pictures of your guitars here

Talk about all other types of guitars. Jazzmasters and basses go here!

Moderated By: mods

User avatar
dub
.
.
Posts: 1729
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:25 pm
Location: WGTN, Aotearoa

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by dub »

MattK wrote: Sat Mar 16, 2024 6:19 am That cream Gibbo is pure hotness, presume it's one of those 70s called either the Les Paul Motivator or Gnathus. Would love to hear about it!
Let me tell you the tale of the Sonex, the cheapest Gibson until recent years. With sales going downhill at the end of the seventies and Gibson falling out of fashion and being beaten by Japanese copies, the company decided to try a budget line. They had the necks made overseas, got hardware from japan and assembled them in the USA to keep the “made in the USA” tag.

The bodies were made of “resonwood” a mixture of glue and sawdust moulded around a tonewood core of mahogany that the neck would bolt(!) onto. Advertising materials would boast of the lengthy sustain this material sandwich could attain, to head off concerns around the bolt-on neck.

There were a few oddball models, but the Sonex line had three models.
The Deluxe was the cheapest and most common. Featuring Bill Lawrence designed “velvet brick” pickups, a three-piece maple and rosewood neck. The Standard model upgraded the pickups to dirty fingers (with coil taps) and the Custom model got the dirty fingers plus an ebony fretboard. There was also a model with the onboard moog electronics that were in the RDs at the time.

Mine is a Custom, someone has replaced the original black pickguard with a cream one and I swapped out the much corroded bridge piece. It’s about due for a new input jack too.

Gloriously beat up, heavy as hell and the DF’s sound pretty nasty. I love the neck on this. The frets are fucked but I think they’ve been shaved down to match the neck angle? Really flat by the nut and pretty much full at the body. Plays okay.

Last edited by dub on Tue Mar 19, 2024 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
MattK
.
.
Posts: 1073
Joined: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:06 am
Location: Hobart, Australia

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by MattK »

You've tried to put me off but now I ONLY WANT IT MORE. Thanks for that!
User avatar
Pacafeliz
.
.
Posts: 1446
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:19 am
Location: Cocologne, Germany

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Pacafeliz »

JESUSGOLLY THAT SONEX IS SEX
my name is Pat.
User avatar
plopswagon
cutesy tag
Posts: 18642
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: 3rd Fret
Contact:

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by plopswagon »

My old lead singer had one that had been smashed by Paul Stanley of KISS.
► Show Spoiler
ekwatts wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:53 pm The word "moisty" has made me irrationally angry.
Dillon
.
.
Posts: 1644
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 7:03 am
Location: Colorado

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Dillon »

Did that Sonex have a harmonica bridge originally? Wondering what you replaced it with if so.
User avatar
dub
.
.
Posts: 1729
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:25 pm
Location: WGTN, Aotearoa

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by dub »

It was just your standard abr tunematic, with a guard wire, but to metric dimensions.

It's in that gallery of pics if you click through a bit. The new one is a shiny NOS gotoh from either the 80s or 90s.

Dillon
.
.
Posts: 1644
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 7:03 am
Location: Colorado

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Dillon »

Link goes to a blank page for me :( Anyway I asked because I have a "The Paul" from the same period, a close relative. It came with a harmonica bridge which was also corroded, although not that badly. Took a lot of searching to find something to retrofit.

More to the point, seeing your Sonex kinda makes me want to switch to zebra buckers, cream pickguard and speed knobs. Sadly I only have one of the original dirty fingers though, if that's what it even came with. Some of the later Norlin-era guitars were parts bin specials, this one included. I'd love to see what the base plates of the pickups on yours look like.

Image
User avatar
plopswagon
cutesy tag
Posts: 18642
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: 3rd Fret
Contact:

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by plopswagon »

I hadn’t seen a “The Paul” with a burst like finish before. I thought they were all walnut oiled finish
► Show Spoiler
ekwatts wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:53 pm The word "moisty" has made me irrationally angry.
User avatar
dub
.
.
Posts: 1729
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 2:25 pm
Location: WGTN, Aotearoa

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by dub »

There were certainly some oddballs.

I haven't had the pickguard off in a while, but this is making me want to open it up and fix the dodgy output jack. I recall they looked the same as this?


With the weird little cross bar mod for the two adjustment screws.
User avatar
Bacchus
Whatever's handiest
Posts: 23475
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:10 am
Location: wandering

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Bacchus »

plopswagon wrote: Wed Mar 27, 2024 12:25 pm I hadn’t seen a “The Paul” with a burst like finish before. I thought they were all walnut oiled finish
I always think of them as being brown too. I have a Vantage VP-750 "The Ghost," which is the Matsomuku copy.

Don't think I've ever seen one with a pickguard, either. Cool.
Image
Dillon
.
.
Posts: 1644
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 7:03 am
Location: Colorado

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Dillon »

There were two official runs I've seen in catalogs / price lists. The earliest had a Standard and Deluxe model, with the only difference being body material as far as I know. (Oddly, the Standard was walnut while the Deluxe was mahogany. Would expect the opposite nowadays). Both were exclusively brown, with the Deluxe coming in a light or dark color.

Then they switched to the Firebrand series, named as such because the Gibson logo was branded into the headstock, instead of having the gold embossed logo. Basically the same guitar except it came in a couple other colors.

But this one is neither. My best guess is that after 1981, the last year they were in a catalog (that I know of), they used leftover stock to do whatever employees wanted. The serial number on mine dates it to 1984. Unlike most, it never had Grover-style tuners, nor a TOM bridge. The color code written in the pickup cavity indicates the finish is original, and I believe the pickguard is, too.

That said, I have seen a handful of others like it. Here's a silverburst one and here's a wine red one, both with 1983 serial numbers, and with the latter having a Firebrand truss rod cover, even though it isn't one.

Anyway, seeing those listings made me realize the pickup I have is a Tim Shaw, not a Dirty Fingers.
User avatar
Bacchus
Whatever's handiest
Posts: 23475
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:10 am
Location: wandering

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Bacchus »

I suppose that's '80s USA vs Japan guitar manufacturing in a nutshell. That the nameless factories that were producing copies in Japan were doing deliberate, designed guitars that can now be dated and traced and the American companies they were copying were just sort of doing whatever in an ad hoc way and are now tricky to date and place.

That's not a judgement one way or the other nor a reflection of the quality of the instruments made, I just think it's funny how the copycat companies were run by far more serious people than the original manufactures.
Image
User avatar
Nick
Y'SEE!?
Posts: 9481
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:13 am
Location: Albany, NY

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Nick »

Haven’t done a group pic in a while. Missing a few but these are the main players these days.
Attachments
IMG_1751.jpeg
IMG_1751.jpeg (3.08 MiB) Viewed 274 times
User avatar
plopswagon
cutesy tag
Posts: 18642
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: 3rd Fret
Contact:

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by plopswagon »

Mmmmmmmmmm….prisonstang….uhhhhhhhhh….
► Show Spoiler
ekwatts wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:53 pm The word "moisty" has made me irrationally angry.
User avatar
Pacafeliz
.
.
Posts: 1446
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:19 am
Location: Cocologne, Germany

Re: pictures of your guitars here

Post by Pacafeliz »

Nick wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:14 pm Haven’t done a group pic in a while. Missing a few but these are the main players these days.
Perfect collection!
my name is Pat.