Overview of guitar and work
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Overview of guitar and work
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Overview of guitar and work
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Vibrato Installed, strung up, pickups set static here.
Notice that an additional sleeve spring was added to Teisco spring that wasn't strong enough to nuetralize vibrato tension.
Rear strap button hole was loose.  Now it's doweled. Shown here with it's glue curing before dowel was cut off and finished.
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At the hardware store:  How many screws of what length will be needed to trial-and-error fabricate the vibrato pieces to work?
Well shootz, buy enough of different sizes to bracket what it will probably take;  That'll work! It did.
Jeezz..... how long and strong were those Nippan fingers? !
5mm here with bridge thumb-wheels all the way down; 1 whole mm with the bridge set at median adjustment range!

Loosened strings, removed neck and shimmed neck angle to match bridge's median adjustment range.  Then it could be played.  Pre-installation yeball setting of bridge saddles intonation turned out dead-on;  Good sign.  Played it for about an hour while adjusting pickups settings and getting to know it's electronics.  Lotsa fun to play.

The guitar's tones are a jazzy blues sorta sound range;  Probably because the designers were trying to emulate the Ventures' clean tube amp sounds and like most engineers of that period didn't fully understand the dynamics of guitar sound yet thought they did;  But you can adjust the pickups closer to the strings for more dynamic and raucus tones if desired (where those great guitar tones originate for amps to drive):  To so so the pickup height tension springs will have to be either replaced with shorter springs or shorter surgical rubber tubing rather than springs (I discourage cutting original parts that should be saved intact ....imho).  The present original springs are at their compressed limit and thus the pickups won't adjust any closer.  Surgical rubber tubing works much better for pickups "springs" imho, ....and is very common nowadays.  In theory ...more-so if the guitar is to be played loud or at high / saturated amp gains ...the surgical tubing stabalizes pickups undesireable resonance better than springs do.
Also notice the bridge height wheels all the way down and high string action.
THAT ain't gonna work;  Said at bottom of page.