the little tail of the windings above the ball and pushes ball away from the soundboard. Then while tuning up, the string pulls up on the pin. Suddenly the pin jumps with enough speed and force to launch it for the dark recesses of your home and scare the pajesus out of Fido in the process. The pin, if properly installed doesn't need to be shoved into the hole very tightly. Just snug enough to keep it from falling out. If your thumb turns white, you're pushin' them in too hard.

[hunter3705]

Tommy, I was exagerating a little bit about the piece of pipe and the pins rocketing out, in order to give the story a little bit of humor. I don't claim to be any sort of expert - changing strings and tuning is about the full extent of my ability. But the repair supervisor at Bill's House of Music is, without question, an expert. He told me very clearly that this particular model of 12-string had a design flaw right from the outset. They wouldn't even work on it. You're right, the inside could very well be someone's earlier attempt to fix it - I don't know. It was just a real eye-opener for me, because like most of us here, I really like Epiphone guitars and have had really good experiences with them. I got a "deal" on the Texan 12-string only to find out that it was defective from the time it was made, and was virtually unrepairable. I was burned enough to stay away from bargain vintage guitars from now on. On the bright side, and what I hope is the case for dbrit1 and his new guitar, the guy at Bill's did say that a lot of the FT-160s were fine, and never had any problems at all. In any case, I just wanted to relate my own personal experience in the hope that it might be of help to someone else. Happy holidays to everyone! Alan

[TommyK]

Keep looking for your FT160 / 165. There is one out there for you. I haven't heard of my repair being done on a 12 string, but would love to hear anyone's experince.

 

Most guit tar techs don't want to spend the time / $ on these guit tars, unless the owner is willing to take the risk of it not working. What makes this one really 'unrepairable' is previous owner's attempt to repair with his autobody experience and materials. Sad, but it does show you to what lengths some people will go to keep these Norlin era Epis playable. They love the tone.

 

Look on the bright side... you have a very lovely wall hanging for your 'man cave'

[Axelation]

I have a Japanese made Texan 12 string and would like to know if there is a way to tell the year it was made by the serial number.

It is an FT-160 serial number 371264. I bought it some 8 years ago in a pawn shop in Lafayette, Louisiana for 150 bucks. I recently had the neck shimmed and the frets worked a little to improve the action. It plays and sounds better now than when I bought it. I plan to pass it on to my son when he is old enough to take care of it.

[TommyK]

Welcome Axelation.

 

The previous posts will tell you everything you need to know... or rather what is known. Dating is mostly a by description thing than by serial numbers as the serial numbers on this vintage of Epiphone were anything but serial. If you get it narrowed down to a bracket of 2 - 3 years, you're doing good.

 

Got any pics? Details of the headstock and label are useful. A side shot showing the fretboard above the soundboard will help determine if you have a collapsing neck block.

 

And, if you could, post a shot taken from just above the bottom button looking into the sound hole from a sharp angle.

 

Like This:

 

Better yet, If you can fit you camera inside and take it like this:

 

(the "L" shaped bracket it is my design and fabrication. The factory put nothing here.)

 

I'd love to see the detail of the neck block. If you are still playing, it is possible the neck block is holding. I'd love to see how 'they' did it from the factory.

 

BTW, my avatar is of the 6 string sister to your FT160. She's a FT145SB, acqured Dec 25, 1974.

[Axelation]

I appologize for the poor quality, my cell phone is all I have on hand for pics.

Sorry... Can't fit camera inside sound hole. Just put new strings on it too.

 

[TommyK]

Great lookin' 12 wire you got there. From what I can see, there's not much difference in the neck block from earlier versions. Too bad you can't get the camera in the sound box. I can see that the neck block isn't much wider than the neck itself. This definitely would make for a weaker neck, if they hadn't done some other reinfocing which I cannot see yet. Yours appears to be holding.

 

Appears to be a later model Norlin. So you're looking at '76 - '80. And that is probably as close as you're going to get.

 

The label of some mid-Norlin labels, i.e. shortly after the small blue labels were droppd, are tan colored. Probably saved money on this vitage of FT by photocopying the blank labels on plain office paper.

 

Congrats on still having the OEM case. Mine disintegrated years ago.

[Axelation]

Yes I saw the posting earlier about the label.

Was a little disappointed in not being able to pin-point the year, but still sounds and plays great for its age.

I dumped around 70 bucks in it to have the neck re-seated and some fret work done, but it was definately worth it.