[The Marlin]

It's a not at all, new guitar day.

Ok, I've had this Corvette for a year, and finished upgrading it about a month ago. I've jibber jabbered about it for a while, so thought it was time to throw up a photo or two.

Here goes:

Marlin

[dgshooter]

Nice work. Bet she sounds great too!

[The Marlin]

I've nick named it 'The White Budgie'.

Upgrades:
Sperzel locking tuners, plus after-market smaller tuning pegs in black pearl.
Schaler strap locks
all new wiring
All new CTS pot and orange drop caps
Tone bleed
Custom wound hilotrons - wound to 4.2 (neck) and 4.5 (bridge) by Bareknuckle
Mousy brown fretboard dyed black using black leather dye (which also dyed the fret markers, coincidentally staining them to match the tuning pegs)
Wilkinson Roller bridge.
The I have a titanium compton ready to go on it, but will leave the Wilkinson in place until the next string change. Strings are DR Pure Blues 11's.

It's bright - very bright, and sounds like a cross between a Gretsch and a Tele. I adore this thing. I didn't expect it to match up to the G Love Corvette, but, I think I like it more - which is high praise indeed.

Hilotrons are superb pickups. Gretsch should put out a new Corvette with hotter hilo's.

All hail the white budgie.

edit: the bad news, removing my white coily cable from the guitar, I managed to rip out the jack socket. need to work out how to secure this. It seems to be a common problem with Corvettes. This is the third Corvette this has happened to. Ho hum.

Marlin

[drmilktruck]

Great job, looks cool and sounds cool.

[Skev]

Our dream guitar men ! Yes, you did it ! The hi lo at 4.2 must be wonderful !

[S. Rock]

nice job ! that was a great idea to use the HiLo's.

[Tony65x55]

Awesome guitar Marlin. I bet those HiLo's sing!

[Crooner]

Great job and great choices. Would love to hear some sound clips!

[The Marlin]

It does sound pretty damn awesome. I've spend a while tweaking the pole piece heights to try to balance it out.

It's still bright, but a combo of pedals tames it well, and results in a highly flexible killer tone.

The Joyo sweet baby compresses the bass very lightly, which tames it well - and an Atomic Brain really brings it to life. My BBE Boosta Grande is always on standby to force the amp a little harder. I have the Sweet Baby set to a clean with a little breakup if you really whack the strings. I then push my Fender valve amp (using an attenuator) so it's nearly at the natural break up point. So any combo of pick attack, Sweet Baby, Brain or Boost Grande results in some fab tones. Just little variances in playing style yield a great variety of clean or gain tones. It's a fantastic combination.

Without the Sweet Baby, it can be a little harsh on the bridge pick-up, but minor tweaks with volume and tone knobs also bring it back in line. There is nothing I don't like about this guitar.

it took me a long time to find a white one, I ended up importing this Corvette from Hiroshima (Japan). It's a radioactive, mutant Corvette.

Marlin

[Skev]

Your answer is quite important for me, same thing for mu conversation with dr milktruck. I ve just know Vette since one year and tricks are always good to take, particilarly when you speak about hilo output!! I m gone wait one or two month and send that to bare knuckle too, i m satisfied with my old vettes but a bit more output could be a good thing for single pu guitars like mine. So thanks

[Skev]

What of wiring have you choose? Gretsch typical wiring, gibson vintage type wiring ( still bright and loss of brightness when turning volume down) , tv jones ? I ve made a Mistake changing 500k pots for 250, and changing cap. I return to original features: 500 k everywhere and the old original cap. All that perfectly work, i ve just made a gibson type wiring to keep a progressive volume pot and keep all the brightness. Now, i know i won t make a ferrari with a mini motor so , know i know rewiring really open new doors , i will wait ( hardly!)

[fender62custom]

Looks awesome!! great work/mods!! congrats & enjoy!!!

[NickGretsch]

Ahhh...nice one s. signore Marlin

The white and black really looks classy. Am so pleased your happy with this guitar after all the things you've had done. Great result!

I too am a big fan of Bare Knuckle pickups, have a set of The Boss in my Tele.

And you now have a good reason to stay indoors instead of getting soaked through out in the garden

[cybermgk]

Nice

[Skev]

Hi marlin, i ve just mail bare knuckle for rewinding , they are ok and take me 50£ plus carriage.

[Skev]

Hi marlin, i ve just mail bare knuckle for rewinding one of my vintage hilo. They are ok and will take me 50£ plus carriage. They ask me about the resistance i want and other details . You did 4,2kohm that s it? After googling i ve seen it could hardly be more than that because of the place taken buy the wire on the coil?! So two questions: do i need to have more resistance than you did on that particular type of pu ( still because my guitars are one pu guitars)? What is the gauge of the wire on your pu?

[The Marlin]

Hi Skev,

I wanted the pickups to give a similar output to a Filtertron (specifically, TV Classics), just so I don't have to mess around with my amp setting if I swap guitars over. The standard hilo's are really low output.

The results are good, but you will find that bridge pickup bright with powerful bass. Pole piece ajustments wort most of this out If you're not bothered about getting exactly to 4.2, I'd go closer to 4 - just a bit hotter.

As for wiring, I got my luthier friend to get me some good quality wiring that was really well shielded. As it's a single coil, I wanted to mitigate noise as much as possible. We even shielded the pack of the pick guitar. Results, nice and quiet.

Bareknuckle are really reasonable for re-winding. I was charged a similar amount.

Cheers

Marlin

[Skev]

Ok so 4 is enough to get a good grain and enough output . I don t play metal, i play directly in the amp ( crancked or not ) the only pedals i i use are a memory toy (analogic delay) and the traditional tube screamer...More resistance should give it a bit more presence and verstatility ( maybe abit more medium frequencies?)

[The Marlin]

Anyone got any good input on how best to secure that output jack?

See photo 5. This has happened to three of the four Corvettes I've owned at some time or other (the G Love being the only exception).

Cheers

Marlin

[Tony65x55]

You drill a small hole in the side of the cup and put a set screw through it into the wood. Many of those cup plate jacks already have the hole drilled for it.