MartyGrass

Even while Schallers were the default pickups, Heritage offered Seymour Duncans for an upcharge and kept some on site. Also, you could supply your pickups and they would install them during the original build. I knew the original owners and Ren well enough to say with some confidence that they thought Schallers were fine. SDs cost more to them but most customers didn't have strong feelings one way or another. Some did.

Some were ordered by Jay Wolfe with Seth Lovers or his famous mix of a Seth Lover and a SD '59. The control cavity cover may or may not tell you if they are stock. Sometimes the case compartment with have a card from Heritage that Jay signed and may have the type of pickups he ordered from the factory.

I'll bet Wes Montgomery's guitar smells like smoke, too.

Originally they agreed on two finishes- burst and natural. As time went on, lots of the original specs were transgressed. They were still great instruments. The finishes branched into rose natural, red and green. There may be more. The sizes ranged from 16-18 inches across and up to 3 1/4" deep. Some were tap tuned. The neck thickness varied from a little on the thin side to medium. No baseball bats I'm aware of. The major specs remained true. The woods were ultras, the tops thin, there were no mounted pickups, and the neck block was consistent. I've scoped a few of their bodies. I saw no issues and attention to the tapering of the bracing. Less popular but equally impressive is the work they put into the American Eagle. I've only closely examined two. There certainly are other Heritage archtops that are home runs. The Johnny Smith is a marvel though.

That's a classic. Like any guitar, it takes a little time to bond to it. It then won't let you down. The unpotted pickups will click with the pick if you aren't careful. New habits take care of that. The Millie DC is light, gives high fret access, balances well, and has a beautiful sound with SLs. The burst is stunning. Congrats!

The H-550 just didn't get the respect it so truly deserved. Good looking, playing and sounding.

Heritage Millennium Eagle 2000

The finish color is not an issue to me. I've had blue, black, orange and white. The all become normal and attractive in a while. The guitar plays and sounds super. I got an American Eagle at a ridiculously low price years ago. It was listed on this forum. The father of the poster bought it in the early 1990s or late 1980s. He didn't play it much. The son inherited it but played folk guitar. Patrick, who some will remember, hated the guitar model because the the ornamentation but lived near the seller. I asked Patrick to check it out. The seller and Patrick met in a restaurant. Patrick evaluated the guitar, checked the truss rod function, and did a mirror exam of the interior. He called me and it is solid. He handed over my money and took the guitar. He planned on driving to Kalamazoo for a Heritage run in a couple of weeks and would drop it off to me then. In those weeks he polished all the gold, set up the guitar, restrung it and played it. After a week he claimed it is a masterly built instrument and no longer looks as strange to him. By the time he brought it to me, he liked the design. He somehow understood the symbology of it. I went through the same process. Now I like the design of it. These days, green is ok with me.

I've had work done with Jack French. Pete Moreno also helped out. I don't know if Jack is still there. I'd be surprised. Rob is capable of high level custom builds and is a scholar of modern guitars.

Rob Doolittle just accepted the position at Heritage. Rob is a gifted and very dedicated luthier. He has decades of experience. This is good news. I have been fortunate to have him work on my instruments in his basement shop. He'll be a great addition to Heritage. I hope he'll bring back some of the archtop line. Here are three projects he completed for me. First is the restoration of the unique Howard Roberts harness with a midrange pot and a new pickguard. The second is a Heritage Gretsch Eldorado in which he built a single coil pickup for. Third is a Heritage D'Angelico New Yorker he installed a Dearmond pickup on with Schatten controls.

There were several versions of the Roy Clark, all of them great.

Here are the new ones.

I got this close to a year ago. I asked Pete Moreno to take care of the dings on the top. I just got it back. Not everyone is a green fan. I felt the same way about red and blue archtops. My feelings changed when I got them. Now green also is good. Here are the original pics. Note Vince Lewis playing it.

https://www.premierguitar.com/bass-bench-myths-and-facts-of-cryogenic-treatment https://www.guitar-list.com/guitar-science/cryogenic-pickups You can argue whether it works, but it certainly has been done. It is not that hard to get liquid nitrogen either.

It would take dropping them in liquid nitrogen for a very brief time.

Since were are giving opinions, I've got a few also. The H-525 is a very nice, durable model. It's got enough depth to sound decent unplugged when practicing alone. The sound board support helps reduce feedback. The trade offs compared to the H-530 are a consideration. But the H-525 has the more awesome factor in appearance. I had a H-575 with P-90s. That was a fine instrument but had more feedback issues. The acoustic sound was nicer, but that's not the target of such an instrument. There is an option for those who don't like the hum of the P-90s. First, there is the Hum Debugger. Second, there are many hum-free P-90s out there. Third, Use both pickups but put the bridge one as low as possible and lower the screws to reduce any bridge string signal while taking advantage of the reverse winding of the two pickups.

It is a big deal to put a new truss rod in. As long as there is play in it to tighten and loosen, you're good. Frankly I've never heard of a Heritage where the truss rod was installed wrong. I've had to put different nuts on the truss rods in Gibsons and Heritages rarely, but that's a piece of cake to do. Only once did I have to enlargen the truss rod nut cavity to better allow adjustment with a wrench because the cavity was too shallow. That was a one minute wood shave on an old Super Eagle. Because the mechanics may seem confusing at first, it's good to have a guitar tech weigh in. It sounds like you are fine.

You're saying the truss rod is not maxed out? Then tighten it. It sounds like you need a good tech nearby as humidity and strings change.

Pleking it with 10s may be okay with this instrument. Down the road you may want 12s. If the truss rod is max'd out, you've got nowhere to go. You shouldn't pay for a new guitar and have an inherent issue with it. Heritage should have not released a defective instrument. Something doesn't seem right here.

I have never talked to anyone who has commented about this problem. I'd return it right away.

That would be the work of a PhD dissertation.

Same goes for the xylophone.

Yeah, don't rain on that tearful reunion. I love that saga.

Just beautiful!!