Doing Things Wrong

Danelectro '63 (1457) Guitar

This body style was originally reissued in a range of models - guitar, bass ( long and short scale ) and baritone. I only have the guitar. These were part of Danelectro's Chinese production, and while not bad, are not as nice as the prior or later Korean models. A second reissue in 2015 restored the gloss sparkly finish of the vintage original. None of the reissues use the original headstock shape, though.

This guitar was issued in a wide range of models and colors.
A bass model, showing the stock dull finish, dull chrome, dingy 'vintage' pickguard, and controls.
nice shine

I modified mine to be more like the original, with dual stacked knobs and front-facing output jack. I also installed a rosewood bridge and replaced the binding. The binding on this body style is especially prone to peeling off inside those recurved horns. Finally, I stripped off all the dullcote and polished the body to a shine, and stripped the yellow coating from the pickguard. See the Pro-1 guitar for details on that.

The re-issue dual stacked controls and other parts were once readily available online, but are now all gone. I drilled out the marker holes in the knobs and glued in tiny brass nails, like the vintage knobs. I think this guitar is much nicer than when it left the factory.


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This is a spoke nut version, for use at the neck heel.

Here is a variation intended to adjust at the headstock rather than the heel, although it would work fine there too. I substituted a 1-1/2" 10-32 SS cap-head bolt for my usual spoke nut and threaded shaft. It is captured the same way, in a drilled-out coupling nut with a ground-down hex nut. The rod itself is 48" 3/16 rod steel, bent back on itself. Both coupling nuts are grooved on the attaching surface to hold the round rod. This greatly simplifies alignment and assembly, and the cap-head bolt eliminates one solder joint. All parts from my favorite luthiery supply shop, Home Depot.

Printed from luthierylabs.com