TalismanRich

Depending on who you believe, it either a. is better b. is worse c. makes no difference. Seriously, unless you were to take a guitar with a thick neck, record it, then shave the neck down and compare it, you can't just make a blanket statement about that. BTW, Jimmy Page's #1 was a 59, but the neck was shaved down. Does that one have "tone"? There is a fellow on Youtube who took a Strat and recorded the guitar, then started cutting off chunks of the body. If there was a change in the sound, it was minuscule. I've read luthiers who say it makes a HUGE difference, and others who say it make almost no difference (we're talking solid body guitars here, not acoustics). I think there are other factors that will have larger impact. Pickups are #1 on my list, scale length is #2. Pickup placement makes a huge difference. BTW, Heritage necks are hand rolled, so no two are exactly the same. There were thick necks in the early days, and thin necks. They have templates that are used to check the shape.

I'll take blocks. It's getting a bit harder to see the dots these days! 😄 I have noticed that on guitars with black or brown binding and white markers, it's harder for me to see than black dots on white binding, especially if the light is dim. A friend solved the problem by putting a thin strip on the top with built in LEDs instead of dots. He said it's great on a stage.

Groovedoggie, Isn't it great when you pick up a guitar and it sings to you? Nice choice on the 530.

That's nice color on that new H150. Excellent choice, PK.

As you are well aware, that's a rare bird. Hope it becomes your "forever" guitar!

Bingo, Hangar! Great analogy.

Whether they were making guitars or not, the COMPANY officially starts April 1, 1985 which is Heritage Guitar Incorporated. It's a distinction. They may have been making guitars, even naming them Heritage Guitars, but they weren't fully incorporated until April 1.

Don't forget that the pick guard has changed, Tone Pros hardware, and no more Schaller pickups. Otherwise, they're still making the same guitar. I'm not sure, but I think they are using the Plek on the guitars now.

I think I would grab the case on Gear Exchange. That's a deal!

Hangar, I bought a Gator case similar to the one you ordered. I got the SG version to use with my old Guild S100 after the original case was water damaged. I tried a generic square case, but it flopped around. The Gator works fine, and seems to be just a touch lighter than my TKL case. It's snug, so the guitar doesn't move around. Gator SG Case in Brown

The bigger headstock isn't that much of a selling point. It's a touch more weight, but I don't think it would create neck dive or change the sound. You really can't go for much lighter wood, it's already full of open space. The pickup change? Heck people are yanking out the 225s and replacing them in the CC150s. They did the same with HRWs, then they sell the HRWs as if they are gold. You can buy a hundred different pickups today! The 555 had an inlay in the headstock, and the "sans The" isn't a selling point, it will have ZERO effect on anything. I like the headstock inlays on my 157 just fine. Block or enhanced fretboard inlays are a plus over dots to me. Binding on the headstock, I like. Multilayer binding looks nice but not a necessity. Gold hardware, it's not mandatory. With some colors it looks great, with others, silver works better. 5 piece necks looks sharp, and I always wondered if they would be more stable since you can have the grains crossed to minimize the tendency for a piece of wood to move in a single direction. None of this has much to do with trying to reinvent a "vintage spec" guitar, which is more what the Custom Core seems to be aiming at. I'm not one who worships at the altar of the '59 LP. I don't necessarily agree that the only guitars that have "magic" were built in 1959. '58s and '60s were essentially the same spec. The fact that it stopped from '61 to '68 meant that the pool of those original guitars was small. Therein lies the resulting supply vs demand issue. Yeah, it's cool that it's old, but other than the fact that certain people played certain guitars on certain albums they were just standard production guitars. You don't see the same thing with 22 fret Washburn Hawks. Bob Marleys Hawk sold for $1.2 million, yet you can buy a late 70s Hawk today on Reverb for under $1000. That's not so much an issue with the 335/345/355. It's been in constant production since 1958, with gradual changes over the years. So what would a Custom Core 535/555 bring to the table, other than some upgraded parts?

Yeah, the LP obsessives go nuts if the binding isn't the right color, or marker dots aren't perfect. Is the neck fat enough? Is the wiring vintage? Is the tenon deep enough? 535/335 players just pick 'em up, plug 'em in and PLAY! When I would walk into Dee Wells Music School at the tender age of 11, I didn't even look at the Les Paul, or the hollow bodies or acoustics. My eyes went straight to the 335. That's what I wanted! It took me a long time to get my red semi, but I've got it now and I play it. It's great! They would need to do something super special for a CC to be a lot better than the standard 535. I would rather they just bring back the 555, for those of us who like some bling.

I had contacted Terry when I first got the amp from my parent's attic. His place is on the way to one of the customer sites I would visit for work, so I made arrangements to drop it off on one of my trips. I got to spend about an hour talking to him when I picked it up. He's an interesting fellow. Once it was finished, I stopped by to pick it up on the next trip. It was around 2010 or so. Yeah, not loud, and they go to crunch time pretty early. I was a little wary of turning up the volume very high since that speaker cone was about 60 years old. It's still hanging in there, though, at age 70!

Mine was rebuilt by Terry Dobbs, who really knows his Valco stuff. I took it to one of the PSPs. It was a little "underpowered" compared to most of the other amps there. I've been told that harp players love them.

When my old National Supreme was refurbished, one of the things that needed replacing was the leather handle. It had completely dry rotted after about 30 years of sitting in my parent's attic. The right side was gone. Luckily, an almost exact replacement is still available. It's a little darker brown, but who cares!?!

I do as little on the phone as possible, save phone calls, email and texts. Personally, I HATE trying to work on a phone.

Nah, that only works until someone fills up their flickr account and starts deleting photos. Then you end up with a bunch of dead links. The board is full of them (just go back to look at all the lost PSP pictures!!!). The problem is that phones today have those dang 20MP cameras and the pictures are 3 and 4 MB in size. The board limit is 1.5MB. The best thing that I've found is to dump to a computer, use Irfanview to resize to somethng reasonable like 1280 or 1024 and then post the JPGs. Limit them to under 1.5MB and just drag and drop into the message. It will stay there forever.

I've got an RP-355 multi effects pedal that I picked up years ago. They sound like a great idea, but it was just too many options, buttons to press, knobs to twist. My patience ran short. And where the hell is the on/off switch?? On the other hand, stand alone pedals aren't foolproof. My MDV2 went on the fritz yesterday. No clue as to why it's dying, but with Fulltone pulling the plug, getting it fixed could be a problem. It might be cheaper to just buy a cheap vibe pedal and be done with it!.

I certainly has a Fenderish vibe with the tremolo and reverb. Traynors a great amps.

Hangar said "Please tell me the back of this model is red and not natural." So it was "bad news" for him. I thought the natural looks damn good, myself, and it's a nice chunk of lumber to boot!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is the back to the first Goldtop:

Goldtops use bronze powder for the gold look. You can adjust the shade a bit with some coloring. If you really want to go cheap, you can make one with aluminum and some yellow, red and black. Aluminum is a lot cheaper than bronze but it doesn't have the same lustrous look. Depending on the grade you buy, metallics can have a very smooth, almost mirror like appearance, or a deep 3D look. I'm partial to the 3D look myself. Brass is copper and zinc, and bronze is copper and tin. Since both contain copper, that is what turns green when oxygen reaches the surface. That's why you see the green patina on old brass or bronze lamps.

Gee, Kuz. I don't think that finish is all it's cracked up to be! 😁

Some goldtops look really nice to me, but I'm more a fan of finishes that show off the wood below. Having tried to match gold metallic coatings in the past, I can tell you they can be a pain the BUTT! Then, when you get things just right, the company that makes the metallic pigment decides to discontinue it. There is even a booklet that coatings people use that has pages of different shades of gold, bronze, silver, etc. The guitar companies are probably somewhat at the mercy of the companies that make the lacquer. I seriously doubt that any guitar makers mix their own colors, although if you are buying a large enough quantity, I'm sure the lacquer company would custom match a color for you, for a price. Hopefully we'll get to see some goldtops this summer.... hint, hint, hint.

Hmmm... $250 Canadian is about what.... $4 US? Sounds like a bargain to me! I can get some Iron City Premium brew. Do you take DodgeyCoins?