Leaderboard

And here's the guitar. I like it with the guard off.

This bad boy joined the herd over the weekend . . . I'm not normally one for factory aging but the one in this thread

I found this on Reefeeverb. The Heritage H525 is a full hollow thin line guitar with a Florentine cutaway. Maple Laminate top and back with a solid maple rim. Mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard. 2 Lollar dog ear P90s. The H525 is loosely based off of the vintage Gibson ES125. These H525s RARELY come up for sale. But this one was dramatically different. The body was finished in a matte black. Originally is was a VSB (vintage sunburst) kind of a light tangerine burst. The H525s had a cult following among Heritage enthusiasts. But not many were ever made. When I first saw it, I wasn’t a fan of the refin. But after stalking the ad for a couple of days, I decided to pull the trigger. I figured, worst case scenario, I could always get the top refinished at some point if I don’t like it. But it’s actually pretty cool. The seller also upgraded the bridge to a Faber ABR1. I believe everything else is stock. He currently has it setup for 11s. I will be putting 9s on it, so there will be some extensive setup work to be done. I had one of these 525s many years ago and they are such a joy to play. Lightweight and full of warm creamy goodness!!! This is a pic from the seller. I will have pics and a full report after setup.

I got three of them. One of those I gave to my grandson. Gretsch and Randy had a charity auction years ago. A friend of mine tipped me off to the event. He got one. I put bids on 3 and got them all. They are essentially acoustic Super Eagles with floating pups. Together we got the first 4 Synchromatics. I kept two blondes and had a single coil pickup put into a Heritage floating casing made by one of the Heritage guys.

Apologies if this has previously been posted previously. Nice guitar. Nice playing. Topical and Seasonal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8gwla9THg

Congrats. I still have the one you sold me. Love it!

CVS, This is mine. I picked this up one night at Brents house. LK155 had it at PSP one year and I really liked the guitar. When it became available, I jumped.

referencing this thread: https://www.heritageownersclub.com/forums/topic/38369-used-530-incoming-inspired-by-trich/ finally got the wolftone dr. vintage humbuckers disguised as P-90s installed in the subject guitar . . . i chose the cream color pickup surrounds and glad that i did . . . tone is a little less "focused" than a 535 but certainly soft and round . . . scratched the itch! thanks for looking!

Hard to answer. I've ordered solid blocks on floating block guitars and floating blocks on solid block guitars in the past. The good old days. Glad I was involved in the Golden Years with Custom Shop Service.

Nice work with an Eagle. Lots more like this on his channel.

AE definitely means that it's a 2014 not a 2006. In 06 they were stamping the serial number and they started with W ( have a 2006. On mine, the W is above the number. I think they had to get a new stamp as the old one was wearing out). They didn't start hand writing numbers until later. It's hard to say what the '06 designates, and don't know they'll have any special info regarding it's specs. Sometimes Ren or Jim would remember special orders, but if you built a few thousand guitars over 25 years, you wouldn't remember every one. I don't know that they kept a computer database, although by 2015 they may have well converted. If I remember the first two numbers are the days working backwards from Dec 31, and the last two is the number of the guitar issued that day. That would make it the second guitar of Monday Oct 27th 2014. The Seth Lovers could easily been owner changed, or factory installed. It's also possible that the paper label either wasn't installed or came loose. Still, they are of a close date to the guitar serial. I don't think it would be worth the time to pull the pots just to look at date codes.

All the original P90 Heritages that I'm aware of have Jason Lollar pickups. Unless it was a custom order, or the pickups were changed, those would likely be the stock ones. The control cover may even say the pickups. Check there.

How many of the folks in the video have we met? Ren, Pete, Curly, Marv, Arnie, Bill. There are several that I've seen through the years but didn't get names. The rack from the prototype room should have been donated to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. Here's an article I ran across a while back. I never saw the "passing of the torch" headstock before. https://the-guitar.com/a-heritage-of-guitar-making/

I think I'd have this in his hands right away. The rattle can black really wrecks the vibe for me. A nice gloss black would be attractive, but I've always been a fan of finishes that highlight the wood. I'd be hoping the black is laying on top of the original finish so it didn't seep into the pores of the wood.

There's nothing inside except air!

According to Pete: 99% of centerblocks are maple, but there are mahogany & even some spruce centerblocks out there

Yeah, no. I resisted. The only black Friday shopping I did was the weed dispensary. Serious deals going on there, too. 🤣

I like it better with the guard on too, but I personally prefer the shape on the Heritage H150 guards. They just go with the flow of the body shape. And I think whatever guard is on it would need to be aged to match the body. It's not a '59, it's a Heritage.

Here's an old video of them building a semihollow. It appears that the main block is maple. You would want a strong wood, since you need to put your neck joint in there, just like a solid body. Its definitely not mahogany, it's way too light colored. You can see the color difference of the mahogany kerfing below. From what I have read, an ES335 will have a maple block and the filler piece is spruce which is kerfed to bend more easily. If you listen closely, I think that he says they use a basswood insert for the filler section that goes between the top and the block. It's about 3:30 into the video. He also explains about doing floating blocks (top is fixed, back is not).

Yes was going to reply the same. Lollar makes great pickups!

The original 50's Gibson pups weren't sorted by neck/bridge were they? I thought they just grabbed pups out of the bin & neck/bridge were arbitrary, when they were assembled

That is a bit odd with the '06 the serial # looks like AE 06502 So maybe it refers to the 06 in the serial Hardware gets changed all the time. So who knows what the gtr left the factory with Congrats that is a nice 535!

"Hey honey, I was thinking to get junior this guitar for Christmas." (shows picture of Ascent)

Pics? It doesn't sound quite right to me. I do own a special order H150 from 1998. It was a dealer special order, they made a run of them, maybe a few runs of them. It is a standard H150 but it came with SD 59 pickups and a Nashville tune-o-matic bridge and a zinc stop bar, instead of the typical Schaller pickups, bridge and tail at the time. But it bears a regular serial number and it has the normal sticker under the control cavity cover.

That is unreal! He has some great stuff on his channel. Here is more with that Heritage Kenny Burrell gtr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s37ks9pecJc

Living In The Past.

cue Ian Anderson

they are indeed! I took the liberty of posting the images here in the thread

It's the same reason that G&L and now Fender are still showing pictures of Leo Fender, and Gibson is still touting their latest "59 Les Paul". It's about lineage, history, a familial connection. Guitar people are enamored with the past, whether it is reality or not. Otherwise nobody would be trying to recreate the past!

Yes, that is somewhat curious. They're obviously playing on the look and feel of the old workspace, but we know that the real factory floor looks nothing like that now. And I suspect the photos of the new models with a background of the old plant required some photoshop work. Ah, marketing...

Agreed! I think the standard Les Paul guard looks clunky.

That guy knows his **** I was talking to him at a PSP

I remember talking to Bill Paige about them, it must have been when they first came out: I was telling him about my Gibson ES-135 & saying they should make a thinner H-575 style, as it is more manageable to play & doesn't feed back so easily Bill said " have you heard about our H-525? " and pointed to one on a rack Well there ya go!! Congrats Brent, that looks really nice!

Well, PSP got a little spendy for me . . . bought the pictured 535 standard (with same OSB finish as TRich's new 530). Point 1: I'm trying to recreate the tone as heard on a couple of Doobie Brothers songs, South City Midnight Lady and Another Park, Another Sunday. My best guess is that the guitar played on those songs is a G 335. Can anyone confirm this? Point 2: If the guitar is a 335, how can I get my new 535 to sound like this? SD 59s are in the new axe and I haven't been able to get the tone I seek. I see mixed reviews of the 59s here on HOC and I wonder if Seth Lovers would get me closer? Or, just change the magnets in the 59s to alnico 2 or 3? Or . . . ? Comments and insights most appreciated! Thanks, eljay

Yes, the 525 IS a nice guitar! It surprises me that it wasn't more popular. I actually preferred it to the 575, which for some, is probably sacrilege.

Did I do that? 😁 For sure, that's a one-of-a-kind! So now he's got to buy ANOTHER guitar!

a black gtr on black friday. Do it, it was meant to be!! 😆

So it’s a 2002? I had a 2005 looked so close in finish. I sold it to #DavesNotHere

I'm also a fan of Wolfetones. I've got Legends in one Zemaitis, Legend and a Fenris in another, Dr V and a Marshallhead in a PRS Custom 22, and a Mean and Meaner P90 set in my SG Special!

I do think they sound best when the amp is working a bit. BTW the Analogman pedal that we ise is the BC183 not the BC103. Fortunately the silicne fuzzes are usually less expensive the the germaniums I think I did this with the Marshall cracked open bit. The fuzz gives the leads a vocal quality.

My buddy Ryan who is the other guitarist in our band has tried many great amps, and he is a great amp builder too, but of all the amps that he has at his disposal, his favorite amp to use with our band is his Deluxe Reverb. And my TopHat probably hovers around 22 watts too!!! On stage they are both cranked up around the 7 to 8 mark. You can clearly hear how they sound in these videos...

Nice!

Thanks so much. The pick guard pictured is new, not sure why. The original is in the case. Again, not sure why. I didn't compare the guards. All the wear on it is from 23 years of real play by my friend in the picture. It plays like a dream. I did replace the pots and harness. I'm not sure which parts were original if any of it. While I was at it I purchased the little pointers to make it look more like a '58/'59.

Yeah, a English old fashion rump roast

I’ve got a 2001 535 with the HRW’s in it. Like it very much. I put a Faber bridge and tailpiece on it, mostly for feel since I’m used to a tune-o-matic under my muting hand. I later put in the Faber bushings and was amazed at how much the tailpiece bushing inserts changed the tone. Made really good even better. They go much deeper and firmer into the maple center block, seem to acoustically couple to the wood much better than the much shorter and looser Schaller hardware. The HRW pickups are very amenable to tone shaping with the amp or pedals and EQ. Can dial in a variety of tones from them very easily. Some say they are “hi fi” but I’d say smooth frequency response curve. Which is ideal for dialing the amp/effects to get a sound. I’d say exhaust all the external tone shaping options before you change parts. A 7 or 10-band EQ can be very helpful to figure out what to do to get where you want to go.

I have no idea about the answer to your two questions, but I always love the questions you ask and the insights you provide. And that’s a beautiful Guitar by the way.

and you and I are well set on the H-535 front! I bought a pair of the Legends' cousin, the Dr. Vintage, thinking I'd install them in a Gibson LP Studio. However, the LP sounds too goo to mess with so methinks the 59s in the new 535 will get 86'd and replaced with the Dr. Vs. I guess I've become a Wolfetone fanboi . . .

So I saw this Custom core 535 on the gear page…. The guy had gotten it in a trade and was told that it was “artisan aged” but the guy lied to him, someone had tried to age it themselves by taking 120 or 80 grit sandpaper to the finish!!! (I’m not joking) So the guy I bought it from was very upset and really felt defeated. And basically just wanted to get out from underneath it. So we made a deal. It’s a 2023 CC 535 in Dark Cherry Sunburst After opening the case, and evaluating the damage done to the finish and how deep the scratches were, and the fact that the gloss was gone, I decided to take the bull by the horns and try to make lemonade with the lemons I was handed. If Pete Moreno were still alive, I would have taken it to him I sure do miss Pete I thought about taking it to a professional luthier and seeing if could be buffed out, but that would have cost a lot of money and I’m sure there would have been no guarantee that he would have not burned through the finish. So the first thing I did was completely disassemble the guitar. Took all the hardware off. Pickups out. Dropped all the electronics inside the body. Then I wet sanded the back of the body, front of the body and the front and back of the headstock with 2000 wet/dry sanding paper. I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded The scratches were just too deep. I was afraid I was going to go through the clear. After sanding, I put some liquid scratch remover on it, that I bought at the auto parts store and used my cordless drill with a small buffing wheel. I buffed and buffed and buffed… the gloss started to come back but 75% of the scratches remained. Then, to bring back some more of the gloss, I took some turtle wax and my drill and buffed on it with the car wax some more. I was really happy with the amount of gloss I was able to get back!! It just looks like an old, scratched up Heritage now!!! Then I pulled all the electronics back up, installed a different set of pickups (I’m not a big fan of the 225 classic pups), put the tuners and hardware back on, oiled the fretboard. Then put new strings on it and did a complete setup!!!! I’ll let you be the judge. But I think it looks A LOT BETTER. Yes, it still has a lot of scratches in it, but at least it’s not all dull looking now. It’s always gonna be a player because of what some dumbass did to the finish. But in reality, it just looks like a guitar that has been played A LOT 🤣 Anyway…the most important part is that this CC 535 PLAYS AND SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY STELLAR!!! It’s a friggin TONE MACHINE!!! BEFORE…. AFTER…..

Feels like an old friend!