TalismanRich

That's the big brother of my H-140. The more I see them, the more I like a classic cherry burst finish! I don't know why they get so much hate.

Hey, some of just buy some guitars and then.... KEEP THEM! I've been looking at several guitars, and then I decide instead to just go pick up one of the guitars I already have, and the need to buy something fades away. Buy some new strings and make it sound fresh and new! I have seen a few on Reverb, and actually saw one on the local Craigslist. They're out there.

The cure for that is to pick up a guitar every day. It's a "use it or lose it" thing. Now you just need to let your hair grow out about a foot so that fan can blow it back... rock star style!

It looks like you're having a good time!

I have one from every PSP starting with #2. I don't know if there was one for the 1st PSP. One year wasn't a tee shirt, it was blue with buttons, if I recall. I would need to go up and root through the closet to see. A few years we even had hats.

I wish I had pics of our band in that era. That was the 7 man band, "Objection Overruled" with the brass section, guitar, organ, bass, and drums. Those were the days when you didn't waste film on stuff like the car, unless your girlfriend was in the shot! Taking pictures was expensive back then. A couple of bucks for the film, another 3 for developing and prints. You got 12 to 24 pics from your 110 Instamatic camera with the 1/2" negative. When you were getting $10-15 for a 3 hour gig, you didn't waste money on pictures! Something that many people don't realize is how little the dollar buys with many things today, and how some things have become incredibly cheap. I often look at how many hours do we need to work to buy something. (I'm pulling out my old man rant now!) When I started working in the late 60s, I was making $1.40/hour. I don't know what my dad was making in '66 but to buy my Kent guitar would have taken 2 full weeks of pay. That $400 Gibson ES335 I wanted would have taken more than 2 months wages! That obviously wouldn't happen when you have a family with 3 kids, a house, food, car, etc. Considering that you can work at McD's for $12/hr, an Ascent H-137 would be 3 days work, even after taxes. When I see people not blink as they shell out $300 to $1000 for an I-phone, it makes buying a guitar almost an impulse buy! If the Ascents are anywhere close to my Tribute ASAT in playability, then that's a really easy way to get into playing guitar, or even grabbing a "beater" guitar to take along without having to worry about it getting stolen or busted. Things are probably a lot different if you're in Vietnam or the Philippines making about $2 an hour, it's like the US in the 1960-70s. There, buying an Ascent is a lot more realistic than buying a Custom Core H-150.

G, I'm sure that's made of the finest tone wood available... old growth masonite. Am I right?

Ah yes. Those were the days of the custom car builders. George Barris built the Batman car, KITT, and the Munster Mobiles. Dean Jeffries did the Monkeemobile and the Black Hornet. Ed Roth was another builder, who did the some really weird cars. Those things would always show up at the custom car shows back in the 60s and 70s. When I first started to drive, Dad still had the Olds wagon, and I used to haul band equipment in there. It held a bunch of stuff! The Kustom PA cabs, my amp, guitars, drums. It would all fit in there like a Tetris puzzle.

Obviously building acoustic guitars wasn't a priority with the original company. I remember lots of discussions about someone like Godin making the bodies, and adding Heritage necks. SweeLee has a number of Harmony acoustics on their website, at prices similar to the Ascent guitars. That suggests to me that they are Asian builds. https://www.sweelee.com.sg/search?query=harmony&vendor=Harmony&product_type=Acoustic Guitars

I thought it was Corvair..... Nova..... Camaro.... Impala.... Monte Carlo..... Corvette! Dad drove the Oldmobile! It was a fine ride! Just look at those rockets.

For the US, it's pretty much a moot point. The only place that it appears you can buy an Ascent is from Manny's mail order which Bandlab owns. They aren't available from places like Sweetwater, CME, Daves or Musicians Friend. It's much more likely you'll find them in Asia. Swee Lee is selling a beginners pack, similar to the Fender Squire packs. A 137, Fender Frontman 10 amp, gigbag, cable, strap, picks, and a tuner for $449 Singapore dollars, which is $335 US. The H150 bundle is $589. A Squire Affinity Tele bundle is $519. That's the market the Ascent line aims for. I was thinking that if I bought a few, tied them to the bumper of my car and drove through a gravel parking lot a few times, I could relic them and sell 'em for 3 times what I paid. Might be a nice way to supplement my Social Security checks. 🤔

How did you know that it was a Kent? 😁 It looked just like this one.

I've been reading the thread on TGP about the Ascent guitars. It's almost hilarious reading the condemnation of the wood, the bolt neck, etc. At least a dozen of the posts were the of the "well, I'm not interested!" type. DUH! Anyone who thinks the Ascent line is aimed at Gear Page snobs is crazy. These are people who will spend $100 on a pair of bumblebee caps or $200 on vintage aged pickguards and poker chips. They aren't going to buy a $180 guitar. It's not aimed at ImABigStar on TGP who has 30 guitars, a dozen Marshall stacks, two Klons and plays for his dog at night. It's a guitar for little Timmy who's in 5th grade and wants to learn guitar. Daddy will spend $180 for Christmas. If little Timmy ends up learning to play, then maybe in 4 or 5 years he can get a real H150. When I was 10, you bought a crappy Sears Silvertone for $20 in the classifieds. Then you might get a crappy Japanese made guitar at a pawn shop for $100. Then, after several years you would move up to a used Fender for $200. You didn't start out buying a $400 Gibson just to try to learn to play G C E... 1 2 3 G B F... 1 2 3.

So, I wonder what the difference between the Blonde Dot pickup is from a standard Seth Lover, since they are both supposed to be a PAF pickup (besides the use of an A4 in the bridge position). Were the Blonde Dot's pickups some freak coincidence of winding that give them a sound that is distinctly different from the "normal" PAF? I know that for a time PAFs were supposedly wound without using a counter, but I don't know if that was true in 1960. Besides the signatures from Duncan and Bonamassa and the fancy box, what commands a $100 premium over a SL?

That's what the guitar was built for. I like the fancy strap you have on that thing.

I'm guessing that the change in feel wasn't so much a thickness issue, but a surface roughness change. Feeling a couple thousandths of a change in thickness would be impossible. A change of several microns difference in surface roughness is detectable. I worked with inks and coatings for 40 years and one of the measurements was surface roughness. It affects gloss and abrasion. Too smooth can feel sticky unless there is something to cause it to glide like an oil, wax or silicone. There are multiple instruments that will measure the film thickness in microns. It would be a really simple way to test an instrument before and after attacking it with sandpaper. Then measure the surface with a profilometer. While I didn't formulate any wood coatings, I had friends that worked in labs of a few paint companies around here who did. NC was on its way out for most purposes, but it is still used for certain coatings. We still had 4 plants using it at one point. It's excellent for certain packaging materials. BTW, I once formulated a really nice NC lacquer for the brass pans on my slot car chassis. We were trying to make an overprint varnish (didn't work because of solvent restrictions). We had a bunch of different grades of NC along with different plasticizers and compatible resins. Besides keeping them nice and shiny, it insulated so it couldn't spark if they hit the braids on the track. As long as you didn't need to solder it back together it was great. It was easily removed with a mix of acetone and alcohol.

While wood doesn't breathe, exposed wood will absorb and release moisture, which causes the wood to swell and shrink. That's why acoustic guitar bodies will move significantly with seasonal changes in humidity. The whole inside of the guitar is bare wood. The fretboards of guitars are generally uncoated, so they will also move with humidity changes. That's why we have truss rods. You won't see the body of electric guitars move like that since they are a) much thicker and stable and b) coated with lacquer to seal the surface.

As I understand, the nitro finish on most guitars is in the few thousandths of an inch... maybe 3 to 6 thou. They aren't very thick. I think polyester finishes can be 20-30 thou.

I don't doubt he says it's more resonant. NOBODY is going to say that they went through all that effort and money and ruined their guitar's sound. I have read hundreds of comments of people modding stuff, and it always turns out better... 100% of the time. It never fails to make a massive improvement. Call me a skeptic.

I hate to say it, but nitro lacquer doesn't allow the wood to "breathe" (the wood is dead anyway..) It's a myth the gets posted on the internet all the time. It's just BS that people say to distinguish it from polyester or urethane coatings that are "plastic". If you're going to sand it down, you better have a good polishing wheel handy to buff it back, unless you want an "old looking" dull finish. Just be careful that you don't sand or buff through the whole finish. According to my dad, I had an uncle who used to polish his black Oldsmobile every week back in the early 50s. After a couple of years, he hit metal on a few spots!

Frankie's rockin' that thing! I guess he's not so "country" anymore.

I didn't get the impression that they are in any way based on HRWs. I even asked the fellow who winds the pickups at Heritage about HRWs during the tour last year (Has Ren told you his secret sauce?"). I remember Ren smiling, but no comment. Has anyone ever tested HRWs to know what type of magnet it has? Measure the resistance and inductance values? Cryogenicly treated with liquid Nitrogen? We know it was based on the Schallers, but everything else was just speculation. My take was that Heritage is trying to get a "vintage PAF" sound. However, what that means is pretty vague. EVERYONE is going for that sound, from Seth Lovers, to CustomBuckers, Mojotone 59s, Dimarzio PAF Anniversary, etc, etc. Everybody using different magnets (including Gibson in the PAF era). The number of winds varies, so resistance varies. I think most are using 42gauge enamel wire.

I don't think they sell any of their 225 pickups, except for in a guitar. I wonder if they would put 225s in a standard guitar, like they did with the old HRWs.

That guitar takes me back to my guitar lessons in the mid 60s at Dee Wells music studio. They had one in the display case for sale (WAY more than we could afford), but seeing that, as well as guys like Johnny Rivers on the cover of his album Live at the Whiskey a Go Go just fired up my first case of guitar lust. You can have your Les Pauls and Strats. That's what a guitar should look like!