BRITISH MADE EARLY 60's GUITAR HELP NEEDED

[raphaël]

I find the swimming pool and the extra hole for the jack tip have a strong Klira vibe...
Are you sure the pickguard is original too??

[UlricvonCatalyst]

Didn't scrutinise the pictures closely enough. It does have a real hand-knitted quality to it; I'd be surprised if it's a production guitar with that neck joint. If it was eastern European in origin I'm not sure it'd have all those identifiably '60s-era British cheapo' appointments.
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It's hard to believe now but none of these parts would have been cheap! When you look at price lists from back then, everything was really expensive. Add on trem units were often like, £10, which was a reasonable weeks wages back then

I only meant they were the kind of parts found on cheap ('sold as', not necessarily 'made in') British guitars. They may not have been cheap in terms of the average weekly wage back then, but they sure as hell were compared to American imports.

[Scotrock]

Hi Raphael

I am never sure about anything regarding this guitar but there are distinct similarities to guitars I have owned in the past, the pickguard is contemporaneous with the guitar and the period, this can easily be seen from the faded impression left on the body and as I said earlier it is of a Formica Bakalite material, the early Watkins in particular used the same stuff. It is very thin and brittle and on most guitars I have seen of the period has been replaced a long time ago! I am currently rebuilding a Watkins Vibra Rapier, it too had the same pickguard material that had long since be disposed of, the previous owner had tried to make one out of thin ply, which did not work, I have made a new one to replicate the original.

The pool on the guitar also has less distinct shadows of the pickups so I am reasonably convinced that it all came together in the early 60's





Hi mgeek

Here is a photo of the coil I intend to have rewound I think this is typical Japanese of the period, it has Formvar coils wire. The working one reads 5.1 KOhms on my meter.

[Scotrock]

Didn't scrutinise the pictures closely enough. It does have a real hand-knitted quality to it; I'd be surprised if it's a production guitar with that neck joint. If it was eastern European in origin I'm not sure it'd have all those identifiably '60s-era British cheapo' appointments.
.

It's hard to believe now but none of these parts would have been cheap! When you look at price lists from back then, everything was really expensive. Add on trem units were often like, £10, which was a reasonable weeks wages back then

I only meant they were the kind of parts found on cheap ('sold as', not necessarily 'made in') British guitars. They may not have been cheap in terms of the average weekly wage back then, but they sure as hell were compared to American imports.

If you try and buy a set of those Van Ghent machine heads today you will not get much change out of £100

[mgeek]

Aha- yes deffo japanese... I had some identical ones that came off a Broadway guitar (the version that didn't use weill pickups!)

[vale]

my vote is for homemade because (not being rude, it's a cool thing for what it is) i don't think a joint like that belongs in a high stress situation. & also some of carving looks a bit not-quite-pro.
so maybe garden shed body, adapted neck from something contemporary to fit (headstock looks cut down), with scavenged hardware from whatever came to hand. sources given as watkins & generic contemporary Japanese-originated parts seem to add up.

because of trade restrictions & import taxes, decent american guitars were out of reach of all but the well-off & pros in the uk of the 60s (supposing it was made in 60s & not 70s or even later, parts suggest 60s).
so options were cheap Japanese things for bottom end, europeans things & cheap brit for middle range, & better brit-made things like burns at the top end of the non-american rankings.

any brit band of the time will reflect this. beatles started out with rosetti, hofners, futuramas & only once they were serious pros could they afford the decent american stuff.

same for rest. hank marvin is supposedly the first person to get a strat in the uk (c1960), specially imported by cliff who was a big star at the time. but stuff of dreams for any other uk musician.

the other option was do what brian may of queen did with his red special (c1963). buy some burns pickups, invent a trem out of motorbike parts & knock together a body out of an old table in his shed with his dad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Special" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

& that's what i think this is.

[mgeek]

There is no way that neck was adapted from any existing guitar... It's made of ash! Never seen a UK made guitar that had a neck made of anything other than sycamore, beech or mahogany

Re: trade restrictions etc, I suppose you are right in essence, but the early Japanese imports weren't bottom of the rung in the really early days. It's only in the late sixties that they started turning out super cheap cheesewire monstrosities, in the late fifties and early sixties they were as good as or better than home grown stuff.

[FrankRay]

Was Pete Best kicked out of the band because he refused to buy matching jackets??
Great pic, by the way. Having owned a few cheap british guitars I sympathise with McCartney's anguished look.

[Scotrock]

Hi gmeek

As I said previously I am currently restoring a very early Watkins Vibra Rapier No 115, the body is a species of Mahogany, the neck I am reasonably certain is Maple or Sycamore (which I believe is relative of Maple) and the fret board is a thick layer of Rosewood.

If you are interested I will post some photos, I have not started the respray and I re profiled the neck to get rid of a bow so I need to re fret it.

This is what it looked like when I bought it, as you can see it has been well mucked about.

[mgeek]

Hi gmeek

As I said previously I am currently restoring a very early Watkins Vibra Rapier No 115, the body is a species of Mahogany, the neck I am reasonably certain is Maple or Sycamore (which I believe is relative of Maple) and the fret board is a thick layer of Rosewood.

If you are interested I will post some photos, I have not started the respray and I re profiled the neck to get rid of a bow so I need to re fret it.

This is what it looked like when I bought it, as you can see it has been well mucked about.

yeah cool- start a thread in the restorations forum maybe?

I'm into all things 'early UK guitars'- here's a Fenton Weill Streamline Super I restored a few years ago http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... hp?t=79625" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Currently rebuilding a totally destroyed and very rare and early non trem Burns Artiste!

[Scotrock]

Hi gmeek

Yes I saw that earlier, it was one of the reason I decided to used OSG to get some answers.

Great piece of work, it is so important that these old tired instruments are brought back to life.

I rebuilt a Shergold Masquerader recently and it turned out really well, had to make some of the parts, getting anything for these old guitars is becoming really difficult.

Thanks for you views, there were a few guys involved in the late 50's early 60's that transformed the music scene in the UK, Weill, Burns, Watkins, Arbiter etc

[mgeek]

ooh nice...not had a Shergold before.

Yeah, the early UK guitars are endlessly fascinating to me. I'm much more into rebuilding wrecks vs buying clean ones them because you can legitimately correct things they messed up at the time...like fret positioning! I like to use my guitars