More Delta King observations ...

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015 -- My left shoulder feels better this morning, and my thoughts about my Oscar Schmidt OE-30 semi-hollow body guitar have mellowed out a bit. I may just go ahead and buy the cherry red one I'm wanting, despite its heft.

Last night's tuning problems were indeed frustrating. The more I think about it, the more I'm fairly sure the strings are binding at the nut. I think before I start filing the slots, I'm going to put a new set of strings on. I have some 09s that I'm going to try, mostly because I have them in hand. I believe it has 11s on it now,

I'm watching an eBay auction for a Johnson JS-500 guitar -- cherry red, beautiful hard case, in great condition with a first bid of $200 ... and no bidders. The Johnson has a set neck, which most players really like. My research shows that no one makes the traditional semi-hollow body guitar with a neck more like a strat -- there are some chinese slimline teles that have a nut that's on the order of 1-1/2 inches, which is good deal more narrow than the OE-30 or other traditional semi-hollow bodies. Maybe what I seek lies there, though I am not Jonesin' for a slimline tele or strat the way I am for the 335-style semi-hollow body.

My wife will probably KILL me if she knows I spent $200 on a guitar ... of course, she has to find out, first, right??

I've been hiding guitars from her anyway ... she hasn't met my blue LP clone, and she hasn't really figured out that when I told her I was getting A project guitar, the truth was I was getting TWO project guitars. They are both in plain sight in my office, however, it isn't like I'm (physically) hiding them. The Ibanez GAX30 is standing there in plain sight; the strat copy project is in its case, and it is standing up inside my office as well. She probably believes the Ibanez belongs in the case, which is not the case (pun intended).

This Delta King has the pickup
switch by the lower "f" hole.

I ran across a decent deal on a generic hard case for strat/tele guitars on ebay the other night, and decided to buy it. The Ibanez has no case and neither does my old reliable Peavey Raptor fat strat. That poor guitar has lived a life of hard knocks, though to its credit you wouldn't know it. I figured if I can get a case for them its only an investment ... besides, if I get crazy and buy a more valuable strat or tele, I'll have a case ready to go.

THE MANY FACES OF THE DELTA KING.  I've run across a number of variations of the OE-30 Delta King that's worth mentioning. Now we know that they were made initially in Indonesia, and later in China.

My Chinese-built one has open face humbuckers; others (presumably earlier ones) had the PAF-style humbuckers similar to those found on my LP clone. Another difference is the location of the 3-way pickup switch. On mine (as show in photos below), the switch is in the left horn. On others, the toggle is placed lower down by the volume and tone controls.  Another variation is the location of the output jack. On mine, it is on the bottom of the lower bout. I have also seen the same guitars with the output jack located on the front, between the tail piece and the guitar button, just kinda "out there." The majority of the ones I see have the output jack where mine is, but you see it on the front too.

As the Johnson eBay auction runs down, I've decided not to bid. Despite its looks and the beautiful case, I don't need to spend that much money (and try to hide it from my wife!).

This poor, poor Jazzy!

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT? I haven't written about it here before, but I wanted to rant a bit about a new(ish) trend that seems to now be a part of the guitar world -- the idea of "relicing" a guitar. Perhaps I'm just too damn old school to get it, but let's look at this idea -- first, you buy a top-quality, high-end guitar; then you pay factory luthiers to artificially age your new guitar -- beat the shit out of it, basically -- and you pay them handsomely for doing so.

And the look? Well, the phrase "rode hard and put up wet" comes to mind. You wind up with a brand new guitar that looks like it spent most of its time on the road being dragged behind the tour bus.

And in some cases, the relic process involves repainting a factory finish -- sunburst, etc. -- with some odd-fucking-ball finish, and then they wear the shit out of it to resemble the wear a 40-year-old guitar might experience. You get guitars that look like hell that you pay a king's ransom to buy.

Don't look for me to spend my hard-earned bucks on anything that is intentionally "relic'ed."  I may buy an old guitar that's beat the hell up, but I won't pay a premium for the honor of having one that's been artificially aged.

I suppose I can understand why you would rather play a faux-aged guitar than some rare axe that you paid a gazillion dollars from the estate of some dead rock-n-roller; but does it add to your coolness to have a guitar that looks like hell? Me, I want a nice looking guitar, and maybe I'm wrong, but I want to keep my guitars nice and not have them beat all to hell.

Kids! What's the matter with kids today?? Why can't the be like we were -- perfect in every way? What's the matter with guitar-buying kids too -- day!??

Rock on.