[okiejohn]

My old daddy-in-law has been laid up for close to a year now with health issues. He's said several times that he wanted a guitar to mess with to help pass the time. I finally went out and looked for one. I figure he's not going to spend much time with it, but who knows, maybe it will give him something to do and a bit of pleasure.

I looked at the usual pawn shop beaters, Fenders with neck problems, cheap Takamines, Johnsons...the usual that you find in a depressed area. There was a Silvertone that caught my eye. I remember Silvertone being the house brand for Sears, and having an old electric around the house when I was a kid. I looked it over, made in Indonesia, but solid spruce top, nice binding, rosewood neck, gold Grover tuners, nice little snowflake fret markers, and even some fake mother of pearl inlay around the sound hole. Overall in great condition.

The only negative was high action, but I was gonna put new wires on it anyway and figured I'd shave the saddle down a bit and adjust the truss rod. I bought the damned thing.

Seems somebody glued the sadddle in...I couldn't get it to budge, and didn't want to risk breaking it. I did tweak the truss rod, and that helped some, the new wires sounded good, so I took it up the the old man. Time will tell if he does anything with it, and I told him that if he got tired of it, or decided he didn't want to play it, that he could send it back to me. I figure I'll be loaning it out to someone else on down the road.

[goober]

Nice one. It's the thought that counts, but if he get into it...

[dadfad]

I hope he'll get a little pleasure out of it. Yeah, Oke, some guys glue those saddles in. God knows why. And that includes a few top-notch luthiers too. (The head-guy at Elderly Instruments is a big glue-it-in guy. Ya have to tell him not to (threaten him is more like it) and even then he'll usually do it anyway half the time. And Elderly's repair-shop is better and more reputable than Gibson's.) You can usually get 'em out with a heat-iron (not too hot) if they've used a good glue (like horse-hide or something) but it they used a new epoxy or something you gotta chip the damn thing out.

I dunno why they do it. I got into it once with the guy at Elderly. I usually do my own repairs, but took this one to them. I needed a new bridge-plate carved and installed under the top of my old 1934 because I was pretty busy and I had never done it before anyway. When I got it back he'd glued my original ivory 3/16" wide saddle into my original bridge. I went to fine-tune the set-up and I couldn't budge that damn thing. I called and he said yeah, he'd glued it and I said I figured that much, and I couldn't get it out even with an iron. He said try a heat-gun. I said you want me to try a heat-gun on a 70-year old vintage guitar worth quite a few bucks? I don't think so. Whataya think those 70 year old braces are gonna do under the top when it gets hot? So he said bring it back in (and that's seventy-miles) (one way). So I took it in. When I got it back again the idiot had broken my saddle and replaced it with a 1/8 bone-saddle, which of course didn't fit the original 3/16 bridge-slot, so he'd replaced that with a new one he carved to be identical looking to the old one. He apologized and said "Ya know, they just don't make those 3/16 saddles anymore, and especially out of ivory." (Duhhh, do ya think?) So he gave me a hundred bucks back (out of the six-fifty the bridgeplate-install had cost) and my old bridge (I guess for when they lift the ban on ivory) (or 1934 rolls back around again maybe).

Anyway, some guys do it. Most luthiers I've ever talked to said the difference in projection between set-in and glued-in saddles ranges from vitually-nothing to nothing, and that the few guys who do it are almost fanatical about it. (Been there/done that.)


Anyhow, you got a good heart, Oke. I hope he gets some enjoyment out of it.

[ninjato]

And Elderly's repair-shop is better and more reputable than Gibson's.)

If you ever need top notch quality work on your treasure guitars, send it to this guy

SUPERIOR GUITAR WORKS in Pennsyvania

He is in Gibson's authorized repair center listing. He worked on 2 of my Les Pauls.....Studio and my Supreme. I haven't put those 2 guitars down in over a week. The Studio needed a fret leveling and tweak, it plays so smooth now and the frets were polished to a mirror shine. The Supremem needed a new nut. The stock piece was cut too low on the D string. I got replaced w/ a real bone nut...WOW. The difference between bone and composite nuts is astounding.