The Electra Forums

I want to offer this here before I list on ebay this coming Sunday. I'm not giving this away but my asking price ($1250 shipped) is not insane given the quality and performance not to mention the skyrocketing prices of these guitars. I'll ship it in the brand new Gator case pictured.

This is one of the early models - H76#### s/n non-wave headstock. I've only seen a handful of these.

Functionally, this guitar is working just as it should - no scratchy pots or stripped tuners. Very good action and sound. It fights intonation a bit but what trapeze tail guitar doesn't. The pictures do give a pretty good overall representation -BUT - be advised - this guitar is not mint or anywhere close to it. There are lots of little dings and swirls, a couple tiny chips out of the binding, 3 filled holes under the trapeze (no idea), some finish flaked off by the input jack and theres a finish crack in that area too, theres some weird circular blotches by the neck joint. I can't see that the neck has ever been repaired or tweaked in any way but I always scratch my head when I see those circles. I think the blotches are caused by some kind of solvent drips.

Now don't get me wrong - even with the plethora of tiny dings and scratches, this guitar is still quite beautiful. It has an excellent stripey top and back, and as the pictures show, you really have to be either hyper-critical (like me) or really close to see the flaws. I actually like the flaws because I felt I could play the guitar without wearing gloves. The frets are good, binding has some cracks but is overall very good, chrome is all good and the pickups kick butt IMO.

I have done NO repairs to this guitar as none were needed. The extent of my fiddling has been some deoxit down the pot shafts and I actually raised the action a hair to suit myself - Oh and an acorn nut for the trapeze.

So PM before Sunday afternoon May 6 if interested.

....must resist ...

_________________
...throw me a frickin' bone here, people...

Resistance is futile.......

When I was in college, I had a Electra 2267 Maple Pro with a trapeze tailpiece. I loved that guitar. even though I had no amp. I played it and played it until the frets wore out. I knew nothing about fret jobs(hey, I was young), so I sold this guitar(at We Buy Guitars in NYC). If I had been a little smarter, I would still have that one, but hey, some get away. Recently I had a chance to get this 2281 Elvin Bishop model off Ebay($850). I'll do better this time, I said to myself. When I got it, it was like I got a little younger. I played it for days straight
(unusually for me). It's sounds incredible and like advertised is extremely versatile, going from By The Sword{Slash} to The Shadow Of Your Smile {Google it, young folks:-)}. That's the good news.
Now some reality. For some reason the bridge on the treble side keeps moving up. I finally figured out that the original bridge assembly had been changed from a Japanese version of a Nashville bridge to a Japanese-made American style ABR bridge(metal inserts). There was no down pressure on the bridge to keep it in place with the trapeze tailpiece. So the bridge reacted to the pressure exerted by the heavier strings and the treble side just floated up. After some more thinking. I've decided to have a stud tailpiece installed. That should solve the down pressure problem. The bridge it has now sounds great so I'm going to keep that.(Another solution would be take out the ABR and have a Nashville installed. I want to keep the bridge that's on it because it sounds so good.)
Oh, the back of this guitar has had something happen to it. The neck joint seems to have been repaired. It's a little sloppy but solid. The finish on the front of the guitar is perfect. The back.....well it has a bad over spray from the back of the neck to the bottom and 4 weird imprints near the neck. It doesn't feel right but it sounds so good, I don't care. I'm going to live with it's imperfections except for the tailpiece. This guitar may have had major damage which required major surgery, but it's okay.
The bass pickup is marked '16811' and the treble pickup is marked '26807'. The center wood block inside is all maple unlike most Gibson semihollows which have mahogany center blocks. The tuners are Electra branded, and work fantastic. The headstock is cutout shaped unlike my 2267 which had the wave shape. I've read that identifies the 2267 as a 1977 model while my Elvin Bishop is a 1976 model. The neck shape is 60's. Haven't checked the pots or input jack, but everything sounds good so...(PS my digital cam quit before I could take pictures, so when it's back from the shop, I'll take some with a new camera.
Off topic, the guy who sold me the 2267 said the fingerboard was "ebonol", whatever that was. again, I was young.I have a bad. blurry picture of my 2267 from the early 80's I think. Somewhere. PSS-Thanks, Jead

I don't think that guitar suffered any major neck issues. I can tell you for a fact that where the 4 weird blotches are under the neck joint - there is nothing but a block of maple (i think) the neck is not fastened there at all so I can't imagine that there would be screws or anything in there. I always figured it was some kind of weird drops of stripper or something. I never picked up on the bridge thing either but that might explain the touchy intonation - I thought that was really a tailpiece issue. I never even touched the truss rod on that one and as a general rule, I don't do that ever unless relief is wrong. Action should always be adjusted by bridge and then possibly nut. I do remember seeing just how low I could go on the action with that axe and it was LOW - way lower than I like. Loved the pickups - a lot.

Maybe try a nashville before studs???

First let me say, I like this guitar, a lot. A lot!!! So thank you. The only way to put a Nashville bridge on it would be to take out the posts for the ABR, dowel the open holes, and redrill for the different bridge. The bridge that's on it sounds so good, I don't want to change bridges. A stop(stud) tailpiece is my personal way to modify the guitar. I could have put a Tone Pros bridge on there. My way wasn't the only way. The action will be way low when it's done; again that's just a personal preference. A real good guitar tech could have repaired the neck without screws. Good techs know which glue to use. The guitar was in tune right out of the box, so the truss rod is not an issue. Any idea about the finish on the back. Again, not complaining, just wondering. Anybody have any idea if this is a Matsumoku, a Fujigen, Terada??????? Again, thank you, Jead!!!

Congrats and welcome aboard. I guess I don't fully understand what you mean when you say that "the bridge on the treble side keeps moving up"... does it rock forward? The studs should keep it in place. Maybe the studs don't fit it perfectly. I don't know, need more info!

I also like a lot of down force on the bridge, but replacing the tailpiece sounds extreme, and pricey! Good luck, Mike.

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

I think you're right about a neck heel repair. The finish repair is amateurish, but your experience with the guitar indicates that it's probably a structurally sound repair. If you like the way it plays, the sound, and it's solid, then it doesn't really matter much. I suggest using a black light in a dark room to see if you can tell any more about the work that has been done on it.

Maybe look under the neck pickup for further evidence.

1. Hello proendorser. I'm the guy who asked you to do a video on your 2267. I'm glad to be here. The way I described my problem to my tech was this: The heavier strings on the bass side exert more pressure on the bridge assembly than the lighter treble strings. That would force the bridge to act like a seesaw without a counterbalance; the stud(stop) tailpiece. The trapeze tailpiece would not create any down force(this is the way it was supposed to work with old hollow body guitars with wooden floating bridges). Whoever changed the original Nashville bridge to an ABR bridge probably didn't know this. Who knows what happened when. All I know is when I get the guitar back Saturday, I'll see if my theory is right. I'm anxiously optimistic.
2. Hello ultra sonic. I've actually let the axe hit on its back(lightly!!) once already. No problems since. The finish all over the back is bad, but I bought a player, not a mint piece. When I checked the pickups I didn't see any cracks or weird seams in the neck. I think a friend of mine has a black light, I think. Well, I'm liking it here even more. Later.

I still don't think those marks indicate anything to do with the neck. If the construction is the same as my '76 wave Elvin, that area has nothing to do with the neck. On my wave, the neck is simply glued on and there is a dowel in the body block into the heel. There is no dovetail or tenon - it's a simple butt joint. The front side fingerboard is glued on from the 19th fret forward to the neck pup. For the marks to correspond to anything structural there would have to be either screws angled pretty radically up into the heel of the neck or straight through the block and into the fingerboard. I think either scenario is very unlikely. As for the finish, I will say that it is unlike any finish I've seen on any other Electra. It's very thin, and on my wave it almost feels like it's worn off in spots - not dis-similar to Gibson's faded SG model. My X410 on the surface is just about an exact duplicate of the Elvin but has a much thicker finish. I still have no idea what type of finish was applied to Mats Electra's except it's not nitro. The Terada Outlaw finish seems to be some kind of ester or possibly some kind of polyurethane that I've never been able to successfully chemically strip. Either way, my experience on the 2281's is that it's the lightest finish I can recall on any Electra's I've had - perhaps by design, perhaps not. Maybe I'll test a small spot with lacquer tomorrow and see what happens. I'd be pleasantly shocked if it proves to be lacquer.

Do I read correctly that you'll be doing away with the trapeze? If so, please hang onto the part. I know JD (another respected member) has been looking for one for quite some time and they're pretty hard to come by.

I will hang on to the tailpiece. Let me repeat. I'm not complaining about anything. I got a second chance with an old love and I'm hangin' on this time(is that a song?). The finish on this seems pretty thin. But even on the back, except for the bad overspray, the original finish seems to be intact. This is my first real forum experience here. Can we sell back and forth? Okey dokey! That's all from just outside NYC!

Welcome to the forums and congrats on the Elvin. Glad to see it went to someone that will enjoy it. These are great players and are very hard to put down once you start playing them so enjoy.

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

Sounds like something The Spinners would release!

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

I wish it was that good, proendorser. I took a couple of good shots of the 2281, but I couldn't get the photos on the electra forum images area. And I couldn't link to them using the 'img' tag. So go to my MySpace site(http://www.myspace.com/bigmansband), the pics are there. I'll also do a video of playing the 2281 through my late 80's Crate(SLM) G-60 amp with a Celestion 12M70 speaker. How's that for brand symmetry?:-)!! That amp has traveled the eastern seaboard with me since I bought it new. On an unrelated note, I'll be putting my Edwards Flying V Figured Top(copy of a Gibson Custom shop model) on Ebay pretty soon. Oh, and I have the tailpiece. Later.

Is that a roller bridge I see there?