I Hack up a Vintage Guitar...

Well not a real valuable vintage guitar but a $40 pawn shop Harmony Guitar I bought a few years ago. I always thought it was maybe early 80s but turns out it is from the late 60s or early 70s. I had done some alterations to it already. The original pick ups were micro phonic. They picked up sounds all around and squealed so I waxed potted them. This fixed that problem and I have gigged the guitar a few times. 

Pretty nice sounding guitar but the weak pickups get a bit lost with a band. I notice one of my facebook friends blues rock recording artist Alvin Youngblood Hart seemed to have a bit of a side line taking 70s imported guiatrs and souping them up with nicer electronics.  I thought I would give it a try. 

I tried cutting a new pickguard but I am going to have to practice that a bit more. I ended up modding the old pick guard and installing a single lipstick pickup so called because in the 60s the Danelectro Guitar company bought up excess lip stick tube and put guitar pickups in the and then mounted them on their guitars. 

I played the guitar at band practice. I think it's an improvement. Maybe a little bridge intonation and some new strings are next. Here are some folks I saw with lipstick pickups at Riot Fest. 

The band Television. 

Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies. 

Oh yeah, my guitar has cool stickers on the back. 

A little Alvin. 

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