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Eyeeee Laddie…. ON THE BENCH…..1998 Heritage H170 in Emerald Green!!! Rare color. The owner wants… New pickups New bridge New tailpiece Fret polish Fretboard conditioning Cleaning and detailing Poker chip added New pickup rings New strings and full setup Should be a fun Saturday project.

ALL DONE!!! Playing and sounding great!!!

Ren wouldn't divulge his secret on HRWs. But I have talked about it with him and with his long-time co-workers. He would only smile when asked about what he did to Schallers. My guess is that they took a bath in liquid nitrogen. I highly doubt he did a partial uncoiling for several reasons. The first is the lack of any hum. The second is that a cryo treatment is an established way to modify a pickup. The third is that cryo treating is clean and relatively easy. Why did Heritage promote the HRW? The best answer I can come up with is because they could, especially is the process is secret. Here is what I got from AI. Cryogenic treatment for guitar pickups involves deep-freezing the components (typically to around or ) to permanently improve their molecular grain structure. Proponents claim this process relieves internal stresses in the metal parts, such as magnets and copper wire, resulting in enhanced clarity, smoother frequency response, and increased output. ProjectGuitar.com +4 Claimed Benefits While controversial in the guitar community, those who offer cryo-treated pickups cite several specific tonal and physical improvements: Enhanced Clarity & Definition: Treating materials like copper and silver is said to improve string definition and provide "faster" transients. Smoother Overtones: The process aims to align the molecular structure to be more uniform, which some makers claim makes overdriven tones smoother and more "in tune" by reducing dissonant overtones. Increased Output: Some manufacturers report measurable increases in output (up to 18%) because the treatment potentially lowers electrical resistance and improves conductivity. "Turbo-Aging": For hardware and magnets, cryo-treatment is often marketed as a way to replicate the "relaxed" feel of vintage parts that have naturally settled over decades. Brands & Services Several high-end and boutique brands incorporate cryogenic treatment into their products: Seymour Duncan: Offers the Zephyr Silver series, which uses cryogenically treated silver wire and magnets for maximum expression and detail. Lindy Fralin / Callaham: Features the Callaham Cryogenic Fralin pickups. Callaham has also been known to offer treatment services for customer-supplied parts. V.I.P. Pickups: Uses a "cryo-tuning" process for their LOVERS PAF-style humbuckers to achieve a more transparent, vintage sound. Faber Guitar: Provides cryogenic treatment for various guitar hardware and components to minimize "bad" overtones. Nitrofreeze: An industrial service provider often used by boutique builders to treat electronic and musical components. Scientific & Practical Considerations Skepticism: Critics often point to a lack of peer-reviewed data supporting tonal claims, suggesting that perceived improvements may be due to psychological factors or "marketing hype". Risk of Damage: Extreme cooling can sometimes cause plastic parts (like bobbins) or adhesives to crack if the process isn't carefully controlled. Metal vs. Wood: While the effect on ferrous metals (steel) is well-documented in industrial settings for hardening, its effect on non-ferrous metals like copper is more debated in the audio world.

Depends on the fuzz. I don’t care for Muffs or Fuzz Faces with humbuckers much. And higher output pickups are a no go. The overload the front end too much. Tone Benders? I’ve got a EQD Park Fuzz and I love it with singles, P90s, HBs and Filter’trons. The tone control is very powerful on that and it works great. It’s based off a Mk3 Tone Bender. I do want to try a MK2 Bender eventually. Might grab an EQD Barrows. If you want to use a Muff with HBs you can always put a SD-1 or TS in front of the Muff set to clean boost (volume up, gain at 0, tone to taste). I prefer an SD-1 because it cuts more lows and really tightens up the pedal. Muffs also can be put anywhere in the chain so it’s not as important to have them be first to see the pickups. Fuzz Faces and Tone Benders should be first before anything. I’ve tried them in other spots and this just works. Rats are more distortion boxes than fuzz per se but they can get pretty fuzzy. Catalinbread’s Katzenkönig is set up like a Mk 2 Bender but with the added EQ section of a Rat. I really like this one because it doesn’t cut as much lows as a Rat does and can get pretty fuzzy and raunchy at higher settings. Also has an input knob to balance the pedals input impedance against your pickups or wherever it’s at in the chain. Makes it buffer friendly. Lastly, but certainly not least, is Octave Fuzz. There’s a few variations out there but the mains are stuff based off the Ace Tone Fuzzmaster and the Octavia. My experience is with variations of the Ace Tone Fuzzmaster. EQD does a variation called the Fuzz Master General which takes the Fuzz Master circuit and adds a tone knob (originals had a tone switch) to go from scooped to mid heavy and anywhere in between. I love this pedal. It also has clipping options. Ge transistors, Si, or none for a cleaner boost and just the octave. The octave overtones only come into play on the neck pickup above the 12th fret with the tone rolled way back on the guitar. It’s a glitchy gnarly sound and with the mids up it cuts well. The Catalinbread Octapussy is closer to a Octavia in design but is still more mid forward and less scooped. Great with just about anything.

I don't know if this previously was posted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXCAKNkDvL0 At 3:00 exactly you'll see Ren Wall's dad with a guitar. This is Rem Wall, a local country legend with a great voice.

Factory 2nd also. Looks like a U or a V to me.

"Sorry, can't talk. I'm late for church!!!"

Very nice! I question the description of the neck. It appears to be a three piece consisting of Korina and Maple. When I was at a PSP and picked out a neck blank, I chose a three piece Korina / maple they had lying around. Could be an employee build which IMO is better than a production with choice of wood and attention to detail. So there is that.

You have a MetroPlex? I bought the very last MK I. Took delivery in Dec of last year. It only took 2 years, but I completed the collection of all MK I & MK II models (MetroPlex, SuperPlex, GPM 45 and my desert isle DVL-1). George is a multi-faceted person. Deep sense of humor, curiosity, will to experiment and document the 60s Marshalls. He created the first master volume that, instead of coloring the tone like the rest, it behaves akin to a stereo’s volume; you get the same sound regardless of the volume. The only factor that changes is the drive of the speakers. He included a lossless loop that is the industry standard (designed by George’s friend Steve Miller - not the Fly Like an Eagle guy). They are the only amp I found that allow the player to stand in front of a 4x12 cranked to soak it all in. He obsessed with circuits that sound and react identically to his 1960s amps. As @greatmutah2112 can attest, switching back and forth between his and the original is undetectable. I believe he has a dozen or so pre-orders to fulfill and then he’s out. Those lucky people will find it worth the wait. As George said “Once you hear it, you’ll never unhear it.” I wish him the very best and still believe he will be back in, at least, a circuit designer position. You can’t turn off that level of curiosity and genius.

It’s been a massive bummer. I still read the Friday blurbs from George. I’m sad I wasn’t able to jump on one of the Mk IIs but my Mk I is going strong still. George loved building amps. When I took mine back in to have the free upgrade done to give it 3 modes instead of 2, George was so geeked to tear into mine just to make sure I had the latest updates and best sounds available. That amp is my desert island amp. It can do anything I want it to do. And I’ll always be thankful that I got to meet the man before I bought it which cemented me buying it. Playing the prototype alongside his 68 Superlead sealed it.

My 30-something yrs old H150 came with Schaller pup's, "Golden 50s" I think, which I swapped for Seymour Duncan Antiquities, the a SD '59 in the neck, then I put a first production Gibson '57+ (the Tom Holmes ones!) and it always sounded wonderful. Not for nothing it's called a pick-up, after all the acoustic sound of the guitar is what every pickup has as the basis for the sound it will eventually produce, unless one goes through extreme processing, then the guitar becomes "almost" irrelevant because 99% of what we hear is the effects: Anyway, few years ago I fitted a set of OX4 "Beano" pups on my H150 (I also have a set of OX4 "Jimmy Page" on my Gibson '58 Reissue) and oh my God, who ever said that perfection is not of this world has never tried this combo! It's just "that" sound and it has everything, sustain, thick while extremely dynamic, sensitive to the touch and changes in Volume or Tone controls on the guitar, a perfect EQ with just the right balance of bass - mids & treble....as I said perfect, and these are the only pups that hit me like that, love at first chord. I have to say that I tend to go for a very simple set up guitar - 1 or 2 pedals - Marshall on crunch, however I am a professional musicians hance at time I h=found myself playing though elaborate set up, both live and in the studio (I used this guitar straight to the console when laying down parts for a Netflix soundtrack...) nevertheless the results have never been short of impressive! That's my experience anyway...

Installed a set of vintage Gibson pickups in my 2017 Heritage H535 Custom this morning. In the bridge…a 1981 Gibson Shaw PAF 7.30. In the neck…an early 70s Gibson T-top PAF 7.15. I gotta say, I like the tone of these pickups in this guitar A LOT better than the last guitar I had them in. (IYV hollow body). I have tried a few different styles of pickups in this H535. It originally came with Duncan Seth’s, which sounded great. Then I had a set of 70s DiMarzios in it and those were great too…but definitely a different flavor. And now the ol’ Gibsons. So far, I’d have to say, the gibsons are more balanced and versatile of the 3 sets!

My Gibson R0 with CustomBucker 3 humbuckers have unbalanced coils (per Gibson) and they have a noticeable amount of hum pickup that other Gibson p'ups do not. (and just for fun, I recently yanked out the alnico 3 magnets and replaced them with alnico 2 magnets, which so far I'm happier with) My 2001 H535 with HRW's exhibits no hum, so I don't think the coils are unbalanced. I pulled out the Gauss meter and measured the magnetic field strength and polarization. One of the unusual things about Schaller pickups is the screws are "north" and the slugs are "south" which is the opposite of Gibson and most other humbuckers. The bridge and neck read about the same in terms of strength, and I'd estimate they are alnico 5 and strongly charged, with excellent field strength. Not the highest I've ever seen, but a bit more than most I've measured. The HRW's are definitely made from Schaller components, from the base plates to the covers and bobbin spacing, even the screw threads. But, Schaller could have simply supplied Heritage with the raw components, right down to empty bobbins for Heritage to wind themselves, and loose parts for them to assemble as they see fit. Or they may have supplied them wound or in any other state of partial assembly. I did check the electrical characteristics, the bridge is pretty hot, much higher wind than the neck. I wrote down the inductance and capacitance of the coils and If I didn't like the HRW's so much, I'd open them up. Schaller pickups are very well made. I'm working on several at the moment for a friend doing some restorations on 80's and 90's pointy shredder guitars. I just had one apart to replace the wire with a 5-conductor cable. I had them completely disassembled to clean up the baseplate and solder the ground shield. One characteristic that I've found is they are consistently wound, with very little variance pickup to pickup, and usually have low capacitance windings, so even hotter winds are nice and bright. I tend to wonder if Schaller built their own winders. They were certainly capable of that. If curious, maybe I can snap a picture of a Schaller pickup disassembled for repair.

Here's an H-140 25th Anniversary that was sold on Reverb a while back. https://reverb.com/item/91740095-heritage-h-140-cm-25th-anniversary-with-case-in-excellent-condition

Killer! All class that one is!

Dude this H137 is sick, I would absolutely kill for a single humbucker H137DC.

This was delivered a couple of weeks ago, but I've been too busy playing it to take a pic!

I can only speak about the one I bought. It might be an outlier. This is the Sweetwater pic before I bought it. My biggest complaint are the frets. they are wide and too short. I had it refretted with Jumbo SS.

I think those PRS wide fat necks are perfectly fine

Thank you DetroitBlues for the additional photos from the seller and Skydog53 for reaching out to Marv. It is a unique instrument, but I'll continue on my fourteen year search for the elusive H-140 25th Anniversary. I just missed one and have been feeling very emotional lately. Thanks again everyone.

I do it occasionally. Lol i actually have 3 guitars in queue to be worked on now.

Customer!? Now you’re in the business of doing Guitar work for people for compensation? Interesting.!!!

I missed the 2 above the serial #. Good catch.

If Marv doesn't know anything about it, then did he NOT get one of the 4 guitars? You would think he would know if 4 were made and he got one. I guess it's down to Pete, Ren, Bill or Jim to unravel the mystery.

Pull the control cover and check there. It should be written there. The numbers are 00402. It's hard to tell if the letter is a Q or not. There was a point where their stamp was getting pretty well worn. It made some of the serial number unreadable. For a bit, they wrote them out by hand, then they got a new stamp. They had to do that when they got to AA serials anyway.

Thank you for the kind words Todd!!!

Nice! I think i like the look of the back better than the top.

Love me some green guitars!

Just ordered a MOD replacement reverb tank for my Fender DRRI. Apparently the springs rusted from the salty air when the house flooded during Helene.

found locally at a killer price, picking it up this afternoon . . . the Deluxe Reverb will take a breather . . .

The "description" is just the standard description for a generic H-150. It's not a "standard" 150, with the bound headstock, it's more like a Deluxe. The neck does appear to be korina with a strip of perhaps mahogany or maple. The pickups also look like aged pickups, perhaps SD Antiquities. Most likely not stock 59s. It's surprising to me that a "boutique guitar" dealer trying to sell a guitar as being unique doesn't put a bit more time into the research instead of just pulling junk off the web. As an AG serial number, it would date to 2016 which is a full year after JP passed away. I'm sure Jim, Marv or Ren could fill in the details. The obviously have the other 3. There's no reason that the owners couldn't have decided to commemorate the 4 original owners in guitars. It was still their company at that point, just when Plaza was buying into the company (spring of 2016).

Yeah I got my Mk I in the wave of the first 25. Funny story… earlier that year I won an auction on eBay for 4 Greenbacks and asked if I could meet the guy in Saginaw. He sent me George’s address and told me to meet him there. That was Danny Ardouin and he introduced me to George and they sold me an amp by having me play his prototype and 12380. I made an order shortly thereafter and got #22. This was when it only had the 68 and modded 68 modes. He later did the 66 mode and offered free upgrades to anyone who wanted to send theirs in. So I drove back up and he happily ripped my amp apart to get it up to date lol. Last time I saw George in person was before my son was born in 2018. Took my amp up just to have it looked over and checked out and say hello. He gave it a clean bill of health but while he had it on the bench he let me try the clipping diode he was using for the DVL-1s. Offered to put it in too. We A/B’ed that a couple times against the stock and I stayed with the stock because I liked it better. More classic plexi chime in that one. I could have had a DVL-0.5 hahaha. George is a salt of the earth human being and I’m bummed his business went this way but I hope he’ll be back in some capacity. Why a company like Boutique Amp Design or someone else hasn’t offered to buy and produce his designs and have him on as a consultant is beyond me. Yeah, I know folks will say Dave Friedman’s stuff is already in their portfolio and I get that… but Dave’s stuff sounds like a recording of a perfected modded Marshall. George’s amps sound and feel like real 60s Marshalls. George’s amps capture the raspiness and raw edginess of the old Plexis.

Never heard of this particular special run, but I spotted this 2025 listing on Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/shoalsguitarboutique/posts/just-arrived-like-new-heritage-h-150-one-of-four-built-by-heritage-in-the-origin/1424474409683848/

Got a kick out of this line... "Although the plant is equipped with the latest woodworking machines like this belt sander...." After all, that was only 70 years ago.

check out Wolfetone Legends too. I have set in my '97 H150 & they are the bomb I like Seth Lovers as well

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9I8x1qvgtG4&si=dZJp39wWA_JoK1qC Happy Holidays to all!