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She's been through all the cases in my place - she hasn't even looked twice at Sully (my Jazzmaster) but is particularly taken with my old '66 Telecaster (she says it's chipped and worn Oly White reminds her of a hospital wall!) and the ES330!! If I had to loan her one it would be the Telecaster ... I'm pretty sure there's not much more that can be done to that guitar ... plus Teles are solid as rocks generally. But a Gibson hollowbody? Even when she's playing it in my place I wince every time she moves it without thinking about where the headstock is in relation to hard objects (something someone who has learned that lesson the hard way, as we all have, is constantly aware of).

I hear ya!

At the moment my Ultrasonic is hung on the wall right next to my wife's clothes rail & shoe rack. Not only that but my Tele/Gretsch project is on a stand under it. As a space saving exercise it's the best place for them (other than being in their cases) but every time I see her shifting stuff around my anxiety levels increase.
Just like you say, the Tele/Gretsch can take a fair few knocks but knocking the Ultrasonic off its hanger would almost certainly cause irreparable damage.

Why the fuck am I saying this!!!!! I'm on a train 100 miles away & she's in the flat. Probably sorting clothes out. Oh god!!!!!!!

PorkyPrimeCut wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:18 am

Despot wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:01 am

....I'm still trying to explain why I've no intention of giving her a 1962 ES330 as her 'learner' guitar and how she's better off starting with something else!

Good luck with that one!

With cars I get the old; 'but of course you love me more than thisstupid old car?' whenever I buy something Maleficent could see herself steering. Sadly she has it spot on, I do love her more than any car, even the 3500GT and generally just hand it over.

I also get the reverse of that coin where anything she doesn't like gets the welcome mat pulled away from it's wheels fairly smartly.

That said, I'd if I had my time over again I'd have started on an acoustic, so I'd sell little Miss Despot on that idea if I could.

D

She has turned her nose up at the idea of taking my lovely old Goya/Levin parlour acoustic ... I've been pushing the idea that learning how to play on an acoustic front loads the effort and then makes life a lot easier when you've got the basics down and switch over to electric.

But let's see ... at least she doesn't eyeball the rack of old guitar cases with a look of disgust as others have done over the years.

Finally had a chance to take some better daylight pictures (and to switch to Flickr).

Jesus, man! That checking is gorgeous!! It's like a fucking marble floor or something.

Beautiful guitar! One of the nicest I've seen in a long time. P90s, block inlays, Bigsby and that gorgeous 2-tone burst. Damn!!!!

Unbelievably gorgeous! Congrats Kev, definitely a lifer guitar here!

Amazing as ever! I've really been lusting after an old 330 this year. Never played one, just in love from afar.

Kevin, your NGD posts make me insanely jealous, but this is by far the worst of them all.

Congrats on such an amazing purchase — I hope this one stays with you forever.

PorkyPrimeCut wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 25, 2017 5:37 am

Jesus, man! That checking is gorgeous!! It's like a fucking marble floor or something.

Beautiful guitar! One of the nicest I've seen in a long time. P90s, block inlays, Bigsby and that gorgeous 2-tone burst. Damn!!!!

Lovely. How’s the Bigsby?

Thanks everyone.

Mark - you're right ... it really is like marble ... it was originally how it looked that made me want to try it out, but it's just a really really good one.

Todd - thanks man. Hopefully this one sticks around - but something would have to be really fantastic to make me want to trade this.

PMG - it's actually okay. It's a little stiffer than I would have expected, but looking at it I suspect that someone has swapped out the old spring for a newer spring. I know where this came from before it got to Ireland and I suspect there's someone working in that store who now has a nice, smooth vintage spring in their bigsby and I have their old one!

Gorgeous ES-330, I've never seen a vintage piece with so much character in it.

You might want to give one of these a shot: http://store.reverendguitars.com/produc ... ch-spring/ I've never used one on any of my Gretsches, but the folks over on GT have raved about what they can do when the tension is tough on any Bigbsy (mostly B5/B7 cases), and it might be what you need.

^ ^ I think I might've mentioned this elsewhere but I have a spare Reverend spring you can try out if you want ^ ^

They seem to be well regarded but, I dunno, after trying out the stock 3/4 incher, the 1 incher & the Reverend I seem to prefer the middle of the 3.

You did - thanks again for the offer ... but I'm going to leave it the way it is. The bigsby is a little firm, but it is smooth and holds tune really well even when fairly roundly abused. I'm happy with it as it is - I think I'm just used to vibrola units which have a much softer feel to them (and ... you know ... tuning issues).

Incidentally the short vibrola on the Junior is possibly the nicest, smoothest trem I've tried ... and surprisingly doesn't seem to have a negative impact on the resonance of the guitar (I've often found that once you take the vibrola off and wrap around the bridge the overall resonance of the guitar improves a good deal). I'm still going to try the Faber bridge on it for the sake of curiosity, but I may well then go back to how it is right now.

I now have three Gibson trem units - the short vibrola on the Junior, the vintage Bigsby on the ES330 and a modern long vibrola on the ES355. Of these the nicest to use is undoubtedly the short vibrola on the Junior - in terms of how it reacts and feels to use. The modern vibrola is a horror for staying in tune, but the old bigsby is solid as a rock.

Superlovely, genuinely exquisite.

D