Thursday, September 24, 2009

'53 Premier Pickups


Finished guitar with the 1953 Premier pickups mentioned in a previous posting. 70s (poss. earlier) Bigsby B-5, Tune-O-Matic bridge, Warmoth maple/rosewood neck, original (and rare) white Daka-Ware pointer knob, Klusons. Like all the other guitars from the past several months the control plate is 40s Melamine recycled from dark-slides from cut film holders for large-format view cameras. You might remember Melamine as the material that bowling alley ashtrays are made of. Nasty stuff. The body is book-matched cherrywood with poplar neck and bridge blocks. Sumi ink finish with a thin lacquer clear-coat.

Pickups were pretty fussy to mount as the plastic covers have shifted a bit over the decades. Pickups were originally for a guitar with a much more acute neck angle than this which made a 1/8" poplar shim under the neck pickup (like on the bridge pickup of Scotty Moore's ES 295) necessary.

Expectations are best kept low with wild card pickups like these but they sound pretty fantastic. Low output by today's standards but with such a great warm and open tone. Pickups are fairly microphonic but no biggie. The temptation was there for wax potting but thought it might be like throwing water on the wicked witch of the West with a cloud of magenta smoke the only thing to remember them by.

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