My rebuilt 1962 Hollowbody (lots of pics!).
What's up guys? Great job with the forums. Very cool - I'm stoked to finally have a place to discuss my favorite pickups. Sorry this post is so darn long! Small bit of backstory. I bought this guitar 15 months ago on eBay because my girlfriend actually liked it (big shock!). It's a 1962 Liberty Custom MT-280. Don't bother looking it up, nobody living has ever heard of the company (at least none of the hundreds of people I've talked to). Seems to be some long defunct Japanese company. I know of at least one other person who owns one though, so it's not a one off. Anyways, I've spent all of my time and a little bit of money learning how to refurbish and rebuild guitars. I have since replaced everything except the wood, the truss rod, the neck pickup and the tuners. The neck pickup will be a Supertron soon enough, when I save the money (the bridge Supertron is hands down my favorite pickup I've ever played). Work is far from done, got to get the neck pup, tuners, and my new bridge on soon enough. Then it's refret time. So here's a (long) walkthrough of my life over the last 15 months! The original eBay pics: You can see how much promise it had, and I was pretty eager when it arrived. This set of pics is work over 8 months or so. The first picture is the night I wired it up, and heard it for the first time (it shipped with working pickups, but no working electronics). Took me 16 hours to wire it. The second pic is with the refinished pickup rings, and my prized part up to this point, an original 1962 Bigsby (took me a long time to track one down). The last pic was around May, with the knobs, and the nice Schaller roller bridge. This set of pics just shows the difference in headstock, old and new. Lastly, here's some pics showing the big day, where she finally got a voice. After months of saving (and one month where all my savings got blown o a brand new Duo jet :)), I finally afforded and installed the Supertron in the bridge. I couldn't be happier, honestly. Through my 1965 Gibson Falcon, the Supertron absolutely sings. I'll stop typing now, this thread is too long. But I just wanna thank Mr. Jones, this is my favorite guitar and honest to God what kept me pushing was that one day I'd plug it in and hear some TV Jones singing back to me. Well worth the wait! For the two people who get this far, coming next week, an original, fully complete 1955 Gretsch Melita bridge. I can't wait! That's gonna push this over the top. This is it: And last, here she is sleeping (the night before the surgery I believe?):

Wow, beuatifull guitar you have there mate ! Needless to say, it looks like a "fun" project you have on your hands there ! Also, very good photo's !!! Please keep us posted... Can't wait to see the rest ! Cheers :wink:

:) Thanks bro! It's been, above all else, a fantastic learning experience and a great project.

very cool restoration..... Martin made a guitar very similar to that (not in cool greenburst tho :wink: ) enjoy!

Great job! She really deserves to have a loving home! Both you AND your Girlfriend made the right choice! Looking forward to more stuff on the bridge too! :D

All my friends (that play guitar) say it looks tacky, but i have a very soft spot for GREEN & Blue Burst guitars ! How does that pu sound like ? Is it hot ? I am looking into TV Jones for my Epi LP Gold Top, and whant something with a real sweet early rock crunch ! Cheers JP

Donner, thanks dude! And about the Martin, I just learned about that about 6 months ago. Almost had a heart attack when I saw the picture. :) Do you remember the model number? I can't remember what model it was. F107, thank you too, and my next post will be the bridge restoration pictorial. Sir Jack, your friends are crazy! :mrgreen: Just joking. But thanks for all your comments. The Supertron is a truly awesome pickup. It's slightly hotter than a Classic, but much clearer than a Powertron. So it's really good for both fingerpickin (what I do most) and also for good power chord rock fun. My amp needs a humbucker in about the 12K range just to get pushed into overdrive with the volume at 10 (on the amp and guitar), so the Supertron doesn't exactly get very dirty on my amp. But it can get pretty gnarly, which is a cool sound. And when I kick in my overdrive pedal, it sounds just awesome. In short, I'd definitely recommend it for your Epi! You just need to know what kind of pickup it is, but I love it.

And now for the bridge pictorial. I bought this 1955 Melita bridge dirt cheap, because the woman needed to offload it, she needed money. This part is highly sought after, mostly because it was the first fully intonable bridge on the market. If you want to read my entire writeup (with the exact same pictures), you can visit my thread here: http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125424 Anyways, here are the pictures! Thanks guys. eBay Pictures: - Notice how black the parts are? I didn't know if it was cleanable or not. Before I cleaned it: - Picture quality is lower than it should have been, didn't use tripod and I used flash :smack: While I was cleaning it: - Check out the grime and stuff reacting with the acid in the first few pics, created a nice sludgy/smoky/cloudy mixture at the top of the vinegar. Then with the steel wool, the black stuff came off instantly. After cleaning it, here are all 22 parts drying off (beautiful picture, I think): And here she is, all put together. This isn't gold, it's chrome. It just looks gold from the lighting. Again, just a beautiful piece of engineering: And finally, on the guitar: On this pic, you may notice that the 'feet' are not connected to the guitar yet. You generally use extremely thin double sided tape. It doesn't harm the finish, comes off instantly, and keeps the bridge down/in place. I'll get some eventually:

Thanks dude! An Orange huh? Those are awesome. For my uses, I like Supertrons/Magna'Trons/Classics more than Powertrons. I've got other guitars I use for balls out rock, like my Gibsons, or my Tele. This guitar (along with my Gretsch) I use more for rockabilly and fingerpicking. So that's why I have the Supertron. That said, some of my favorite bands use Powertrons, and use them well. If you're gonna be using lots of gain, or playing rock type stuff, I'd recommend the Powertrons.

I love every band you just mentioned. Very nice taste! I still listen the most to Setzer, but he's my idol. :) You could always shoot TV Jones an e-mail asking what they'd recommend, or what pickups The Rev. uses. According to Gretsch, The Rev. uses TV Classics. So you could probably get by with Classics, they're incredible pickups. They're what every other Filtertron is based on really, the base I guess. I just bought a neck Classic for my Duo Jet, can't wait to get it in. But I'm no expert, I'd definitely send Mr. Jones an email if I were you! Good luck bro. And great taste! :)

BigAllTheThird, what guitar does your hollow-body sound like(gretsch-wise)?

That's a great question! Well there is an answer, but I'll describe what it sounds like first (trying to avoid stupid buzzwords): Acoustically/unplugged she sounds decent. Quite loud and resonant, but too dark for my tastes. However, there's this <i>beautiful</i> hollow almost plunking sound if you play at a sweet spot by the neck, around the 22nd fret. Really a beautiful sound, and it's possibly my very favorite acoustic sound I get from any guitar I own (although the Duo Jet is a very close second). On the neck pickup, it doesn't great at the moment, because I still have the 1962 single-coil-in-mini-humbucker-case installed. I need to save up the $155 for the neck Super'tron, which is hard at the moment because I need to buy a new car as well. So she still sounds ok, but I don't hardly spend 2% of my time on the neck pickup - which is a shame. But the bridge pickup, the Super'tron, is God's voice. Honestly and truly, through my amp on volumes between about 6 and 10, there's nothing better that I've ever had (for my playing taste - if you want the Van Halen sound, this ain't gonna cut it). In terms of sound, I'd take this over my Duo Jet/Tele/Les Paul/Strat any day of the week (not in playability though lol). To be specific, when I keep the volume on the amp down, or keep my picking calmed down, it sounds very open and airy, and it can get good clean, warm tones. I think it's better than the Classic at staying warm if you want, but I could be wrong. If I start to get a little crazy, she can easily get out of control and get too bright, but that's part of the fun. There's a sweet spot there though, that takes a while to hit, and I've been trying to put it into words for a while now. Basically, it sounds kinda smoky, if you can understand that. I dunno. Sounds like it could rip your face off at the same time - not with distortion so much as pure presence and clarity and awesomeness. But yeah, this smokiness is an unquantifiable trait, and really somewhat indescribable. Here's the video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgUCs72RDHs The neck doesn't sound nearly as good as his yet, but it will. The bridge sounds nigh identical, perhaps a tad brighter, but that's probably my amp. Listen at the 1:10 mark, that's getting close to the smoky sound I'm referencing. Anyways, I know this was long, I hope it makes sense! :)

it makes perfect sense....thank you, when mine gets done ill fill you in too....