well my ebay archtop finally turned up this morning....
first impressions, quite impressed. i was expecting a real project but its in quite good nick.
the neck has just the right amount of relief so i dont think i will need to add a truss rod or graphite reinforcement and it doesnt currently need a neck reset as the action is more than acceptable for an acoustic... although there isnt much adjustment left so it may be due for a reset in the next few years or so if things change much
the major issue is the tuners which wont currently tune it up fully to pitch so its tuned down at the moment... so the first job is to remove those and give them a good service. i am happy to say the gears look to be in good condition and the buttons are mostly solid. once i have removed them i will give the cracks in the buttons a superglue bath and re buff them and i will give the gears a good oiling - that should fix any issues there. obviously when i can get it up to pitch properly i may not be so happy with the neck relief but i cant see it moving much as its very chunky - either way i dont mind.
the frets are old brass ones, quite worn but they dont need replacing just yet, just a bit of a recrown and polish - the zero fret has been replaced at some point already.. i do need to move the bridge forward when i restring it as its about 1 cm to far back - its like someone measured the scale length from the nut rather than the zero fret :?
so i reckon its a 50's/60's framus tango but am not entirely sure so will probably email the framus museum to see if tehy can shed any light on it
http://www.framus-vintage.de/modules/modells/instruments.php?katID=4628&instrumentID=2782&modellID=386&cl=ENstrangely it has no frets on the fretboard extension, not an issue as you cant reach them anyway, also it has one less inlay than the tango on that site and the f-holes are more rounded than pointy... these are things that smell a bit like cost cutting so i asume its a later one or one that would have been sold under a different brand name as there is no sign of a framus logo by the treble f-hole
the sound is really quite nice, its a little squashy at the moment which may partly be due to laminated construction and partly due to really old strings. quite mellow yet rich sounding, a nice level without the neighbour annoying volume of the dread i made
it has a couple of mounting holes in the side of the fretboard for a pickguard - thats cool because i may put one back on at some point and maybe even a pickup
best of all, my fiance really likes the way it looks and is happy to have it on display in the lounge - - we even had a civil discussion about guitar wall hangers the other day - something that has been flatly refused before!!!
all for £56 :D
