NEVILLE’S ADVOCATE

Nev Marten recalls his days as a repairer when ‘modding’ was about upgrading iffy parts on the instruments of the day

When I was a guitar repairer in Braintree, Essex in the 70s and 80s, as well as fixing Gibson ‘stock’ guitars we mended breakages, refinished faulty lacquer jobs and did the upgrades that people asked for. If you look at Gibsons in the hands of the great players of the day you’ll notice many sporting Grover or Schaller tuners, and not the original Klusons. It’s something my cohorts and I did many times and which, with hindsight’s perfect 20-20 vision, seems like sacrilege. Why? Because it damaged their value on today’s market.

But hang on. My 1960s ES-335 had original Klusons and unlike today’s superb tuners they were terrible; the top string slipped to the point where tuning was a lottery, so I changed them to Schallers. This was done, not out of some aesthetic whim, but for musical practicality.

Likewise with pickups. In the mid-80s, what guitarist lumbered with non-mastervolume amps didn’t long for something that pushed the front end harder? So when DiMarzio Super Distortions and PAFs came about they unsurprisingly went straight on my Les Paul, and we did the same to dozens of clients’ guitars.

Later these minor upgrades pale into insignificance when, once the early modding bug had bitten, people disfigured Strats to fit inappropriate locking vibratos, fingerboards were hacked to accommodate ugly brass nuts, and Fender basses were mutilated by hideous bridges. I have to say we baulked at such practices as they were clearly fads and didn’t improve the guitars as musical instruments.

Even refinishes, which are now seen as a prime decimator of a guitar’s vintage value, were done to bring it ‘back to original’ and, if done properly, did exactly that. I’ve painted P-basses bright yellow, Teles see-through green, a Les Paul salmon pink and an ES-335 see-through blue. Great at the time but a total no-no now. But we were lucky at Gibson UK (Selmer’s when I joined and then Norlin) because we received 55-gallon drums of actual Gibson lacquer from the US, as well as the correct stains and spray colours – even the gold powder for Goldtops. I’d guess that many a Braintree refinish has passed as original, and that some of the unusual colours we applied have later sold as ‘factory specials’.

ConfessionsOfAButcher

Of course I’ve treated many of my own instruments to personal flights of fancy. There were the Les Paul Deluxes that received full-sized humbuckers; the Tele with a P-90 at the neck; the Strat I crammed a Tele bridge pickup on; the SG that got an ES-345 fingerboard so it looked like half of Jimmy’s double-neck; and the 70s-style Flying V with its SG Custom ’board, a wine red finish and gold parts!

Now, I’ll reiterate, even up to the 80s such things were not deemed ‘wrong’. In fact I swapped that Flying V for a ’59 Strat, which I then painted white, so the V was clearly seen as gaining value for the work done, not losing, as would surely be the case now. There were disasters too, like the bodges you’d be begged to do because owners couldn’t afford a proper job – these came back to haunt you and I cringe about them.

Today, companies like EMG, DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan have become superslick organisations, each with its own definite take on aftermarket products. These have been joined by wonderful specialists like Bare Knuckle, Throbak, TonePros and many others, with parts made to vintage-accurate spec so your beloved instrument is tended to, rather than butchered. Even Fender and Gibson now supply upgrade parts which back then they flatly refused to do.

These days repairers probably do as much reversal of butchery as we did upgrades. Indeed, I filled in 9.5mm Grover holes in a ’58 Strat to reinstate the Klusons.

But I’ll end with my best butchery stories. My friend was on tour in South Africa and scouting for a ’58/’59 Les Paul. He discovered one with its fingerboard scalloped beyond the point of redemption; and another with a silver dollar inlaid behind the tailpiece on the join-line.

Then there was a ’63 ES-335 I saw: the fingerboard had been shaved so the top two block inlays were almost gone; and where a Strat pickup had once been was a filled hole and painted with nail red varnish. I thought about it as a project but passed!