Parting with Tina

The time came to bid farewell to my first real lefty electric guitar, the Cort Source I named Tina.

Thirty years earlier...

...or a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was born behind the Iron Curtain, enjoying the last years of the already crumbling Communism. Resources were scarce, supply routes were controlled by the Bolshevik, so I set out on my path to playing the guitar on a Bulgarian made righty Orpheus steel string acoustic stringed upside down. Well, as it had no scale length compensation whatsoever at the bridge, stringing it lefty made no big difference to its (in)ability to intonate. Now, this is all the good I can say about it, so moving on to...

...my next "number one" which was a Russian 7-string Zolotoe Koltso similar to the one in this photo. (In case you ever wondered how I have not became a pro guitarist.)

My first electric was a Hondo HSS 6-point trem superstrat, but still a righty stringed in Hendrix style; I may write about her one day. Anyhow, by the time I got it ('conveniently' amplified through an East German turntable) "the thrill has gone" (on to my trumpet playing in a wind band, probably).

Long story long, I bought my first lefty Sherwood acoustic in Paris in 2001 and my Cort Source in 2015. I did not want a cheapo Strat or LP copy, so I decided to go the semi-hollow route; being late for a second hand Epiphone Sheraton II, I chose to buy the next best thing new (huuuuuuuuge mistake - buying new, that is). Her kind got real good reviews on the web so I ordered one online. She got me practicing again, took me to my happy place, and yes, she's been a real beauty. So why did I let (that bitch) Inez do us part?

Well, partly due to a fault in my personality, partly due to her flaws.

Firstly, I really should not buy objects new (and at full retail price), for I then tend to become overprotectively trying to conserve their factory condition (happened to my Amati trumpet, too). The one time my lady almost tripped over the case I had left by my bedside (luckily closed) the night before, fortunately pouring hot coffee over my (dead?) body instead of Tina's made me buy my first backup electric (Collins strat copy I called Rat-o-caster, but now call Jackie after her makeover), 

then my Epiphone G-400 SG (Barbory), finally, my beloved MIA Strat, Maria Juanita (of whose birth I still owe you an update). So it was Tina who pushed me down the perilous path of sickly gear acquisition!

Now, on to her shortcomings: 

• Sometime early in her history her truss rod nut hex hole got stripped - result of some weak pot metal mating with imperfect-sized wrench supplied with the guitar - so it became only adjustable with an oversized torx bit crammed into it.
• The beautiful factory-equipped Graph Tech NuBone nuts were cut with too much safety margin, thus not allowing an as low as possible buzz-free action.

(Tip of the day: place a capo on fret 1. If you can see/measure/feel a difference in your action at fret 12 and overall playability, you can still lower the nut!)

• One of the volume pots developed a crackle. And as a bonus:
• Stupidity combined with eagerness! You see, our kind Indonesian workers did the courtesy to their most esteemed lefty customers to wire all the pots backwards, so we can raise volume and tone counterclockwise. But adding lefty caps would have probably 'raised the cost through the supply chain too much', so max volume lived at notch position 1, and mute on 10. Typical first world problem for us lefties, you may say, but read on for something more substantial: if you wire a logarithmic pot backwards (as the tone pots were in this case), it mainly acts as an on-off switch, making it useless and taking away most of the countless tones a 4-pot 2-humbucker guitar is capable of.
• Finally, she also developed some hum-buzz while sitting in her case, something I do not take lightly in a humbucker-equipped guitar.

Really, quite an acceptable number of flaws for a then €300 guitar (now €400+), if only my own "keep her stock" craziness would have let me remedy them. On the positive side, the laminate maple was beautiful, the finish impeccable, the tone was quite alright, the build was sturdy, the neck straight and strong; and the alnico pickups were of the 4-wire variety, so could have been modded to be split for single coil tones, too. (I just could not will myself to taste the kind of oral sex rewiring semi-hollow guitars may be/become.)

So I got to the point where she became redundant.

Barbory, the Epi SG became my beater; having been already scratched, gutted and beaten when I bought&rebuilt her (for about €130) I do not fear to take her anywhere come rain, heat or prolonged stay in my car (as it usually does happen in the music camp I attend). A future upgrade of the Epi pickups will probably handle most of her tonal shortcomings, and the neck feels marvellous with no buzz or fretwear and with low action (also thanks to the bone nut I made myself).

Maria Juanita, my Strat became the one to cherish, to be proud of, to play in the safety of my home or at low-risk venues. A peculiar combination of a new body to care for and an old neck that has seen some rough moments - resulting in my almost healthy attitude towards her; treating with care, love and respect, but accepting the risk of dings and scratches, knowing those will be but letters in the story of our life-long adventure.

I had to let Tina go to spare her from a neglected existence as a dethroned queen who became third in the harem to a better place, where she may become a steady number two next to a Gibson LP and see the adventures she was meant for. In the process I also burned some cash to sate my lust and to cure my GAS for another beauty, Inez...

...but that will be the story for another post!

Stay tuned!

From Hungary with love,

BLC