TalismanRich

Great tune. I'll gladly join in for it at PSP next year.

If you check mine, it doesn't have a fixed bridge!

There's nothing inside except air!

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.

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!

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).

I tried get in touch with Scott some years back. He had been a DJ in West Virginia. Turns out he passed away in 2020. https://www.leavittfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Dowe-Scott-Fauley-II?obId=14987495

I'm with you about the block inlays. I think they rock!

I guess that deserves a cake too!

Lets see..... I had an original Fuzz Face. Got stolen around '72. I didn't think it was great, but it was one of the few pedals that you had back then. You didn't have 247 different fuzz pedals! Replaced it with a Jordan Boss Tone that plugged into the front of the Jaguar. Great for doing Satisfaction and Inna Gadda Da Vita. I eventully traded that for an EEPROM burner many years later. The knobs were broken where the whammy bar would swing around and hit the plastic. I covered it up later with a piece of Erector set with electrical tape on it to protect it. Got a Fender Blender. Very fizzy. It did fuzz and octave. I don't know where that pedal went. I probably left it at the bass players house. All told those 3 would probably fetch you 2 or 3 grand today. At the time, I was out about $100 total. Pedals back then were much cheaper! Most of the time, I simply turned my Guild Thunderbird amp to 10 and if you toggled the 3 way tone switch between two settings, it was almost like doing the jumper on a Marshall. The amp was only about 35 watts, so it would really distort when full up. Today, I don't use fuzz, I prefer the OD. Klon style and Tube Screamer have been my mainstays, although I really like the Blues Driver that Pete Farmer lent me at PSP. It wasn't so midrangy like a TS. Haven't bought one yet but it will happen. I haven't decided if I'll get the standard or WazaCraft model. I have a Soul Food, but I replaced it with a NotaKlon. It sounded smoother to me, and was less noisy. My preference is for a smoother, creamy overdrive, not a harsh biting sound. I like the sustain for soloing.

Glad to see you're still out there playing gigs. I agree completely. You can cover most all bases with the 535. I've heard you play that 535 enough at PSP to know that it's a killer. It's good that it's still in your arsenal, even if it is "on loan". Your band must have been playing REALLY LOUD if you coudn't play without feeding back. On the other hand, it's perfect to get the acoustic feedback going when you want to sustain a note infinitely! Turn away and it should go back to normal.

A friend's band plays down at a local blues bar, and the venue has amps for the bass and guitar, along with the drum set. The guitar amp is a Katana, and most bands just plug in and go. Guitar players bring their pedal boards of course.

I don't know if simply buffing would have fixed it, but the advantage of nitro is that it could have been resprayed with clear and then buffed out. I don't know that Heritage would do it but Arnie Hileski or Dave Teske might have been able to do it.

No worries.. As you know, it's always so easy to work on the electrics of a semi hollow guitar. 😕 When I was working on my 535, somehow the lead from a tone cap broke off. Turn the knob and ... nothing changes. So it's pull the harness out and do it all again.

Sorry to hear this. RIP LedZef.

That's why you got the Fender ToneMaster Deluxe, right? 🤣

After playing through that one, I'm tempted to replace my old TS-9 Tube Screamer. I listened to a few comparisons of the Blues Driver vs Tube Screamer, and I think the Boss is more the sound I am looking for.

There's a cool little blue pedal that you can plug into and get a really nice "woman tone". Pete Farmer loaned me his pedal for PSP.

Thinking about the pickups, if the guitars were late 60s or early 70s, they probably had Gibson T-Tops. Guys like Seymour Duncan and Larry Dimarzio didn't really start making after market pups until around 72 or 73. As to how they were made, according to this article, they would be Alnico 5 with polyurethane coated wire ~7.5 ohms. That's pretty much the SD-59 recipe, isn't it. https://musicalilluminism.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/vintage-gibson-humbucker-specs-and-general-pickup-tech/

Something else to remember is that Pat will quite often fingerpick his electrics. That's going to give a different sound that using a pick. Here's a shot of Tom Johnston playing an ES-150 on Midnight Special.

Usually Pat Simmons is playing an acoustic and Tom Johnstons's primary guitars have been PRS for many years. Back in the mid 70s, Pat would often play a sunburst ES345 but the Varitone was disconnected. He also had a natural finish ES345 with gold hardware in 74. He had a red ES335 that he sometimes tuned to DADDAD. As to what he played on any particular record, it's hard to say. Tom Johnston had a couple of Les Pauls, a black Custom w/ a Bigsby and a gold top w/P90s. I've seen some videos with him playing an SG. He also played a 335 on occasion in the early days of the Doobies. For South City Midnight Lady, Pat was probably playing his Ovation acoustic. Skunk Baxter was playing steel guitar. Don't know what Tom was playing, but I read that Pat did solos on his 335. From the concert photos I've seen, they mostly had Fender amps.

This is a fairly small club. There are mics on the amps, but that's only for the video feed that they use for Facebook. It also appears that the Katana is the house amp along with the bass amp and drum kit. Some acts bring their own amps, but I was looking over a few videos of other groups and they all have the same bass and guitar amps.

A friend's band was playing a local club a few months back and I noticed that the harmonica amp was crapping out during the last half of the show. Last night, I saw he had replaced the old Fender with a new tweed Blues Jr. The guitar player also changed amps, going from an old Fender Deluxe to a Boss amp.