i s'pose it's a bit silly to start acquiring guitars at age 75, but i seem to be afflicted w/ what some people call "guitar acquisition syndrome," a high falutin' way of saying that i am buying the damned things until the walls are covered. so, i am back home from walla-2, and gotten over the beautiful woman (and, who didn't slap a leash on my neck and take me home and put freddy mercury pants on me and make me her kept man ... hey, an overactive imagination never hurt anyone) i saw in wallay wally, and it is time to start playing guitars.
i went to the walls, and grabbed a schecter that i bought for $75 at a second hand store, w/ case. the guitar had been poorly treated, and someone had some how taken large chunks of paint and wood off the edges of the body, top and bottom. i am not quite sure how all of that was accomplished, truth to tell, but, it was pretty ugly. he was pretty ugly, and in need of some "tlc," but the price as right.
i took it home, took stock of the situation, and decided the only proper course to follow was to pump good money after bad into the old dear. so, new strings. and, i didn't like the war it sounded, so i got a set of seymour duncan pickups for it, brand new, and learning how to solder and like tasks, i installed them at the neck and the bridge. (where else, you say?) if memory serves me correctly, i think the pickups were seymour duncan sh-2 and sh-4's, but i cannot remember, and someone has come in behind me and thrown away the old pickups and packages ..... who cudda done it.
that left the body.
i didn't want to strip the paint and fill in the gouges, and refinish it. too much work. and, besides, the old dear had more than a dollop of charm, which i wanted to "preserve." it is a diamond series guitar, black hawk model, and finished in a flat black, far classier that a gloss black. and, then, discovery!!! one day i was looking at a particularly nasty gouge just about the back bout, and trying to figure out how to stop the migration of wood from the body. so, i covered it with "friction tape," otherwise known at electrician's tape in these parts, and lo! and behold! the tape was an exact color match with the body, and nearly identical in surface texture. so.-- the edges of the body, front and back, have a generous application of black electrician's tape all along the guitar. and, i venture to say, if you didn't know it, you wouldn't see it.
the long and the short of it, the old dear is very playable, has a very friendly neck and fret board, and a great sound. it has a perfect heft, and is just very nice to play. so, it comes down off the wall, my $75 guitar that gets played before the more expensive ones get taken down from their perches. guitars may someday come, and may someday go, but the old black shecter stays. old friends are the best friends, when it gets right down to it. if you have a good wife, you care for her, but she is getting a bit worn around the edges? well, just cover the blemishes and the dings and divots in the exterior with black friction tape, as much as it takes, and live with it. ..... it will be a far more comfortable life than breaking in a new model, and you will go up and down the fret board with way more facility. and, those half notes will be a lot easier finding. trust me.
john jay @ 05.06.2023