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Are Heritage guitars still ok?


lavern23

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16 hours ago, deytookerjaabs said:

 

If you put a Telecaster in a vintage Firebird case....the Tele would never break......

 

Pic-1.jpg

 

^^^ That's the problem. The design leaves you with a tiny bit of wood holding a lot of tension. I wouldn't want to drop any new or old Firebird on the floor. 

I've dropped mine more than once, still in one piece

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2 hours ago, rockabilly69 said:

I've dropped mine more than once, still in one piece

 

I'm not sure why you believe if something doesn't happen to you...it doesn't happen? Or, the inverse, for that matter? You can google "Firebird Headstock Break" and find plenty of pics of modern 'birds that snapped. It's not THAT rare as I've shopped for birds new or old plenty of times and the repaired ones are the best bang for the buck! 

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5 hours ago, deytookerjaabs said:

 

I'm not sure why you believe if something doesn't happen to you...it doesn't happen? Or, the inverse, for that matter? You can google "Firebird Headstock Break" and find plenty of pics of modern 'birds that snapped. It's not THAT rare as I've shopped for birds new or old plenty of times and the repaired ones are the best bang for the buck! 

I know it happens, just like Les Paul headstocks break. But I think a lot of Firebirds are dropped due to their shape so that's why I think you see it more in Firebirds. Everytime I hand a Firebird to someone who's never played one, I see how clumsy they handle it. I also see a lot of people leaving them to rest on amplifiers which with their odd balance leaves them more apt to fall. And there's the walking them into ceiling fans that I've also seen. Do they break? Sure, but I've seen Es335s and Les pauls with headstock breaks from just their cases falling on their sides. Most all of them are weak in that area, especially the ones with thinner necks.

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16 hours ago, yoslate said:

And the mythology evolves.  Told me there was a guy who worked there who put his cigarettes out in a sawdust pile, insisting they wouldn't ignite the dust.  They had to clamp down on that story for the insurance coverage.  Marv loved a good folktale....

Maybe there were two fires.  The one I am talking about happened in early 2010. 

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3 hours ago, rockabilly69 said:

Everytime I hand a Firebird to someone who's never played one, I see how clumsy they handle it.

This is the biggest reason why I sold my Marvbird.  Every time I played it I had to pass it around to friends.  It was bad enough to think of breaking it myself but the thought of some one else breaking it took me over the edge. 

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3 hours ago, deytookerjaabs said:

Fear not the headstock crack! I've been good for 4 of them over my lifetime so far, that's why I don't mind buying them "broken in."

Four for me too, and as I said, never a broken headstock, although, one of them was a nightmare quality-wise. I was doing a showcase at a Sundance film festival party, and the cover of the front pickup fell off. Yep, the solder joints on the cover broke! And one of the tuners barely worked, it hardly kept tune. Gibson sent me replacement parts, which I promptly replaced, and then sold the guitar! I only own one now, but I did keep the best one for myself. It's got Klein pickups, Faber hardware, vintage braid harness and PIO caps (I tried a bunch of caps by clipping them in with alligator clips, 'till I found the perfect match for my pickups). It's a killer. When I was doing guitar repairs, I played two mid sixties killer Firebirds, and the one that I have is the only one of the four that I had that had that sound.  

 

Birdie.jpg

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