now, as for this takeharu...

it helps a lot to know that the adjustments are stock, and it's not that weird forold guitars.

but, i think the next step is to understand if the neck is straight and if there's any bows or warps. it seems straight, but let's be rigorous....

so, i got a mic stand for $15 today, which will help with recording guitars for period three.

when i got back, i put some oil in my bike chain - something long overdue - and went for a nice ride to let it sink in, rather than just track it around the basement. i decided to take a run around town, looking through pawn shops for old guitars.

i didn't find the gibson-style hh body i was hoping for, and think i've probably exhausted my options, but i'm going to repeat the exercise on friday morning to check some stores that happened to be closed on mondays, which seemed to be quite a few.

i did, however, get another hardcover case for $30. it came with a piece of shit mini classical that has a slightly wider neck than the hohner. i'll probably clean it up and put it up on kijiji for a few bucks. so, that's the new case for the electric/acoustic. and, i'll keep looking for similar style deals to fill out the cases.

i also got a stack of books, for $2-$3 each (the stephenson was a bit more), mostly for the alter-reality, and mostly books i used to own:

- 6/7 of the chronicles of narnia series (in a box set) (i read a few of these, not all of them, as a kid.)

- wuthering heights (i read this in late high school)

- three titles by f. scott fitzgerald (i read some but not all of these in late high school) 

- hardcopy covers of the tommyknockers & misery, as well as the first dark tower entry <---i was a huge stephen king fan as a kid and read all of these before 1993

- utopia by thomas more <---this is a text from i think the 8th grade that i remember well, although we did a man for all seasons, rather than utopia

- jonathan swift - gulliver's travels <--- middle school

- arthur c. clarke - 2010: odyseey two - this was read in elementary school

- two texts by neil stephenson - i read snow crash in early university, but have not read quicksilver

i will probably delve further into specific authors in the alter-reality than i did in real life.

- the following are not for the alter-reality

- a biography of glenn gould by mark kingwell

- a compendium of three plays by sophocles - antigone, king oedipus & oedipus at colonus

- timequake by vonnegut (i always grab everything by vonnegut when i see it, but have not read this one)

listen, i'm learning about this...i've never even heard of this...

no. no.

i actually think it's a copy of a martin d-35.

yeah. the pictures are much closer...

i'm an electric guitarist, i've never been picky about acoustics. i don't know the different types or models well. 

the d-35 is a spitting image, so that must be what it was.

https://myguitarfix.wordpress.com/2020/01/22/1970-takeharu-lawsuit-copy-of-a-martin-d-35/

so, yeah.

this is a gibson hummingbird clone...

if you look at the new models, they still have plastic pegs where the action adjustment used to be, years ago.

my sister stole some old vintage guitars from me years ago...nothing like this one....

the takeharu guitars also appear to have been gibson clones. 

solid top gibson acoustic guitars from this period nowadays run around $10,000. so, you'll excuse me for having never seen one.

but, the acoustic gibsons from that era have the same action adjustments as this takeharu does, and t hat seems to be the idea.

ok.

well, i'm glad i figure it out first, but my intuition seems to have been correct.

the serial number on this guitar is 01032.

i thought it was 1973, due to the model name, but i may have jumped to conclusions - the numbers appar to be chronological across the entire brand, so this is the 1032nd takeharu guitar ever made, and it may be closer to 1971 or 1970, given that they seem to have made around 1000 per year.

there only appear to have been 9000 or so of these guitars ever made - total, all models.

this guy's takeharu has the adjustments, too.

ok.

they're stock, and must be for tension.

great.

most of the pictures don't have the screws.

but, it seems like enough do to think they're probably stock.

wow.

this is a '74 model where they seem to have unscrewed them, answering my question.

ok, this is a 1976 model with the same screws.

could they be stock, after all?

wtf?

i'm going to send them an email with pictures.

the laptop seems to be ok, after all.

when i tried to turn it on last night, it told me it couldn't read the hard drive - indicating it might not be installed, or had perhaps had the bootloader destroyed. when i tried today, it's fine.

so, i dunno.

i didn't get a chance to really look at it before i went to get the takeharu so i don't really know what happened.

the seller is being evasive about the screws :\. he claims "his friend" gave it to him.

should i bring this into a store before i even touch it just to run it by somebody? it's a $1000 solid body acoustic guitar manufactured in 1973, with some kind of botched mod to the bridge...this isn't the cheap piece of shit i hoped to save...

so, i spent the night trying to sort through cheap instrument listings on a couple of sites and spent the day sleeping.

the laptop with my phone appears to have been sabotaged by the cops, and i might have to r einstall.

for the night, i need to finish eating, clean a bit and get back to sorting through those listings, before i put them aside for tomorrow.

i'm going to have to blow very, very hard to get the same tone.

that's ok...

so, an air reed organ is, physically speaking, essentially the same thing as a melodica.

i can probably get very similar tones using the $5 melodica i just ordered from china.

yeah. $5. 

which is about what i paid for that organ, back in the day.

i'll keep an eye out for a real bontempi replacement, but one shitty part about the internet is that you don't get the same kind of deals on old gear that you used to at garage sales. it's going to cost upward of $100, and my $5 melodica might just be good enough.

this is the model i had.

and, if i'm going to replace it, i want the same one again.

that fan required noise reduction.

i loved the keys.

i was honestly planning on putting the epiphone in the case to try to extend it's lifespan, and leaving the "beginner japanese acoustic" on the stand, as a doodle guitar.

but, if i can fix this, it can keep the case!

the bridge oddly has two screws in it that look like action adjustments. you can see one of them here; it's the same on the other side:

what exactly are these screws?

are they action adjustments? if so, i wonder if the guitar just needs a setup - however bizarre it is.

or, are they there to keep the bridge in place?

i can smell the glue under the bridge, so it seems like the bridge snapped off and got glued on. that is, unless somebody tried to mod it to make adjustable action, in which case we might be dealing with a mod gone wrong that could in theory be undone.

i can tell by holding it that this guitar is an upgrade over the epiphone, but it doesn't hold tension in the strings and instantly falls out of tune...

...so, after adjusting the action, i'm going to probably put nylon strings on it, regardless. and, while it has 20 frets, the 21st is playable. :).

i love finding weird guitars and making them awesome.

let's see if i can save this.

so, i got the bottom of my vox this morning, finally. 

i also took a look around for hh bodies and didn't find what i want. 

when i got back, though, i responded to an ad i had responded to previously for a "beginner japanese guitar" with a "rehoused bridge", really just expecting to buy the case. after fighting with the rain, i got it back home and realized it was this:

this is a vintage 1973 takeharu guitar. and, yes, the guitar is unplayable due to a warped bridge, but i suspect i can fix it...

i paid $40 for this guitar, including the case.

i also got this for $5:

so, expect some mini xylophone madness coming up!