My guess would be the cost savings didn’t come from the material but rather the workmanship required in assembly. Pre-cnc days I suspect it was cheaper to punch out fibreglass moulds than have a trained technician cut out and finish bodies from wood.
I think you're underestimating the amount of labor and skill involved in fiberglass shell manufacturing. Personally, I would guess that cost savings comes from finish work. There's no need to paint or varnish a fiberglass body, and, depending on the quality of the mould, perhaps even no need for polishing. (There's still going to be some level of finishing required, especially at the seams, but it's not a full paint and varnish.)
I think the smell you are referring to is phenol. It was common in a lot of rubber/plastic-like products used in the medical field and industry. The smell lessens but never goes away.
Just about to sit down and catch up with the wood whisperer.... Mate, as an Aussie I gotta say it.. you're a bloody good egg and a top bloke!! Yeah I play guitar and while Im no way a luthier your philosophy and your mastery spans well beyond stringed instruments. Without your videos of fixing cracks and broken pieces of wood, I would never have restored the hand holds on my son's yacht.. your lessons span far and wide good man.. very far and wide! One other thing... My father inlaw left me a 1957 Hofner arch back, cutaway NYLON, built like a German maple cupboard, as heavy too and one of three... For 20 plus years I've struggled to think what to do with it, why it's not worth anything, no one wants it, so... I bit the bullet and installed a Martin under bridge Piezo... They said the neck was warped, they said it wasn't worth it... They were wrong, the tone is in that thick walled mil spec cupboard and if you pick it up, OMG, don't throw your Hofners away so soon... I almost did!
@@raindogred You'd want to put that one on the top shelf and keep it for a special day... A previous owner used no more gaps on a yacht's teak hand holds and as my son tried to lift it off and the hand hold split along the grain 2 foot long.... All I could think of when I saw it was a Gibson headstock in my mind... I had two types of superglue, two types of kicker, even 2dollar shop mini's spare of superglue ... Then my son tells me of a hairline crack where the keel connects to hull... Now where the hell am I gonna find a 12 Inch suction cup to get the epoxy in there, and can you imagine the mess..... I think I need one of his LONG thin drill bits to channel the crack and let gravity do the work ... Bottled in crystal!
@@raindogred you said bottle, I said top shelf crystal... and Tim's all for the $2 shop superglue, it's thinner etc, but we have lots of RC tools and glues... As for tthe yacht, I was fixing the teak holds on the cabin that split in half, thinking of Tim and all the tips he's given fixing this type of fault.. that's all... I'll check out Dangar too! tks
It always amazes me how good those "plastic fantastics" sound! I had a cousin that had a Danelectro that we all thought was the coolest looking g-tar and it sounded good to boot! Great work! Love your show!
Great video and beautiful work. I basically have the same guitar, except it’s a 1963 Supro Belmont… red with an elevated pick guard. The single pickup is closer to the bridge. I only have five fingers, so my playing style is a combo of strumming and tapping in Open D tuning. This guitar works beautifully with 7-38 strings and ultra low string height. Side note… while there isn’t an adjustable truss rod in the neck, there is a tube made of aircraft aluminum in the neck… so at least it has something to keep the neck from going completely wonky.
Mr. Woodford, I just wanted to say that your videos have been a source of relaxing entertainment and an enlightening insight into luthiery. I always learn something new, and your thought process towards troubleshooting and your attitude toward your work have been inspirational to say the least, and translate over into my daily life, and some of your tricks even spill over into regular carpentry and my own work in welding and construction. I own a Takamine C136S that I cherish and use as my only guitar. It was gifted to my father when he was a child, and he managed to hang onto it throughout his tumultuous life as one of his few possessions, and then went on to present it to me when I was a child. It is my guitar. That being said however, a kid doesn't appreciate things quite like an adult does and it went through its share of abuse. It was dropped once, quite hard, resulting in a partial break and separation of one of the braces. Not to mention various cracks and gouges in the soundboard. It even spent a night being filled with rain water during a drunken campfire session that I'm not proud to admit to. Luckily the glue wasn't water based and a large sock filled with rice, and a powerful fan managed to dry it out. After learning quite a bit about guitar repair through your channel, I sought out a local luthier in my area, a one man operation much like yourself, and tasked him with patching the poor thing up. Knowing what you've said in previous videos, I went into it with a proper mindset and knew what was possible and what wasn't. He was able to repair and glue the piece of brace I hung onto back into the guitar perfectly, filled in quite a few of the gouges in the soundboard seamlessly and closed and put cleats on all of the cracks. The glue put in the two main cracks in the soundboard discolored the wood under the finish, and I could tell he was nervous about telling me about it, but I knew it was just part of the craft, and commended him for his work. I went on to tip him an extra $60 to support his business and bought a tuner and strings as well. I did that with you in mind. I appreciate what you do, and thus appreciate what this luthier does for his living. It is an awesome job, and I am envious of it. And I am proud to own my guitar knowing that. The guitar has a quite high action, no doubt from what I've put it through, and I keep it tuned a whole step down to try and mitigate the stress in the neck. I plan on returning to him to see if anything else can be done. I am glad to spend the money on it. At some point I may even take him up on some lessons that he offers as well. Keep doing what you do, and thank you for sharing it with us. I look forward to it always.
I so appreciate your craftsmanship. As a machine tool rebuilder, in the lovely state of Connecticut no less, and one who's been known to do some scraping of ways from time to time, your precision is appreciated and your depiction here of good ol' CT equally accurate. It's been a pleasure to watch your channel, thank you for what you do.
I really need to find someone to learn and work with. I love perfection and am probably the perfect amount of OCD for luthiery. Your work is incredible and absolutely inspiring. I'll get there someday, I hope.
Valco was owned by a couple of guys in Chicago. My Uncle knew one of them really well and when we were kids we were able to visit the factory several times to get guitars at a good discount. National was their premium line, followed by Supro (more of a budget line). They also made Airline and much later Kay guitars for sale by Wards and others. I recall that they had a few artists they sponsored with two of them being Bob and Bobby Thommas. I vividly recall seeing the molds for the old National resonators on the shelf in the factory. They made wood guitars as well as the Reso-Glass. The first guitar I purchased from them was a National Westwood 75 map shaped which was sort of a burst made of wood. It had one of their innovations in it that while you only saw one pickup there was a second one built into the bridge so it actually had two pickups and a strat type selector switch. I bought it right off the line. One of their workers talked me into it, set it up for me and played it for me. The second guitar I got from them was a Kay 12 acoustic. My brother got a bass similar to the one in your video. My other brother got a Suppro Clerrmont which kind of remembled a Gibson 335 and a amplifier. After they went out of business and many years later a company in Asia bought the rights to National and Supro and are presently selling reissues of the Reso-Glass along with the Supro amps still being played by artists like Jimmy Page. My mom sold my National when I was away at College for $15. Did the same thing with my brother's Clermont. My one brother still has the bass guitar. It cost me $1000 seceral years ago to purchase another Westwood like the one I had. I still plays great and sounds equally good. After they started selling reissues (you can find them on Reverb) the values of the originals shot up and now my Westwood is worth around 2K and my Supro 6120 Amp gows as high as $1500. Their priginal Reso-Glass guitars can go for several thousand dollars.
On those Supros I believe the pickup screws affix the pickguard to the body if you try and take off the pickguard with just the pickguard screws removed, or at least on my 66’ Supro Lexington I had to remove the pickup mount screws to get the guard loose.
Amazing repair on a non truss rod neck! Great job capturing the definitive sound of the hollow fiberglass in the playing portion. I worked on doctor's offices about 40 years ago replacing industrial vinyl flooring and the off-gassing from that vinyl along with the cleaning materials used to sanitize are what give those exam rooms that distinctive smell.
David Lindley is the first name that comes to my mind when I see this type of guitar. I can’t say for sure that he used this brand, but he is definitely a champion of “cheap” guitars.
Yep. Mr. Dave is one of my all time favorites, and the first name that should come to mind as a player of oddball guitars and other stringed things. His rhythm guitarist almost always used a National "map guitar". Jack White was way late to this particular party.
Went to a Jackso Brown, Bonnie Raitte, Bruce Hornseby, and Shawn Colvin concert in the 90s. The first guy out to open was this David Lindley dude. Needless to say, we were blown away
@@davedavid7061 I was lucky enough to see Dave with his El Rayo-X band in the early 80s at a small-ish club in Rochester, NY (Red Creek). We got there early to eat, just as they were doing the sound check. They played an absolutely perfect version of "Premature", which made us all ignore our chicken wings. Later on I was able to chat with the fellas for a bit and Dave even signed a guitar for me (my Mosrite Ventures model was in the car). One of the best nights of music in my life, and there have been many.
@@claudecat , I got to see Lindley and ElRayo-X 4 times, and saw him with Ry Cooder several times, and doing duets with various percussionists (Hani Naser, Wally Ingram). A fabulous player of anything with strings, and a great onstage storyteller. I've seen photos of him with a National Resoglas guitar, usually the "map" model. His double neck lap steel is a Supro, but woodbodied, not fiberglas; the string-through pickups on those are incredible and Ry Cooder outfitted several "Cooder-caster" strats with those pickups. Jackson Browne has a Coodercaster as well; and Lollar makes repros of those Supro pickups.
4:39 jig and milling machine. You can see the cuts in the wood and the very slight radius of the wall. So they likely shaped the blank, screwed it on the jig and then ran the whole thing through a milling machine. Of note, the slight imperfection in the wood's edge (towards the guitar). That's typical of metal tools on wood materials. You need those router flutes to cut wood properly and even then it's at the mercy of the grain.
Nothing quite like the sound of an old Supro.. (Any valco built reso-glass guitar specifically) I'm playing a very similar one in my profile picture. Gotta love those old goldfoil and vistatone pickups
I use zero frets on the guitars I build. I level them with the rest of the frets. It’s just like having a capo on the first fret and your zero fret is the second fret. Plus you cut your nut slots to be as high as the first fret. So it’s all relative. But everyone has their way. 😊
Love these resoglass guitars. They are cheaply made but are so different from all other guitars that they have some really cool inherent quirks. The vistatone pickups that came in the jb hutto and others sre one of my favourite pickups of all time. Somewhere between a strat and a p90.
Great to see how you tackle a non-trussrod board! I did much of the same to my '54 H39 Harmony (no Hollywood label yet on the headstock, that came later in the 50s..)
YOU PROBABLY WON'T READ THIS COMMENT, LET ALONE REPLY TO IT, BUT THAT'S OK I KNOW YOU'RE BUSY 🤷♂️ I'm not sure what video or how old it was but you made a comment using your patented brand of dry humor, something along the lines of "those of you who tune in to hear the dulcet sound of my voice" & I gotta say that's one of at least 3 reasons I prefer your repair videos over all others I've come across. The other 2 reasons being your brand of dry humor & the quality of your craftsmanship. Of course, there are plenty of talented luthiers on RU-vid but I'm just not a fan of the way they communicate with the viewer. Also, we share the same work ethic. You work on your customer's guitars like they were yours. If a guitar comes across your bench for a certain repair & you find other issues, it would bother you not to fix them. I can't count how many times I've seen you polish out scratches, glue up cracks in soundboards, glue binding back in place, & a buttload of other things that I can't think of right now. I'm in the HVAC business, I repair broken heating & air conditioning equipment. I always treat the job I'm doing like it's my house. That's why I say we have similar work ethics.
There is no way I would play a guitar with no truss rod! But, that’s me! Might have it hanging on the wall! That would probably be about all the play it got! You do awesome work!
For cleaning and polishing metal I have found that Simichrome polish will rehabilitate badly discolored metal and make them look shiny and near new. Ricky from IBM, Ret(now guitar tech in Englewood, FL)
Beautiful looking fretboard, and work of course! I loved the little dirty blues lick at the end, reminded me of some Scott H. Biram, the dirty old one man band. Check him out in you like some good music to work to. Polishing, Polishing,,,,,,,,Polishing. 🤣
