TalismanRich

No, it's laminate Semi Hollow.

That spray booth might have been a blast from the past, but as someone who dealt with safety in a hazardous business, it was a bit on the scary side. I know what nitrocellulose dust can do with the smallest of sparks! (as in BOOM!) Thankfully it didn't turn into a blast, although they did have a fire when they began dismantling that area of the building. I was really glad to see their new spray booth that first year they moved. Much improved dust and solvent fume controls are a good thing. The new dust collector is a great thing as well. Dust explosions can be nasty, and that includes wood dust!

You are really out of touch with today's Heritage Guitars. This isn't 4 old Gibson employees anymore. Two are still alive, two have already passed. Does anyone expect that guys who started working in the late 50s should be building guitars today? These guys are in their 80s. Today, it's a different company. First point about giving them an F for not innovating.... Poppycock. By Jim Deurloo's own admission at PSP last month, when they opened they were making just about anything anyone thought of. Look back at catalogs from 1989 or 1993. Stat, Little One, H-110, SAE and SAE custom, HB1, HB2 and HB IV bass, H-140, Mandolins, banjos, Academy, Prospect, Mark Slaughter, H-574, H-480 acoustic, Parsons Street III and V, Millennium. They tried making unique guitars... they didn't sell. Guitarists wanted the traditional models, 150 and 535 are the bread and butter. The various jazz boxes were well received. I suspect Heritage sells more hollow bodies guitars today than Gibson, who don't even list a traditional jazz box in their current lineup. It's the same reason Fender sells a dozen Strats and a dozen Teles for every Jazzmaster or Jaguar. How many Coronados do you see them sell today? Gibson sells Les Paul, SG and 3xx variants by the truckload. How many Covus, Marauder, Victory or RDs do they sell? They're in the catalog. I don't see many on the Guitar Center wall. As for not having endorsed artists and heavy advertising, that costs money. They simply didn't have the budget to put full page ads in every guitar magazine every month. Perhaps if they had been charging exorbitant prices, they could have bought more ads, but they also might have sold fewer guitars. Gibson, Ibanez, Fender, probably spend more on their annual advertising budget that Heritage made in a year! As for nobody knowing Kenny Burrell, Mimi Fox, or Henry Johnson, you must be looking from a rock perspective. They are well known in the jazz world. Gary Moore had a signature, Alvin Lee did as well. David Paul had the blue jazz box. I've seen Buddy Whittington playing a stock H-140. Alex Skolnick? Having name on the guitar doesn't automatically mean that fans flock to buy them, especially when you have limited production capacity. How many variants of the Stratocaster do you need? Clapton, Beck, Eric Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Yngwie Malmsteen, Jimmy Vaughn, Stevie Ray, Robert Cray, Cory Wong, Rory Gallagher. That's just part of the artist models. The same goes for Les Paul variants. Reinvent the wheel.. .over and over and over again. Finally, I think you are looking at past history. Today, you can find Heritage guitars at Wolfe, Daves, Eddies, Sweetwater, Chicago Music Exc, Cream City, Jimmy Wallace. That's just the bigger US dealers selling US made guitars. They have an import line, akin to Epiphone, Fender Mexico, Squire or PRS SE. It's not to everyone's liking, but its brand building. And having played samples of the Ascent+ guitars, they actually played quite well. I would have no problem walking on a stage with an Ascent+ 150 or 137. Heritage is doing just fine. They are shipping out guitars by the dozen, not 2 or 3 a week. It's a different company.

Yeah, it's the horn that's going to make or break a guitar. You simply can't play a guitar if the horn doesn't have the exact dimensions of that someone drew up 70 years ago and endorsed by a Youtube personality. Sorry, I don't get your point other than trying to start a pissing match. Oh yeah, that horn of which you speak has changed numerous times over the years at that "other company". Personally, I think it's the silly poker chip that is holding back the Les Paul player from being successful. Seriously, if the stupid guitar player has to stop, look down at the front of his guitar and decide if he's playing rhythm or "treble", he needs to find another occupation. Speaking of which, how exactly do you play "treble"? Does that mean you can only use the notes on the treble clef?

If you listen to the second video I posted, Pete clearly says that they prefer to use Maple/Basswood/Maple for their laminate, although sometimes they use Poplar for the inner sheet. FWIW, the H-525 is a full hollow body, but uses a laminate top and back. While thicker than the H530 (also hollow and laminate), at 2 1/4" it is thinner than the H-575.

The 535 is laminate on the top and bottom. The sides are solid, which is different from the ES335 spec. On our tours of the factory, they have shown us how the actually make the laminates from thin sheets of wood, and then how they steam press the arch into the sheet vs how something like the 575 is carved. I can't remember wood layers they use for the laminate.

Is the H-530 a great instrument? I was always a big fan of the 535 / semihollow style, but I am really digging the 530 I grabbed last year. It's too bad you didn't get the matching sign to go with it!!!

This was from the 2018 tour. It's the same rope method we was this year.

I took some video of a fellow wrapping binding the first year they moved to the back area of the factory. He was doing the traditional rope method then. He had set up a little "glue pot" where he could drag the binding across and it applied the glue to the strip. Apply it to the routed channel, and then wrap while the solvent dries. Most guitar binding is Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic, which is very soluble in acetone. Toss any scraps you have in some solvent and you make more glue. But buying a premade solution would probably be more consistent. It's similar to the old model car glue we used to buy, except that was just styrene dissolved in toluene.

Yes, they are making their version of a staple pickup. Square Alnico magnets, P90 size. The head winder was showing a couple of us how he is making them. That guy is like a chef in the kitchen when it comes to pickups!

Yeah, you were so much older then, you're younger than that now!!!! 😁

Heritage doesn't sell pickups. If they are the 225 Classics, then you're out of luck unless you find someone who is selling them from their guitar. Check the inside of the control cavity to see if it says 225 Classic, or Lollar. Lollar P90s used to be the standard issue pickups. I have them in both my H525 and the H-530 that I picked up last year after visiting the factory.

I ran across this video some time back, and somehow I found it again this morning. Not only is there a sweet 535, but check out the cool dude playing it!!! I think I've seen him before.

Maybe we should switch to Asian porn instead of Swedish porn.

I bet that will catch a few "occasional" users. I had to check to see which of 5 emails was used.

FWIW, with the Gibson ES330, the neck joins at a different point than an ES335. On the H-530, it joins at the same point as the H-535. You can see that the bridge is mounted at a different point of the f hole. It was something I noticed when I was trying out a Blues Driver and used an ES330. It felt different than my 530, and I couldn't at first, figure out why. Here are the Gibsons vs the Heritages.

IF you look at the neck join, the Roy Clark cutaway comes in at the 16th fret, but on the 576, it joins at the 14th fret. The two fret change in the point where the neck joins the body means the bridge and tailpiece need to move. It also means that the neck pickup is a bit more towards the center of the scale, so it is probably a bit more mellow than the Roy Clark. The 575 also joins at the 14th fret. That would make the 576 like the 575 in pickup placement.

The 576 is semihollow, laminate top and back with solid rims. Here's the spec from the '89 catalog. I have the H525 which is thinner, laminate like the 576 but fully hollow and with P90s. It's a bit like a smaller version of the 550 to my thinking. 16" vs 17", 24.75 vs 25.5 scale, both semihollow, so you should have a center block. 2 3/4" thick vs 2 7/8" It's not shown in the 2005 catalog that I have. It was shown in the '93 catalog.

A pair of tuxedos! Very nice. I love the look of the 157. It was my choice when I ordered my first Heritage over 20 years ago.

The Bandits have been one of those amps that just work without any problem... mostly bulletproof, don't need to worry about spare tubes, and sound pretty decent. The Peavey folks actually knew what they were doing!

It won't have QC dates, but in that period, the serial number tells you when the number was assigned. 1994 should have a K serial number. The five digits of the serial number encode the day and order of manufacture for the guitar. The first group of three digits represent the days remaining in the year on the day the guitar was completed. The last two digits indicate the build order on that day. For example, a guitar with a serial number of B35012 can be decoded as follows: B: Year built is 1985 (a rare find, indeed!) 350: Built on the fifteenth day of the year (365-350=15) 12: The twelfth guitar completed on this day Unlike bolt neck guitars, you won't find dates in a neck pocket, or written in the pickup routes.

It's good to see the HOC back online. Thanks, Mr Admin, for all you do.

Dang, Youtube won't even let me look at the video. It tells me to sign in.... I'm already signed in! I had to track it down on his channel. Is Youtube cracking down on embedded links?

I have been using my Iridium as a direct into an interface, either recording, or at our jams where everything except drums are direct (it's a the drummer's house anyway). Usually on the Deluxe Reverb setting. I don't think I've ever even plugged it into an amp. I'll probably take it off the pedal board when I come to PSP. I could put my EHX B9 organ pedal there!