Old,New Topic FT-140

[kuvash]

Has anyone out there ever actually found,played and liked this guitar from the late 70's?

[TommyK]

Yup.

 

My FT145SB in my avatar is essentially the same box, just a different bling level. Love that tone.

 

Got any pics?

 

What needs refurbishment?

 

How's the neck block?

[kuvash]

Thanks for the reply,sorry no picks,I have several other Epiphones as well as some of them other guys.

This 140 needs nothing,everything is very,very good,a few marks on the body,though nothing major.

I really do like the sound of this guitar.I love it in fact.

I do have other guitars to compare it to and I am a guy with some miles on me.

 

I have just heard a lot said about the guitars from this era........although I had owned one before in the early eighties that I bought used.Iwas just curious whether I was the only"nut"out there...I love these necks. this one is tight,the block is good,bridge good,really the least fret wear I have seen on a used guitar,even the original tuners work great.They are holding quite well.It currently has EJ179(D'addario)strings on it,sound.volumn,projection all great.I have an Alvarez-Yairi cedar/rosewood....so I tend to use it as my yardstick

 

kuvsh

[obrienp]

Hi, Yes.

 

I have one of these: well very similar: a natural coloured FT145, which I think is the same save a few cosmetics. I've had it since the '70s. Bought it new in Rouen, France. It's in pretty good condition, which is more a testament to the fact that it's one tough guitar, than me looking after it. Even carried it on my motorcycle a few times. Now it lives in the attic most of the time and seems to survive the temperature changes unscathed.

 

Unfortunately, I think it's safe to say that the attributes that make it so tough don't help the tone: all laminate construction (as far as I can tell), adjustable saddle and bolt on heelless neck. My sounds surprisingly good despite this: never thought that laminates would improve with age but this seems to have. One thing though, you can get a wicked action by using all that adjustment. Also if you like to play a bit of bottleneck, you can raise the action in a trice.

 

I kind of retired mine 18 years ago when I got a Washburn D61-SWN, which is the poor man's D28 and just sounding fantastic now but that's probably for another forum ;-). The other reason to retire the FT-145 was that the frets had gone. I'd had them stoned so often there was virtually nothing left. In my view the frets and fret board were the least robust aspect of the FT-145. Frets seemed to get grooved very quickly and the fret board ditto. I can't bring myself to part with it though but it lives in the loft because I sneaked a new IB Texan home in its place about a month ago. They look so similar, that she who will be obeyed didn't notice. That has to be a result on anybody's scale[biggrin]

[kuvash]

Thanks,and that was a really great move......on the Texan......smooth......sweet!

 

Kuvash

[kuvash]

So,has anyone else out there used the FT 140 or FT 145 for slode? Any feedback,thoughts,suggestions and your particular "set up" like strings,type,pauge.bridge height,slide materials ans so on..........I'm just curious.

 

 

Thank you,Kuvash

[obrienp]

Hi Kuvash,

 

Yes, I've used my 145 a bit for slide. I just had 12s on it: probably Ernie Ball Earthwoods. I was very keen on those at the time I was using the 145 a lot. I had a light gauge chromed slide (not sure what metal it was made of) which worked pretty well but I have tended to use a Jim Dunlop glass slide on acoustics recently. The biggest benefit of the 145 is being able to raise the action for slide so you don't catch the frets. It also lets you put more pressure on the strings through the bottleneck when you are playing chords, which compensates for the radius on the nut and bridge.

[maatty]

Just picked up an FT-140 from a local guy.

 

Neck has been glued back, dings everywhere, frets are filed low (probably 40% left), and the bridge is lifting slightly.

 

Cleaned up and re-stringed with Martin MSP1200 (Martin's new SP Marquis 80/20 mediums), and it sounds terrible. Tone is not even comparable to the minty Epiphone Dove I used to have.

 

So there, the myth of FT-140 is broken. It sounds bad, period.

 

I got it specifically because last weekend I went hiking/camping with 16 people and had to take my only guitar (a high end Taylor). This experience enlightened me to add an arsenal of cheap guitars for the sole purpose of using them in the wilds--retreats, around the campfire, picnics, boating, and on the beach.

 

Sure, I could have gotten one of those Takamine Jasmines, but their finish is thin and they look flimsy. It makes less noise than the Epi FT series. The Epiphone FT-140, on the other hand, is a proven survivor (of the cola wars ). It looks like it will survive WWIII.

[maatty]

In outdoors environment, with water stream noise, chatting noise, BBQ noise, campfire noise et al., the expensive guitar doesn't shine at all. In my experience, a LOUD guitar triumphs over proud luthiery in nature.

 

 

[maatty]

Ok, in all fairness, it sounds much better than Takamine Jasmine ($99 guitar) and other $100 guitars I've had including a Gretsch Americana guitar. The thick finish is much better than can be found in sub $200 guitars. And it is made in Japan after all . Machine heads are flimsy but they work ok.

 

One annoying problem is that the zero fret makes it hard to play in the first fret. I just use the capo and play at 2nd + frets to circumvent this problem. I thought the frets were gone, but it turns out the zero fret is making playing difficult.

 

I'm looking forward to taking this guitar to the great outdoors. It looks like it will serve as a good paddle too, should the need arise.

[TommyK]

...One annoying problem is that the zero fret makes it hard to play in the first fret. ... I thought the frets were gone' date=' but it turns out the [b']zero fret is making playing difficult[/b].

...

 

How So?

 

 

Also, I'm not sure those are OEM tuners.

[maatty]

The zero fret is really high. It looks like someone (or at the factory) leveled the first few frets off rather than filing off the zero-th fret.

 

It requires precision and incredible finger strength to play say, F or Bb.

 

The tuners--I'm not sure either. But they look old. I did check for the neck block issue (as per your excellent post ), and indeed, this brown label looks fine in that area.

[TommyK]

Mine was the same way. Frets 1-3 were filed to within an inch of their lives. This was the factory install.

 

My solution? Re-fretted with frets like the higher ones up beyond 4. I then installed a taller fret for the zero fret. This gets the 1-3 frets high enough you can fret or barre without a death grip and the strings are raised high enough to clear the 1 fret to prevent buzzing The neck/body geometry makes for high action above 7, but I plan to do some shim work to bring this down. I will probably re-string this one this summer on a too-hot-to-do-anything-outside day. I'll trial and error some neck to neck block shims. Either flat or tapered to see which works best.

[maatty]

Thanks for the good info.

 

Where did you find the replacement frets? And is the re-fretting very difficult to attempt?