On the Repair Bench This Week

On the bench this week, a fragile old Epiphone 'Double Olympic' gets familiar with the old hide-gluepot ... i'm converting this into a single pickup guitar without it's current neck ailment - the 'Townshend Tremolo ' ...

next, this Silvertone Silhouette will get some odds and sods from my spare parts drawer to bring it back to life ...

and the Maton Fyrbyrds keep coming out of the woodwork ...

but this one really surprised me with it's workmanship and some very unique design.

an early ( first batch ? ) B C Rich Seagull - hand carved with rasps, violin knives and decades of flamenco guitar building skill. the pickups and toggle switch are ex guild factory, the through-neck design and body shaping are unique ... i love this era of Californian small-builder expertise. an inspiring guitar to work on.

more custom Harvesters soon !

AP

Harvestone

My good friend James is a winemaker who's day job takes him to the heart of Victoria's Yarra Valley where he is responsible for some very fine and highly-regarded Pinot Noir. In his spare time he designs and makes guitar amplifiers - not the sort of kit or replica amps that seek to slavishly repeat history, but original designs using unusual valves and unique tone shaping controls. Can you tell why we get along so well ? ( & I'm not just referring to the wine ! )

We have a little barter system gong on, swapping guitar repairs for amp tweaks and ultimately of course trading a custom guitar for a custom amplifier.

James hand built the pine cabinet with it's 'brownface' tolex & employed his graphic designers who usually work on his wine labels and promotion to design a logo which was then laser cut into brushed stainless steel.

My request was for a single 12" combo with an output somewhere in 'vibrolux territory' and a bias-vary tremolo circuit in the vein of a great 1962 Fender Tremolux which I had played through many years ago.

We've worked through various iterations up to this point with a lot of time spent fine tuning the reverb and dreamy-tremolo controls, now it's time to get the control panel sorted ( with small N.O.S. bakelite knobs and a pulsing LED to indicate tremolo speed ) and remake the breadboarded amp in it's custom chassis.

Power stage consists of 2 X 7591A tubes. I don't know the necessary jargon to describe the rest of the circuit, but suffice to say it's unique and yet gives me access to traditional combo amp sounds, with a very firm bass response, no unnecessary features and just the right amount of all-usable ( to me ! ) preamp overdrive.

Stay tuned.

AP

May 2013 - Cheetah + Crema & Chrome

My tribute to the not so humble espresso machine and it's spectacular packaging can be found here on the TRIGGERS page ...

Yes, I see guitar parts, colours and textures everywhere I turn ... too much coffee ???

Also I am very happy this week to deliver Harvester #27 'Cheetah' to it's new owner Jon.

The same neck-thru hyrbid of metal and wood, now with dreamy tremolo action.

More very soon.

Some interesting new commissions coming my way and some new design tangents to explore.

AP

Workshop Pix [ Feb 2013 ]

A few bench shots of the matching bass and guitar that I am working on beside the Antonio metal-necked hybrids ...

More soon !

AP

Harvester in 'Accordo'

'The Good The Bad and The Ugly'

Harvester Antonio Prototipo rates a mention in Italian Magazine/Website 'Accordo'

AP