A little history... So I have been playing guitar since I was 13 years old. My first guitar was a 1940's acoustic "student model" f-hole guitar given to me by my grandma. It's amazing how well those things were made back then even though much of it was made of plywood instead of a good tone wood. Unfortunately, four years ago the top completely cracked in about five places ruining the guitar. Someday I hope to get another f-hole that hopefully in some part captures that sound. It looked a lot like this without the pickgaurd:
I forgot to mention, I'm a left-handed player. Finding lefties (or righties that I can flip upside-down and re-string) can be a challenge. Did you know less than 10% of all the people in the US (and, consequently of all guitars sold) are left-handed? Yet, there are many great left-handed guitarist. I picked up the guitar because of Jimi Hendrix (even though I didn't know he was left-handed at the time). Anyway, I digress...
A friend of mine in high school gave me his beat-up old Harmony electric guitar. It was a 70's era H802. This thing was terrible, but at least I could play chord or two on it by then. I plugged it into a cheap Magnavox stereo player. No distortion or other effects but I could hear the guitar via the microphone input and the stereo at the same time. This is when I began to play along with songs on the radio and started figuring things out. And oh the tone! (Sarcasm in case you didn't get it.)
My first "real" guitar was a "Lynx by Yakima" my parents purchased as a gift for me on my 17th birthday. I played that guitar only for many years after-wards. It's a Korean made strat copy with some decent components such as Grover tuners and a full steel block. I was told that they came out of the same factory as Kramer guitars - they wanted a low-cost line but didn't want to associate the Kramer brand with it. I remember playing guitar with friends in the late 80's and one friend of mine bought a cheap Fender Squire Bullet. He asked me why my guitar never went out of tune after using the tremolo. I don't think that Bullet ever stayed in tune regardless of tremolo usage. I didn't know it at the time but now think it has to be the tuners! The weakest thing about this guitar are the pickups. I may switch these out in a future project, stay tuned!
Fast-forward to present - I now have 7 or 8 guitars with my "spring project" guitar already lined-up. Most bring unique properties to the table. I do have three strat copies that I need to get down to one. I'm always on the look-out for good lefty deals so the list will definitely change before long. I'd like to pick up a cheap righty Explorer and flip it upside-down. What a cool body style! And I've read good things about Korina as a tone wood so picking up a 1958 Epiphone would be sweet. (Note: I'm thinking ZZ Top here, not metal.)
I'll be profiling my guitars in one way or another in a future post so keep checking back. Time to go practice!
