The Electra Forums

I loved the old Cheesy Guitars forum:
http://www.cheesyguitars.com/

But its forum didn't seem to survive the recent cold war between spammers and bbs upgrades. I miss all the good discussion, and I hope we can have some of that here, at least as a temporary measure.

Electra fans, you haven't lived until you've strummed a Tonika, Aelita, or Jolana. Some of them are actually great guitars. Some are simply dreadful!

You beauty!! I love this place...

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

Yippieyahee !!!
I can feel the adrenaline going again...the urge coming up...now I will be on the look-out for some new "old-"East-European guitars (but still reachable for all you guitar junckies !!)
Gonna contact Sergey & BigBeat immediatly

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ivan alias lordbizarre
lordbizarre's electric guitar & amp museum
guitar and amps repair & expertise
wange;belgium;€pe

And a word of introduction in case you don't know him, lordbizarre has a guitar museum in Belgium, and his collection makes mine look modest and humble.

I have only played a nylon string acoustic from the eastern block and it it was a funky cool little guitar with 7 strings. I will keep an eye out for the electrics.

Eastern Guitars are an odd mix. Some details are horrible while others are admirable.

When I was first interested in 7-strings I too got a Soviet made acoustic 7-string. The surprising thing is that the neck isn't bolted or screwed to the body, it's held on only by string tension. There's a very practical adjustment screw that allows you to easily set neck angle so the action can be right. On top of this, it sound great!

The down side? shoddy shoddy tuners made of metal too flimsy for sardine cans. They only hold tune for a few minutes and then you're retuning again.

So if you don't mind a tremendous amount of effort to keep it in tune, it sounds and plays great, and if you were someplace where this was the only choice, well, it's not so bad. (excuse me, I have to stop to tune again, grr!)

I think Grover has vintage style and size tuners that may fit; if you get a long enough break from tuning to check them out...

My only truely cheesey guitat is the Synsonics Terminator.

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Addicted to Matsumoku.

I have a 'Montana' Mandolin made in Romania by Kaman... does that qualify? It has a slightly wider fingerboard than the more traditional 'F' style mando's, which for me is more comfortable despite the totally flat fretboard.

It's fairly unremarkable, and the neck is starting to lift away from the body, which made the action laughable. My solution was to shave down the (unadjustable) bridge, which made it playable, but there is almost no down force on the soundboard now as the string angle from the tailpiece is like 2 degrees currently!

It's one cool quality is that the solid maple neck has a stunning striped flame to it, really pretty, and almost looks out of place on this entry level mando, I'll post pics if anyone is interested? It needs a couple tuning buttons replaced as they cracked off and I was just getting it usable to give to my buddy as a gift, but since reseting the bridge I'm starting to get attached to it, I guess I could visit it when I go over to his place.... Mike.

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Electra Guitar Videos ===> http://www.youtube.com/user/mjm33mjm?feature=watch

Oh yes! Could you do a photo pictorial and post a new thread on it?

I'll take pictures of my Aelita to start with, that should get some the juices flowing (whether the juices are saliva or bile remain to be seen) Then the Tonikas, and I'll borrow back my fretless Jolana Iris shortscale slimline telecaster bass and get a page of Jolanas.

Another Cheesy favorite known in impoverished old Soviet was the the homemade guitar, often with handwound pickups using cow magnets or stolen phone handset magnets. But these also show up in rural US, too, I have an american one that's every bit as inspiring and dismal as the soviet kind- LB, what's the word for them?