Very cool! Thanks!About the solid vs. chambered question, apparently they are chambered. A while back a bunch of body blanks turned up on eBay. Evidently this is what is sandwiched between a maple top and back:
Vintage vs reissue Aktins Axe
- Thread starter Tyeh1
- Start date
Ha! I am just old enough to remember the '70s. As I recall it (barely), a sort of mustiness pervaded, made mostly of dense wood, aluminum, and plastic. Not bad, just particular.
There was bad, too -- the hairspray and cigarette smoke when my mother made me go to the hair salon with her. I remember literally playing in the mud outside because I couldn't stand the interior. (It was the '70s -- nobody thought it was weird to send a kid away to play in the mud by himself!)
cielski
I Bleed Orange
That was due to the weed and patchouli.
Stumbled across this little clip of Roy and his SuperAxe purely by accident yesterday. Since you don't get to see too many Axes in action, thought I'd add it here.
It's a little corny, as Roy could oftentimes be, but he zips off a nice little solo about the 1:40 mark.
It's a little corny, as Roy could oftentimes be, but he zips off a nice little solo about the 1:40 mark.
MadKaw
Gretschie
I'm probably the last guy you want to hear from... because I don't get the whole discussion.
If I were a guitar, I'd be considered vintage. Yet the only vintage guitar I own is the one I bought new in 1965. What I look for in a guitar now is: neck feel and tuning stability. The sound is in the speaker.
What I really need is more practice.
If I were a guitar, I'd be considered vintage. Yet the only vintage guitar I own is the one I bought new in 1965. What I look for in a guitar now is: neck feel and tuning stability. The sound is in the speaker.
What I really need is more practice.
Very cool. Thanks
I'm late to this particular party... but it wouldn't be a hard decision for me. Keep the vintage Axe! Or... as a compromise (and as mentioned earlier) get the reissue and keep them both!!
That sounds like the best compromise in such a situation.
Hmm! Link isn't showing up for some reason!
Please let me know if that works, thanks!
For some reason, I just get the logo. Not sure why!
Very strange, I click on it here and it takes me to Amazon. Weird. It's probably something I'm doing wrong here! Anyway, if you go to Amazon it is 'Cincinnati Supernova' by Stan Bricke and Sal Forlenza, either a paperback or ebook.
It took only 3 pages but I actually know some differences between the original and reissues.
The reissues seems to have had a few batches over the years I seem to recall something like '94, '96, '02? They are all done by The Music Zoo shop out of New York.
There are a few key difference in the construction of the two that I am aware of.
1) The easiest identifier from a distance is the shape of the bass side "horn", The reissue (top) has this flat shelf, where the original (bottom) does not.
2) Also shown below is that the reissues have the dice inlay that the originals were allegedly supposed to have but Baldwin got cold feet about gambling being seen as seedy so they are just squares in the originals.
3) Still on the fretboards, the originals have a flat fretboard radius, supposedly for fingerpickers like Chet. The reissues have a radiused board ( I cant remember what it is but its probably a typical 12" or so).
4) The backplates are quite different (new top, old bottom) especially at the heel where the new ones do not use the Burns Gearbox truss rod adjuster that the old ones had. The new ones have a truss rod cover on the headstock where the old ones did not due to this.
Reissue with truss rod cover.
5) The reissues have slightly different pickguards with differing fonts. The "Gretsch" is curved on the reissues (top) where it is flat on the originals (bottom).
As has been discussed in here, these are built more like a Gibson ES 335 with laminated arched top and backs and a center block that extends just past the tailpiece. The ebay image shown in here I've always been a little suspect of, mostly because the tail end of mine does not have nearly the size of hump shown where the tail strap button would screw in, and I think the sides are almost 2x thicker than mine would be but you'd have to measure to find out.
The reissues seems to have had a few batches over the years I seem to recall something like '94, '96, '02? They are all done by The Music Zoo shop out of New York.
There are a few key difference in the construction of the two that I am aware of.
1) The easiest identifier from a distance is the shape of the bass side "horn", The reissue (top) has this flat shelf, where the original (bottom) does not.
2) Also shown below is that the reissues have the dice inlay that the originals were allegedly supposed to have but Baldwin got cold feet about gambling being seen as seedy so they are just squares in the originals.
3) Still on the fretboards, the originals have a flat fretboard radius, supposedly for fingerpickers like Chet. The reissues have a radiused board ( I cant remember what it is but its probably a typical 12" or so).
4) The backplates are quite different (new top, old bottom) especially at the heel where the new ones do not use the Burns Gearbox truss rod adjuster that the old ones had. The new ones have a truss rod cover on the headstock where the old ones did not due to this.
Reissue with truss rod cover.
5) The reissues have slightly different pickguards with differing fonts. The "Gretsch" is curved on the reissues (top) where it is flat on the originals (bottom).
As has been discussed in here, these are built more like a Gibson ES 335 with laminated arched top and backs and a center block that extends just past the tailpiece. The ebay image shown in here I've always been a little suspect of, mostly because the tail end of mine does not have nearly the size of hump shown where the tail strap button would screw in, and I think the sides are almost 2x thicker than mine would be but you'd have to measure to find out.
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afire
Friend of Fred
That's something that would but me about the reissue. I don't know why they would have felt the need to alter that detail, but it kind of spoils the aesthetic.
I always found it curious as well. You'd think it must have been easier to manufacture or something because it is an odd change to have made at all.
Free e-book today and tomorrow (1-15/16)! On Amazon. Cincinnati Supernova by Stan Bricke and Sal Forlenza!
A short excerpt from CINCINNATI SUPERNOVA, in which 16 year old protagonists David and Todd see The Who for the first time (in fact this was their first rock concert of any kind, and it is life-changing). The year was 1975:
---We got close—four rows away, and stood waiting in the darkness. The crowd pushed from the back, the temperature rose. What I assumed was marijuana permeated the air. The Who called that “mother nature.” It made me lightheaded.
Holy Sh#t when they came on. Blinding lights ignite, and all the way from England, The Who are right there above us.
Roger Daltrey, long hair and leather fringe flying, sing-screaming his lungs out, swinging his mic above the crowd, parting the air over our heads. Keith Moon playing his drums so hard, so fast, so freely, verging out of control. His tom toms sounded like cannons, his kick drum an earthquake. John Entwistle in black, standing stock still, producing thunderous bass frequencies I could feel punching my chest.
And most of all, Pete Townshend in his white ‘boiler suit’, leaping high into the air, landing with crushing power chords, windmilling, stage-sliding on his knees. Mind-bendingly fantastic. Seriously.
The overall volume? No reference point on that. Never before experienced. Planets colliding. Todd looks at me and yells but I can only read his lips: “HOLY SH#T!”
Yep. My sentiment exactly.
The concert flashed by. The final mighty scream from Roger in ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, and then Pete came to the front of the stage, no more than 10 feet away. We could see he’d cut his hand punishing his guitar, but didn’t seem to care, or even notice.
As Entwistle winds out a booming predatory bass note and Moonie thunders away on the toms, Pete lifts his Les Paul overhead, feeding back like a thousand T-Rexes screaming over a fresh kill.
Then tossing it high, flashing in the lights, somehow catching it. Kneeling to bang it savagely down on a monitor, volume full up, again and again. Like in the Woodstock film. Only better.
Full throttle incendiary dangerous rock and roll. Maximum R&B. They exit soaked in sweat, staggering, exhausted, the crowd screaming gutturally, stamping their feet in unison. Todd and me included. Five minutes, ten minutes, on and on....
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