NGD (to me anyway) H150

[rockabilly69]

Well back in Feb I reluctantly sold my first H150 to "Equiphead" (forum member) to pay for a

Artist model National Reso. I immediately missed it!!! But as fate has it, forum member "602a"

contacted me about his H150 they he had for sale. He saw that I posted on "Tallershadows"

post about selling the same H150 which he had bought back from Tallershadows! I asked him

if I could buy it without the electronics as I had some stuff I wanted to wire in. He cut me some slack

on the price and we made a deal. I also wanted to setup the guitar a little differently, so when

it got here I went to work on it. The work...

 

1) Swapped the bridge inserts and it needed it. The Nashville bridge inserts were loose in

this guitar. The new inserts make twice the contact with the wood and are very tight now.

The guitar already had a Faber ABR on it, so I ordered their replacement bridge inserts and

for anybody considering replacing the inserts, this is a mod WELL WORTH YOUT TIME!!!

 

 

2) Next I filed the top of the ABR Bridge saddles flat and re-grooved them as the guitar was making

sitar sounds on certain strings and the sustain wasn't there. This was an improvement, and they were

radiused better to match the neck radius. It could be the string gauge I was using was a hair different

than the previous owners.

 

 

3) Replaced the tailpiece, as I had a particularly good sounded Faber lightweight unit. I only

did this because either 602a, or Tallershadows, had been top wrapping and there were grooves

in the the top of the tailpiece which bugged me:)

 

4) Installed David Plummer Pure Handwound Humbuckers (modified Jimmy Page wind),

RS PIO caps, and Dimarzio custom taper parts. It sounds very vintage PAF like now,

but I don't like the taper of the pots, so I am going to replace them soon.

http://www.zhangbuck...humbuckers.html (I will use RS pots and they are on order)

 

5) Had my friend Craig level the frets, and remake a new bone nut. The neck itself is a

hair higher on the bass side so Craig compensated the frets for that and now it plays

GREAT! The old nut that was on the guitar looks like it was replacement and it was cut

with too much space between the E and A strings!

 

6) I also put gibson rings and 60's reflector knobs, 602a added the pocker chip:)

 

 

SO... I took it out to it's first gig and played it solo for three hours. I loved it, and so

did the people listening:) The guitar has great PAF compressed clean tone and

that's exactly what I wanted. The chord sound was great and fingerpicking in the

middle position was THE tone I was looking for. I played it, plugged into my pedal

board, then straight into the PA (the only FX used were a vol pedal, Fulldrive 2,

and a Boss RE20 Space Echo pedal)

 

Here's a photo from the gig...

 

 

Here's a recording of an original singer songwriter type song with the H150 in the two short solos.

This was the H150 into a Blue "Robbie" tube preamp, then into an Amplitude Fender amp plug in.

I was going for a Mark Knopfler style tone.

 

http://soundcloud.co...ld-montauk-h150

[DetroitBlues]

Congrats. Nice improvements in making it your own.

[Guest HRB853370]

Awesome. You won't need my 150 GT now!!!

[dbetts41]

damn that is a nice one!

[FredZepp]

That's a sweet 150 and you've done a great job getting the details to your liking. Thanks for explaining in such detail.

 

And I like the tune... you certainly got that Knofler tone on that ..an enjoyable song to listen to.

[PunkKitty]

Beautiful 150. Congrats!

[rockabilly69]

Thanks guys. As I mentioned, I really loved my first H150 and I hated having to sell it to

fund another instrument. But I think I like this one even better as it's more balanced. The

neck pickup is great on this one too, but the middle and bridge position are even nicer

than the first one. It rings like a bell with the improvements I've made. I like brighter guitars

as I generally play with my fingers and bright seems to work for that. Those Zhangbuckers

are great!

 

Thanks FredZepp for the comment about my song, the solos in it aren't keepers. I was just

using it to show you guys what the guitar sounds like. So when I finish the song I will repost

it.

 

And Slammer if you ever sell the 150GT, I'm still in as I've got a P90 itch I want to scratch.

 

Thanks most to 602a for being a stand up guy in the way he sold me the guitar!

[brentrocks]

incredible top!