the ULTIMATE selmer modification

Bob Holo

edit

Bob Holo

A better way to do this... should any of you ever wish to use a magnetic pickup mounted more permanently than a stimer... is to simply install something like a Kent Armstrong 2D which can be attached by two small holes in the side of the fretboard which can be completely visually patched later with some eboony dust and superglue should you want to remove the modification.

The knob placement is something that Robin really liked in Neil's guitar. Hey... player's preference.

Robin is a great guy - personally and professionally. It saddens me that someone would butcher one of his guitars instead of referring the work to someone with the requisite knowledge and tools to do the job right. I hope it wasn't structurally damaged and won't wind up buckling / cracking etc.

A.K. Kibben

On another note, isn't where the placement of the pickup important to the jazz guitar sound? It appears Robin's is to close to the bridge. The pickup on Niel's Park was mounted with the sound hole completely exposed as is Josh's modification also. It appeared that the 20Th and or 21st frets and the fingerboard were removed? I think the sound would be much closer to that of an arch top. Neil told me he used D'addario Chrome strings when using the humbucker. Don't remember if they were flat or round. Easy switch back to silver plated for acoustic sound.
Romane Dupont has a full 21 frets on his guitar with the pickup and it doesn't interfere with the sound hole.
Bob's suggestion of using a KA2D is cool, but do the dimensions of the pickup thickness allow the use on a sel-mac favino style with approximate 12mm distance from the top to the strings?
Stimers and Silver Plated work well together. Now would it be feasible to use a light guage electric flat or round wound to achieve an archtop sound with out damage to the guitar with a humbucker mounted in this fashion?

Comments Josh, et al?

A.K.

I like the idea, always have. Two guitars in one...

Bob Holo

Good point - there might not be enough clearance on guitars with lower neck angles and thinner fingerboards. My guitar has a thick fingerboard and a neck angle like a Viola but not all guitars have a lot of clearance.

The way you can find out is to measure. The 2d is 7mm thick so go out 1/2" from the end of the fingerboard and measure whether you have 17mm clearance *minimum* between the soundboard and the bottom of the strings. 18 or 19mm is optimal.

If the player insists on a humbucker and doesn't have clearance - there are better ways to safely modify a guitar's soundboard.

Djazzer

This appeares to be a very ham fisted way of
approaching this mod, surely there is a more
delicate way of making this hole,that mount of
splintering seems excessive.

guitarnica

Well... there seems to be a lot of commotion going on..... this video is actually the first part of a series of two videos! once you see the other video you will truly understand that this is nothing compared to what you will see then , part two of this video is included in the new Jimmy Rosenberg DVD that is comming out very soon ( NO its not a Floyd rose tremolo build in) it has something to do with djangos selmer but I wont reveal to much for the time being...... and.. forget brands, favino , selmer or dell Arte... at the end of the day its just a name on a piece of wood, there are selmers, del Arte and favinos that sound absolutely atrocious and there are others that sound incredible good, its really a matter from guitar to guitar and not of a name and certainly not a price tag (expensive doesn't mean good) The del Arte guitar on the youtube video had a very poor acoustic sound but with the build in Humbucker it has a real mean sound and in combination with robins playing it has become a winner guitar that he plays all the time, before it was a beautiful guitar to look at but not a players working tool... and do you really think the wood knows how the humbucker hole was made?? it where just a few atoms & molecules that had to be removed because they where in the way of the humbucker ( the pickup is a French Handmade Vigier humbucker, to give a viva la republic tone & the volume knob is to control the amounth of Bordeaux to suit the taste )

In case of an emergency you can always have the guitar modified by a Professional guitar luthier into a D-hole model (if that gives any consolation)

BE A GYPSY AND YOU WILL SOUND LIKE ONE


Back to top

Bob Holo

You seem like a fine player but you're talking through your backside.

Nonetheless, thanks for the videos.

scot

Guitarnica is correct in what he says - but in their own way, so are others. When I began going to Europe to learn about this music back in 1993, one of the first things I discovered was that guitar culture (like everything else) was different than what I was used to. There were a handful of collectors who were interested in N American guitars and had some of the reverent sensibility that many people on our continent have re quality guitars - the inability to separate the money spent from the object itself. I did not meet many european guitarists who had this attitude. On the contrary, on those early trips, I saw many Selmers and other vintage Selmer style guitars that had been roughly modified, had Stimers screwed to the top (one had been fixed with rivnuts!), oversprayed from a can, painted and so on. It was just a piece of wood, and some pieces of wood are better than others - just as Guitarnica says. That's how it was then, and if many guitarists across the pond have become aware of how much money their old boxes are worth, the old attitude is still the same for everyone else.

I like my nice guitars as much as anyone but I don't have any illusions about them either. They're just guitars, most of 'em are anyway. If I could trade my old Favino for a cheaper guitar that sounded a lot better, I'd do it in a second. I have not found that guitar, though. And in the end, what's more important - that we preserve and protect all guitars, even modest and ordinary guitars, or does the player have the freedom to modify as he wishes?

Bob Holo

scot wrote:

If I could trade my old Favino for a cheaper guitar that sounded a lot better, I'd do it in a second. I have not found that guitar, though.

... and I bet you won't. Crafting guitars is more than stamping out the parts and assembling them - but you know that.

scot wrote:

And in the end, what's more important - that we preserve and protect all guitars, even modest and ordinary guitars, or does the player have the freedom to modify as he wishes?

Absolutely - and certainly Robin Nolan has earned the right to do whatever he wants to his guitars because the music he creates will outlive any guitar. Moreover, Robin is a nice guy and his career progression demonstrates that he respects the art, encourages younger players. He adds a lot.

I'll tell you what. You just motivated me. I've been dealing with a deadwood D.A. now for a couple of years. I haven't been able to sell it because I don't feel good about its voice and I don't want anyone to buy it and say: "I got this from Bob." Life's too short and $2,600 (or whatever I paid for it - something in that ballpark) is not enough money to motivate me to risk disappointing someone by selling it to them. So - some time within the next year I'm going to re-top it. You think a drill is disruptive to a guitar top? Try a router I just visited Bruce Harvie (wood supplier extraordinare') and he set me up with some 30 year old tops that are stiffer than glass and light as balsa.

I have Redwood, Port Orford Cedar, Western Red Cedar & Sitka Spruce. Any suggestions on which of these woods you'd like me to use? I think I'm going to go completely "Django" on it. You know his guitar was missing the tail piece tone brace. I'm thinking of going in that direction and antiquing the finish. In brief - the whole point of this particular guitar was to be like Django's Selmer (it was released on the 50th anniversary of his death) and I've just started to think that it would be a really cool thing if it actually was. Toward that end, I'll probably also rip the fingerboard off - take the truss rod out - replace it with period-correct battens and a "real" thick EI Rosewood fingerboard and bridge... lacquer the inside... I'll make that dog bark.

So - if I do that and publish pictures do you think people will rip me a new one? (not that I fear the controversy... obviously...)

scot

When I was at Dupont's workshop, he had a stack of battered soundboards from Selmers that he'd retopped. A friend of mine in Florida made a terrific guitar when he retopped a cruddy old Takamine - now called the "Sladeomine". Retopping a guitar is just another repair to a craftsman who knows what he's doing- expensive and time consuming but still just a job. Building and repairing guitars is a craft like any other - it takes a period of time to learn the mechanical aspects of the craft, then a period of time to refine your skills and gain experience. But it's not like working the alchemical process or anything like that. It's a craft, and some are better at it than others. BTW, the reverse of those tops at Dupont were all varnished or finished with something, and they all had a pronounced arch - looked like shallow bowls from the inside.

I'm told that your guitars are good sounding and well-built boxes so I don't see why you'd hesitate for a moment to remove that old top and put on a new one. Bob, it's a guitar - if you think you can make it better and you have the craft technique to execute the work, do it.

Now what about the idea that a guy like Robin Nolan enjoys the right to modify a guitar in a way that the rest or most of the rest of us don't. You don't really believe this, do you? Should people who have certain skills and/or a degree of celebrity or lots of money have rights the rest of us don't have? Or am I reading this wrong?