New (old) Japanese Guitar Day

[polara]

I imagine @currypowder will be able to give some insight into this. I had some old credit expiring at Music-Go-Round and went to find a cheap guitar for the South American tour. I figure between flights, buses, and walking in Rio, I don't want to be hauling a 10-top PRS or such. I thought I might get a Squier or a PRS SE or an Epiphone, with my top cost $400.

Found this Greco GO II languishing in the rack of weird stuff for $397 with an SKB hard case. The pickup selector switch was snapped off. All the hardware was tarnished, dull frets, coated with dust and neglect, ancient strings. But it had "something" about the feel and sounded okay.

Pulled the hardware off, cleaned it thoroughly, polished the frets, oiled the fretboard, got the neck straight, new pickup switch, new strings. The usual.

It really came to life. Under the dirt it was in great shape, with just a couple dings and no fretwear. From what I can tell it's a 1979, made in the Fujigen factory. Maxon pickups: the mini-toggle does a coil tap to only the neck pickup, which is useful. Sen ("mahogany") 2-piece body, 3-piece maple neck, angled headstock, Kluson-style tuners, medium frets.

The vibrato bridge/tailpiece assembly is wild. It's a bit like Brian May's Red Special, in that it's tensioned by what looks like a valve spring, and is super-robust and easy to adjust. The biggest issue with the guitar is that one bridge post has a buggered head, from when someone tried to raise or lower it under full tension probably. Easy enough to move with strings off.

It's very warm sounding, almost jazzy clean, and very 70s crunchy with dirt. Very stable tuning, medium neck, not too heavy. Build quality is great, as good as any boo-teek maker, really. I honestly like it a lot, and so it may not be just flipped after South America.

[Jimbilly]

super cool!

[shankyboy]

Wow! That's a very interesting guitar. Congrats!

[RobB]

2 hours ago, polara said:

Under the dirt it was in great shape, with just a couple dings and no fretwear. From what I can tell it's a 1979, made in the Fujigen factory. Maxon pickups: the mini-toggle does a coil tap to only the neck pickup, which is useful. Sen ("mahogany") 2-piece body, 3-piece maple neck, angled headstock, Kluson-style tuners, medium frets.

 

That is really sweet. I believe Sen wood is a member of the bonsai tree family. Unfortunate thing is you have to level an entire forest to build one guitar.

[currypowder]

Those Greco GO models have always intrigued me, but I've never pulled the trigger on one. I do know the quality coming out of Fujigen in the late 70s was superb, they were just hitting their stride in 79, IMO. 4 bills is a steal for that, love the funky 6 on a side headstock, too. 

[crunchee]

5 hours ago, polara said:

I imagine @currypowder will be able to give some insight into this. I had some old credit expiring at Music-Go-Round and went to find a cheap guitar for the South American tour. I figure between flights, buses, and walking in Rio, I don't want to be hauling a 10-top PRS or such. I thought I might get a Squier or a PRS SE or an Epiphone, with my top cost $400.

Found this Greco GO II languishing in the rack of weird stuff for $397 with an SKB hard case. The pickup selector switch was snapped off. All the hardware was tarnished, dull frets, coated with dust and neglect, ancient strings. But it had "something" about the feel and sounded okay.

Pulled the hardware off, cleaned it thoroughly, polished the frets, oiled the fretboard, got the neck straight, new pickup switch, new strings. The usual.

It really came to life. Under the dirt it was in great shape, with just a couple dings and no fretwear. From what I can tell it's a 1979, made in the Fujigen factory. Maxon pickups: the mini-toggle does a coil tap to only the neck pickup, which is useful. Sen ("mahogany") 2-piece body, 3-piece maple neck, angled headstock, Kluson-style tuners, medium frets.

The vibrato bridge/tailpiece assembly is wild. It's a bit like Brian May's Red Special, in that it's tensioned by what looks like a valve spring, and is super-robust and easy to adjust. The biggest issue with the guitar is that one bridge post has a buggered head, from when someone tried to raise or lower it under full tension probably. Easy enough to move with strings off.

It's very warm sounding, almost jazzy clean, and very 70s crunchy with dirt. Very stable tuning, medium neck, not too heavy. Build quality is great, as good as any boo-teek maker, really. I honestly like it a lot, and so it may not be just flipped after South America.

 

3 hours ago, RobB said:

That is really sweet. I believe Sen wood is a member of the bonsai tree family. Unfortunate thing is you have to level an entire forest to build one guitar.

 

Sen wood is actually Castor Aralia, native to Asia, which has also been 'transplanted' to the U.S., where it is considered to be an invasive species:

Castor-Aralia (Kalopanax septemlobus) · iNaturalist

MIJ Fender '72 Thinline Teles used to have Sen wood/Castor Aralia bodies regularly, up until about 1995; and this wood shows up often on older Japanese-made guitars from the '70's and '80's.  The Japanese especially like this wood for its grain patterns, and use it often for decorative objects and furniture.  For example:

 Castor Aralia | MUKU工房

Check out the descriptions of the items on the website, seems like they were translated into English from Japanese using a sometimes interesting choice of syntax (remember 'feel the mellow gold', or however the old Japanese-market Hamer advertising blurb went?).  

[Cboss]

Japanese hamer copy "a golden sword to strike your music " 🤣

[veatch]

7 hours ago, polara said:

That neck joint is *massive*!

[crunchee]

Here's a good example of a Japanese Sen wood (AKA 'Sen Ash', AKA Castor Aralia) guitar that showed up recently at DGS, even though DGS calls it Ash (no affiliation).  It looks similar to Ash, but there IS a difference, especially with the tighter grain pattern:

https://www.davesguitar.com/collections/misc-electrics/products/spacy-sounds-tl500-81

Edited December 17, 2024 by crunchee

[specialk]

3 hours ago, crunchee said:

Here's a good example of a Japanese Sen wood

[hamerhead]

Coolest whammy bar of all time.

[a.bandini]

Polara finds the coolest guitars. 

Good luck down there.  

[Stike]

On 12/11/2024 at 8:56 PM, crunchee said:

 

 

Sen wood is actually Castor Aralia, native to Asia, which has also been 'transplanted' to the U.S., where it is considered to be an invasive species:

Castor-Aralia (Kalopanax septemlobus) · iNaturalist

MIJ Fender '72 Thinline Teles used to have Sen wood/Castor Aralia bodies regularly, up until about 1995; and this wood shows up often on older Japanese-made guitars from the '70's and '80's.  The Japanese especially like this wood for its grain patterns, and use it often for decorative objects and furniture.  For example:

 Castor Aralia | MUKU工房

Check out the descriptions of the items on the website, seems like they were translated into English from Japanese using a sometimes interesting choice of syntax (remember 'feel the mellow gold', or however the old Japanese-market Hamer advertising blurb went?).  

Also used in the Ibanez Destroyers that the OCD Van Halen fanbois have driven the prices of through the roof.

[kizanski]

18 hours ago, hamerhead said:

Coolest whammy bar of all time.

[polara]

On 12/17/2024 at 7:40 AM, specialk said:

That's really pretty. I thought mine was ash at first glance, then I saw it described online as mahogany, which seemed wrong. Japanese sites always said sen.