Finally!

It was a long and rocky road to get here, but I finally got the Acoustic/Electric I can be happy with. I started out right; my Madeira (almost 30 years ago) played well, sounded nice and has been a great guitar. The poor thing finally let go of the bridge (that's another project!), and the (cardboard) case was taped together, and there wasn't enough left to tape anymore. That guitar has been around at least a quarter of the world, in the Navy from San Diego to Norfolk to the Med and Black Sea, Egypt, Canada, Caribbean, Florida, Baltimore, and it finally followed me to Florida again.

Then a roommate couldn't pay his share of the rent (because he just bought the guitar), so he gave me a Fender 12 string acoustic. If it wasn't for the case, I would have been out of money; I couldn't even pawn it for $100! (I finally donated it to the church's Youth Group, and kept the case for my Madeira)

Then, after I got married, we walked into a music store that Nancy used to frequent, and there it was! I thought I'd always wanted a shallow body, single cut away Ovation, I kinda liked the plastic back sound. The action was a little high, but I thought I'd be able to fix that, I did my own work on the Madeira and it played like butter. After putting it on lay-a-way, paying it off and finally getting it home, it seemed there wasn't anything I could do that made enough of a difference. Seems the early shallow bodies had a problem with the dove-joints between neck and body, and when they gave out, the neck angled up at the body joint. A luthier estimated $200, and wasn't about to say it was going to be successful, or I could learn to play slide. I finally sold it on ebay (with 2 slides) at a loss of about $300, but at least I got rid of it (of course I described the problem!).

When the bridge on the Madeira gave out, I was playing in the church Praise band, so I needed something, decent, cheap, quick. I found a Washburn factory-second that was customized by a player in a Ska band at a pawnshop for cheap. It took me a few hours to get the stickers and adhesive off the guitar and was still left with etched (with a drywall screw) sun-rays (?) around the sound-hole. It had a plywood top with a walnut stain, I think it was a 'second' because of some differences in the stain, like it was dipped in a vat and got stuck half way out. When I got my Guild, I sold the Washburn on ebay and I think I actually made out by 20 bucks!

I had to sell one of my other guitars before I was allowed to buy the Guild; it was a bright red Burnside (by Guild) Strat look-a-like. The bass player used to have a bright red Fender, so it was cool that we had matching guitars, when he traded in on a black Music Man, I had the Black S280 (so we still match). So I sold 3 guitars and gave one away to justify getting my F-4CE, (not to mention selling $1,000 in paintings to finance it) but it was well worth it. At one time I had 9 (not including my projects), now I'm down to 6, but I'm much happier. (until I see a CE-100 on ebay!)