The Electra Forums

This is the first part of a two part conversion story. Back in the 70's I inherited a MIJ hollow body electric in a cheap case that belonged to my Grandpa. When I opened the case the body had disintegrated. I considered trying to repair the body but concluded that because of the condition of the cheap materials the body was made of, that it would be useless to try to repair. After several years of it sitting around in the case, I came up with the bright idea of using the parts to build a new guitar--a Flying V.

I have no actual pictures of the Japanese hollow body that I inherited, so I did an internet search based on my memory of the guitar and parts remaining used to build the flying V. Best I can tell from my research that it was a Saturn guitar distributed by Eatons Catalog here in the USA, of course MIJ and imported. I'm positive that the pictures shown here are the identical guitar. I will have to take pictures of the Flying V conversion, so for now here is the guitar I inherited. Platefire

OK, here it is---the second part! My first and only attempt at building a guitar. So this guitar was built from parts of the guitar in the previous post. Originally built in 1978. I was a Draftsman at Nabors Trailers. The body is made out of laminated 1 5/8" Oak trailer flooring. The pickguard is made out of 1/8" thick wall lining from a Refrigerated truck body. These were scrap parts left over from trailer builds. All the electronics, hardware and neck was originally from the scrapped Saturn Hollowbody but over the years has evolved with some changes:

1-Original Saturn bridge was given to a neighbor that had a MIJ copy SG that needed a bridge.
I later got a tune-o-matic bridge that it now has.

2-I first replaced the original Saturn Bridge pickup with a strat pickup that eventually went bad and replaced it with a Duncan Design Humbucker.

3-I failed to drill a hole in the routing cavity to route the ground wire to the bridge, so I just ran it in plain sight.

IF THIS ISN'T ENOUGH CHEESE TO QUALIFY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS Have a laugh on me!!!

No laughter, you built something. I like the bridge ground.

That's pretty cool thanks for allowing us to check it out.

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

Hay, thanks for looking. My grandpa was an interesting character. He played acoustic guitar, fiddle and had regular jam sessions in his living room in Northern Arkansas where he recorded it on his recordio. I also inherited all his old records he recorded on that recording machine. He was strictly an acoustic player but he once told me the story behind buying the electric but I never saw him play it at all. Here is a scan or an old picture of him as a young man. Also in the Sound Cloud below is one of his recordings that I overdubbed some drums, organ and bass to his original rhythm guitar and vocals. I know this is more info than you desire, guess I get carried away talking about my grandpa Lamore.

The Hudson flying V is actually playable but rather squirrely. Action is nice and low. The humbucker way out-powers the old original neck pickup. The tune-0-matic bridge really improved the intonation. Because of it's shape is hard to find a comfortable playing position sitting down. Making this squirrely copy help me decide I really didn't want a real Flying V. Grandpa would have had a hoot if he could see it now. Platefire
https://soundcloud.com/connie-and-bob-scott/tessie

Very cool. I am impressed by the sound quality. Your additions were very appropriate.

Thanks! It was a heart felt endeavor. Platefire

I'd like to hear it without the overdubs. Really cool!

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"GREAT Googiley moogilie Jack...jumpin jehosephat, hot dang and all".
- jdwhealton

Hi Chad

Thanks! I added that tune to Sound Cloud about a year ago but have had problems trying to add new songs to Sound Cloud since then, so I haven't got a un-modified version of that song to post. I do have some other songs by Hudson(grandpa) that I doctored up but I think Tessie is the best. The process was way back in 1994 I recorded his mono record to one track of a Tascam 424 Cassette 4 track recorder and then added my stuff on the remaining three tracks. It's hard for me to listen to now because I would do things a lot different now than I did then but I probably won't redo them though, just leave them as is. Platefire

https://soundcloud.com/connie-and-bob-scott/19-the-muskrat-song

https://soundcloud.com/connie-and-bob-scott/01-the-fox-and-the-goose

Love this old music. Thanks for sharing this!

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"GREAT Googiley moogilie Jack...jumpin jehosephat, hot dang and all".
- jdwhealton

A lot of that old music Grandpa did was directly off the Grand Old Opera. He recoded late 40's programs off his radio to his recordio. In the 90's I transferred all his recordings to 8mm tape and cassettes trying to preserve it. Now they need to be transferred to CD or some kind of digital media.

Here is another old tune called "The Laughing Song". The record was skipping badly, I couldn't prevent it, so I had to make the music skip with it--not easy! This is not my Grandpa though. It's a blind man by the name of Milton Battles and use to come stay with my grandpa for short periods of time on a regular basis--he was like part of the family. He was a good guitar player, fiddle man and sang pretty good. When he was there it was a jam session every day. On the end of the recording my grandpa conducts a short interview with Milton and they also give the date. Also if you never heard of a recordio, I've attached a link to what that is.

https://soundcloud.com/connie-and-bob-scott/laughing-song

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/canadia_ma_recordio_6b10.html