Akquarius
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Post by Akquarius on Mar 29, 2013 19:25:51 GMT
While we were all sitting together at the Wool Merchant’s function room in Halifax last september, enjoying Slidingwolfs fantastic slide guitar workshop, he mentioned a few things about how to make an old guitar slide-compatible. Well, I’ve got this old Maya Hummingbird copy, my first guitar ever. It was a present from my parents for my 18th birthday and she was my only guitar for at least 15 years. A couple of years ago I sent her to retirement. A shame, yes, but with all these DeFaoite, Dreizehnter, Lakewood and Martin guitars around I guess that this step was understandable. 30 years after I got this guitar, a few weeks back on my 48th birthday, I got a great CD from my wife. Chris Jones & Steve Baker’s Smoke And Noise. Some great blues music, extremely good harmonica playing and also some fine slide guitar tunes. I sat there, listening to this CD and watching my guitars hanging there on the wall. And I thought that my old Maya, an old-age pensioner, dreaming away her time, neither played nor touched for ages, might be able to produce a sound quite appropriate for doing some slide guitar playing. This special guitar is a pre-lawsuit copy of a Gibson Hummingbird. Pre-lawsuit meaning that it has the Gibson Open Book headstock, which at that time was not yet a registered trademark. It’s an all-laminate Hummingbird copy made by the Maya Guitar Company in 1983 which at that time was known for making interesting copies of the great american guitar companies’ products. Never seen a Maya guitar? That doesn’t surprise me. The Maya Guitar Company, situated in Kobe, Japan, was completely destroyed during the Great Hanshin (or Kobe) Earthquake on the 17. of January 1995. Over 6000 people died, over 20% of the city of Kobe and its suburbs were razed to the ground. This is the guitar I’m talking about.  Mind, this photo was taken a couple of years ago after I had polished her up a bit. She looks quite different now. Frets and strings are dull, the body could very well use some polishing. And the fretboard…, well, as I said. She hasn’t been touched for quite a while now. I think that now I’ve collected all the stuff I need for my little project. So during the next days I’m trying to go and change that dusty old japanese lady into a shiny new Mississippi River Belle. Wish Me luck  |
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Martin
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Post by Martin on Mar 29, 2013 19:30:23 GMT
That's a fascinating back story, Bernd and a striking looking guitar! I'm looking forward to following your progress as you 'slidify' it and bring it back into your stable of workhorses  |
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Post by slidingwolf on Mar 29, 2013 19:32:28 GMT
Wow, brilliant idea Bernd. Bet that will sound very good indeed. Are you looking to play lap slide or "conventional" slide?
Let us know how it goes.
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leoroberts
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Post by leoroberts on Mar 29, 2013 19:39:24 GMT
Hurrah! The best of luck, Bernd... I'm sure it'll be ace and, if it gives a new lease of life to an old friend....
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Akquarius
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Post by Akquarius on Mar 29, 2013 20:02:30 GMT
Thank you all for your kind words I'm really looking forward to this. It shouldn't be too much work and I'm quite curious about the result. Martin, I guess I'm going to play the conventional style. I've been sliding around a bit during the last months, finding out that I get the best results using the ring finger for the slide. Of course, it's only noodling around a bit, not real slide guitar playing. I like playing slide solos, though. It's a lot of fun. |
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ocarolan
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CURMUDGEONLY OLD GIT (leader - to join, just ask!)
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Post by ocarolan on Mar 29, 2013 22:47:45 GMT
All the best with this Bernd - should be interesting. Looking forward to a blow-by-blow account and some slidetastic recordings! Keith |
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Martin
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Post by Martin on Apr 23, 2013 14:26:22 GMT
How's this project going, Bernd?
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Akquarius
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Post by Akquarius on Apr 23, 2013 20:11:02 GMT
Finished - more or less. The actual process was not interesting enough to take photos. I have prepared a written documentation though. Hope to post this one in a few days.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using proboards
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Akquarius
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Post by Akquarius on Apr 25, 2013 17:03:59 GMT
Okay, here we go. As I mentioned earlier, my guitar was not the cleanest one, so before I could start the modification I had to do some cosmetics. First of all were the fretwires. I removed all strings and polished them with this here  Believe me, it really makes a difference. This polishing paper can be used without damaging the fretboard and it works great. After polishing 20 or so frets you definitely know what you've done, but it works. Then I took care of the fretboard with my favourite lemon oil.  If you use stuff like that once or twice a year and make sure that you wipe off everything the wood does not want, then you're fine. As is your guitar. For neck and body I used something I usually do not use on acoustics, but only on solidbodies. The Maya is an all-laminate guitar, though. And therefore a wax based polisher won't influence the sound that much. And this stuff can do miracles.  After I got her all cleaned up I finally could start to restring her. Before doing that, I raised the saddle by taking it out, shaping a piece of this here to fit the gap  and put the saddle back in. Now the strings. I decided that if I go for slide, then I have to go for resonator strings. So I got me a pack of d'Addarios  Of course, for this guitar strings like these are probably way to heavy. So I decided to tune the guitar down to D flat. And here is the only real problem I'm facing at the moment. The idea was to use a capo on the first fret to get the guitar back to Open D. Unfortunately that doesn't work very well. Once you put the capo there, the strings get pressed down to fret-level. So while raising the saddle works fine from the 6th fret downwards, the strings over the first 5 open frets are too close to the fretboard now. And for an absolute slide dummy like me it's nearly impossible to slide the bottleneck up there without any wrong sounds. So I guess I'll change plans, ignore the capo and go for a D flat harmonica instead |
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Martin
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Post by Martin on Apr 25, 2013 23:01:43 GMT
Interesting stuff Bernd, and good work by the sound of it. Can't wait to see the guitar itself  |
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Akquarius
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Post by Akquarius on Apr 27, 2013 12:03:11 GMT
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Martin
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Post by Martin on Apr 27, 2013 14:04:35 GMT
Great photos! The guitar looks superb! |
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Post by thecorner on Apr 27, 2013 14:32:11 GMT
That all looks absolutely great, Bernd. Just one quick question - you showed how you raised the saddle, but did you also raise up the nut, or was raising the saddle enough to lift the strings sufficiently? Great job, would be good to hear what it sounds like.
Eric
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Akquarius
Cheerfully Optimistic
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Post by Akquarius on Apr 27, 2013 18:27:47 GMT
Eric, the nut is glued to the neck very tightly, so I concentrated on the saddle. A sound clip surely makes sense.
I'm off to Switzerland on monday morning for the whole week, so I try to get this done tomorrow.
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bluesboytoby
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At last i have been able to get back onto th
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My main instrument is: acoustic blues finger style & slide .
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Post by bluesboytoby on May 1, 2013 9:48:31 GMT
bernd just a couple of points i would have thught the guitar would take the strain of tunning to open d i have an ols encore dread that i tune to both open d & open g with 15 -56 strings with no problems i would not try tunning up any further, i go open d or g then capo at the second for open e & a , get a decent slide try diamond slides made to fit you so worth every penny & ian mcwee is a great guy to deal with.
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Jo whoever he is.
