A 5-Decades Old Relic

Here’s quite a finding: a semi-hollow Silvertone Jupiter 1423 guitar from 1961 with all its original accesories!

Restored Silvertone Jupiter 1423

The gold sparkle over black finish is a Silvertone 1423 exclusive. Apart of some minor marks on the back, it’s a very well-preserved guitar.

Minimal marks on the back

The original chipboard case is in very good condition, with just some spot marks due to humidity. It’s still structurally sound, the internal cloth remains intact, and even the external leather piece is still in good shape. All I had to do was to clean it carefully and remove the superficial rust.

Removing rust from the latches.

The fretboard and its binding were separated due to low humidity. The wooden bridge was broken, also because of the dry environment it was living in. But the finished surfaces were very good, especially taking into account its 55 years of age.

As if it weren’t enough, inside the case were the original cable that came with the guitar, the user’s manual, a detailed explanation of the 1423’s unique circuit (in a typewrited carbon-copy!), and even the sales receipt to the original owner. Amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

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It’s very difficult to find an early ’60s guitar in such a good shape, but to get it with so much documentation and accesories is the rarest event ever!

Although there is no serial number anywhere, there are a couple of clues that allow me to positively date this as a late 1961 guitar.

One of the documents sports the words “SEARS TELEGRAM – DIAMOND JUBILEE”. Silvertone guitars were sold through the entire USA via the Sears catalogue, and its Diamond Jubilee (75 years) happened in 1961. Additionally, the pickups have an inked seal with the day of their construction.

The original pickups were in perfect condition. A rusty, used one can be found at $120. A few years ago, DeArmond built a limited run of only 12 sets… sold at $400 each!

To get an idea of its age, let’s remember what was happening in 1961:

– In April 12th, 1961 Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space.
– In August 13th, 1961 the Berlin Wall gets built.
– “Stand By Me”, sung by Ben E. King, became a classic.
– The Beatles were still an unknown bar band!

What makes this an extraordinary finding is that Silvertone guitars were cheap instruments targeted to students. Due to this fact, these guitars were mistreated and neglected once their owners bought a fancier one. It seems the original owner of this 1423 never played it, since its frets have no wear and the wood shows no sweat marks. Even the pickguard shows no scratches!

The “blender” control is unique to this guitar.

Even the knobs have a history. Daka-Ware was a trade name for compression-molded knobs, handles, and ashtrays made by Davies Molding, L.L.C. Again, “vintage” can’t get more authentic than this!

http://blog.daviesmolding.com/daka-ware-a-brief-history-of-industrial-knobs

When was the last time you saw a control knob made in Chicago?

The electronics were covered with some nasty stuff all over them, but after a carefully cleaning they worked again flawlessly.

It really looks like salt.

The fretboard was the most problematic part. Its edges were already separated from the neck, as the binding was. And the mother of pearl block was almost falling off its place.

It might as well jump -JUMP!- off the fretboard.

The fretboard came out easily. The glue was so shot I didn’t had to warm it up.

The very simple truss rod. As vintage as it gets.

I used an unique method for gluing the fretboard back. I took a piece of expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) to even out the pressure along the entire fretboard. It adapts itself to the curved shape of the wood and over the frets, and its effectiveness can be seen after unclamping everything: the EPS shows a “negative” imprint of the surface.

 

Left: the EPS is between the neck and the table during the gluing procedure. Right: the EPS adapts itself to the shape of the fretboard.

To repair the inlay, I first had to use a syringe to insert hot water under the block. Easy, right? Not when you can break a mother-of-pearl piece that’s 55 years old! And there’s always a place for surprises…

As you can see, the inlay is glued to a thin wooden laminate. If someone tries to extract the block carelessly, the mother-of-pearl could be separated from its wooden base… and that base is what keeps the shape of the inlay.

The mother-of-pearl comes as a flat piece, but the fretboard shape is curved. The mother-of-pearl was carefully pressed against that maple shim to give it the desired curved shape. When the glue failed (as it did on the rest of the fretboard), the mother-of-pearl piece simply returned to its original flat shape. That’s why it looked like it was raised along the edges.

The repair required to slightly heat the mother-of-pearl to soften and have it bent again while keeping the maple shim underneath, and then glue it all together in its original place using a wooden piece shaped to the same curvature of the fretboard. All this has to be done quickly enough to avoid it to cool -and thus, to become rigid again- before I can get it in its correct place with the desired shape.

The clear wrapping foil is to avoid excess glue to creep between the top of the inlay and the curved wooden block.

The last step was to clean and buff the frets to a mirror-like shine.

The bridge was a difficult decision. Since I assumed the owner wanted to play this guitar, I decided not to create an exact copy of the original Silvertone bridge because that design has two inherent defects. First, the outer edges break apart very easily (as it already happened on this guitar). Second, the parabollic shape of its top don’t offer enough material to perform a correct string length compensation. That’s why I created a wooden stepped bridge similar to the ones used in the ’50s era Gibson ES 175. I used the original wheels and hardware. It doesn’t look original, but it is period-correct and much more durable.

These days, the Samick factory is building modern replicas of Silvertone guitars with a much higher quality. However, the new 1423 doesn’t sound like the old ones for a few reasons:

1) The original pickups were DeArmond “Silver Foil”, but current ones are “Duncan Designed” pickups, very similar to the Gretsch Filter’Tron.
2) The current bridge is a metal “Tune-O-Matic” bridge. The original one is a wooden one.
3) The body woods are also different. The “Silvertone-by-Samick” guitars are all-mahogany, while the original ones had maple sides with spruce top & back.

As a result, the newer ones sound like a Gibson ES-335 or an Epiphone Casino. Not bad at all, but players who prefer the unique tone of the Silvertone 1423 are still hunting for the vintage ones. And I think you can’t get more vintage than this!

Even the plastic strap buttons are immaculate.

The current owner brought this guitar to me to fix it and give it to a youngster who is learning to play guitar. After explaining him the value of this instrument, he told me he’s gonna show it in a special place in his living room and buy a cheaper one for his kid!

If you have a vintage intrument you can show it as a museum piece, but it is important to play it once in a while to avoid the damages caused by neglect. This Silvertone is finally ready to rock any stage or amaze any recording enthusiast. And I can tell you this guitar sings beautifully. As a goodbye, I leave you with this video, which was made with another 1423:

 

The awesome Dremel Multi-Vise!

Let me introduce you this fine tool by the guys of Dremel: the Multi-Vise.

It might look just like a plastic vise with a ball-joint base. But as with any other Dremel product, it offers an edge above the competition. It’s built with ABS plastic, to make it lighter and less expensive than the usual cast iron. However, it’s very tough, as I have found out these years.

Let’s start with the fact that it is a modular system: you can use the vise on its own, without the ball-jointed base.

A common design language for all Dremel products are the color-coded parts. Grey ones are structural, black ones are for increased grip, and the blue ones are the parts you have to manipulate. That leads us to the most prominent feature of the Multi-Vise: The jaws have removable cushions made out of some elastomeric polymer.These cushions are extremely soft to the touch, to avoid scratching the surfaces you’re working with. After four years using it, I can say they don’t cause any chemical degradation to lacquer, oil, or shellac finishes.

Another outstanding feature is the high-grip black rubber foot on the base. This allows you to have a secure mounting without too much tightening of the bottom screw. In the picture you can see a flat longitudinal section on the side of the screw. This allows us to use a 5/8″ wrench when tightening (or loosening) the mounting screw when needed. I’ve never used it, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

The gripping power of this vise is so huge it can hold a heavy electric bass without breaking a sweat, and with no scratches! All you need to mind is to grab the guitar near its center of gravity, to keep it stable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tool allows me to do an instrument’s setup in playing position, no matter how awkward it might be, with complete confidence. It simply won’t fall!

 

 

When working with acoustic instruments, it’s better to grab them by the neck instead of the body… to avoid crushing the soundboard!

In this position, I’m still able to do a setup in playing position since the jaws don’t touch the strings. Not only the guitar can be played this way, but it will sing naturally since there’s nothing touching its body.

The ball-joint base also allows you to hold a Dremel rotary tool “in the air”. I often use it for carving and polishing a bone guitar nut to size. It’s always easier to handle a small piece around the tool with precision than to control a power tool around a small object.
After shaping the bone nut, I cut its bottom to size with the Dremel 321 routing table (seen in the top of the next picture)The multi-Vise is wonderful when working with guitar electronics. I just hold the instrument’s pickguard over the guitar while checking everything. It just couldn’t be easier!

In these pictures I’m doing a tone-control adjustment. Passive tone controls rely on capacitors to filter higher frequencies, so I use a variable capacitor (the grey box with knobs) to test the sound before altering the stock circuit. By holding the electronics over the guitar with the Multi-Vise, I can do everything I need without disconnecting anything.

Once the innards are done, I have to string it up and perform the final setup. However, guitars with tremolo bridges require to equalize the tension of the strings against the tension of the bridge springs mounted at the rear. That means working on the front and on the back of the guitar at once! Usually, the work would be like this:

adjust the strings / flip the guitar /

adjust the springs / flip the guitar /

check strings / flip the guitar /

readjust the springs / flip the guitar/

check  the strings / flip the guitar /

With the Multi-vise, I just place the guitar in playing position and work on each side effortlessly.  There’s simply no better way to do this job!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As with most Dremel products, it can be said that there are other tools that can do these jobs. However, there’s just no other product that can do all of these, with this versatility, without scratching your work, for this price. Period.

After writing this I think it might look like an infomercial, but it’s the honest truth. I’m neither related nor working for Dremel on any of its affiliates (though I wouldn’t mind to!). It’s just not common to find such a well thought out product like this. The Multi-Vise shows Dremel really listens to their customers requests and work to please them.

Hope this review can be useful to you. See ya!

Less action, please!

Action is the amount of effort a musician has to exert over the strings in order to make them ring clearly. Lower action is preferred by most advanced players because allows for less fatigue, easier fingering, faster runs and better intonation. Plus, once the action has been lowered, it’s fairly easy to raise it. However, the opposite is not usually true.

One of my trademarks has always been the quest for lower action. Altough some players prefer it to be higher, I have seen how once my clients try their instruments with a lower action, they ask me to adjust their other guitars as well!

Let’s revisit once again the infamous red bass guitar. Its bridge had to be shifted from its original place because the screws were far beyond the rust. When I strung the bass up, I adjusted the saddles to their minimum height. Usually, this forces the strings against the frets, buit this was not that case.

As you can see, the strings were very high, almost like an upright bass. No one in his mind would give this torture device to a novice player!

Usually, a neck reset could take care of the problem, but the screws were extremely tight, and since this bass had a story with broken screws, I opted to leave them alone. So I turned to the bridge instead.

The modifications I did were focused in the saddles and the body. First, I truncated the bottom part of the saddles. Then I deepened the string slot inside them, but even that wasn’t enough. Look at the pictures to see the difference.

I decided to carve a place to install the bridge inside the body instead of on its surface. This way the baseplate would be flush to the body and I could get the entire bridge 1/16″ lower to aid in the process. I used the Dremel 335 routing attachment with the #115 tool to leave a smooth surface on the bottom.

  Look how I am using goggles and a dust mask. Most people seem to not be aware that inhaling dust can lead to respiratory diseases. And if, as in this picture,  the dust has chemicals from the finish, the damage can be serious. Safety first, folks!

With these modifications, I was able to get the string much lower than before. In the picture at the bottom you can see how the bridge plate sits flush with the body, and how lower is the first string when compared to the unmodified saddles.

In the end, I managed to get the action much closer than before, and the kid was able to play his first bass easily.

A Very Rusty Bass, part 1.

Here is an epic repair work. It’s a very simple story: its owner has had the bass stored somewhere and decided to give it as a gift to his niece. Nothing fancy at all…

… except it was EXTREMELY RUSTY!!

Every single screw was so corroded I couldn’t get them out without breaking their heads. I tried all my extraction techniques unsuccessfully.

Since all the pickguard screws were broken, I opted to reinstall the pickguard 4mm closer to the bridge so I could use new ones without messing with the corroded remnants of the originals. Yes, the correct procedure would have been to extract the original, set in a dowel, level and refinish the body. But that would have cost more than the entire bass, so I chose to do a less expensive work.

Since the pickguard screws were so corroded, I inspected the entire bass. Well, EVERY SINGLE SCREW was completely busted. The ones that hold the neck, the bridge, and even the the strap button screws: all were rusted beyond repair. All this stuff was really dangerous, I was afraid to use the strap fearing the strap button screw could break their heads off! Even the upper horn strap button collapsed when I tried to unscrew it carefully by hand: go figure!

So, I decided to repeat the procedure described above and install new screws beside the old ones everywhere. Eventually this led to a repositioned pickguard AND bridge.

Yes, even the bridge screws lost their heads due to corrosion. The picture shows how I drilled new pilot holes right beside the remnants of the old screws.

Look at the screw head over the bridge plate.

To file off the “stump” of the old screws I used a Dremel 431 sanding drum with a 60-grit value. Why not a cutting wheel? Because the screw was so rusted the wheel just threw fragments everywhere! By using a sanding drum I was able to slowly grind the screw remnants out of my way.

As you can see, what was a simple setup work ended up being a much expensive one just because I needed more time to cope with all that rust… just because he left the instrument unattended during years. The moral of the story? KEEP YOUR STUFF CLEAN!

And there are even more corrosive stories about this bass… right here!