I bought a DeArmond X135!

Hey All,
I've been thinking of doing it for a long time, and finally did it : A DeArmond X135 came along at the right price, and I bought it.
It looks like this, only in pretty nice tobacco sunburst :


I get more and more paranoid about taking my vintage X175's on airplanes, and as a couple of years ago I got a minty pair of vintage Franz pickups off Ebay, I got to thinking I could turn one of those DeArmond guitars into my "travel X175".
The guitar has almost exactly the same dimensions as my '62 X175, same scale, and a nice neck angle/bridge height that'll work great with a Bigsby. It plays suprisingly well, and the fretwork is pretty nice for the price point. The nut needs a little work.

I'm putting the two Franz single coils on it, a nickle tune-o-matic, a Bigsby B-6, four CTS 500K pots and four bakelite stove knobs I still have, and a switchcraft three-way switch. I'll also make a nice 50's styled rounded pickguard for it when I have the patience.

I'll keep you all posted on this thread about my progress, in the meantime, here's a very grainy pic I took with my PC's webcam of me and the guitar with the original pickup, pickguard, and pots already stripped, and the new TOM saddle in place :

Great, now you can give me your "No. 2"! :wink:

Very cool, Walter. Look forward to progress reports.

BTW, have you looked at the Clam cases for air travel? I saw one the other day - it's like a brick ****house for a guitar, holds your HS case inside and looks totally proof against anything other than being run over by a heavy truck or speared by a forklift.

http://www.casextreme.com/madels_pages/acoustic.htm

Cheers,
John

John, those look sturdy indeed, but they're huge!!! I'll probably invest in a Calton case once I can, those are "baggage handler-proof" too, and not as big.

Calton cases (click!)

Clam v Calton

I agree, Walter, the Calton cases are beautiful and solid as rocks. I now a classical cellist who routinely ships her 17th century instrument by air - she used to buy an extra seat before she got the case.

The price reflects that, of course. If you do decide to get one, I might be able to help with a Canadian price - I'll check if anyone I know can get one factory direct and help with a bit of a discount.

John

Thanks John, that's very kind. A friend of mine who never takes his guitars on planes keeps a late 40's Gibson ES300 in a 17" Calton case that fits my Guild perfectly - I'm going to try and and talk him out of that one first.

DeArmond update : I drilled/reamed two extra control holes, and a hole in the cutaway for a switch, and glued two extra little braces under the humbucker route to support the Franz pickup's mounting tabs.
Starting on a wiring harness today or tomorrow. I'm taking it nice and slow, taking my time to double-check everything, I want to do this right. (even though I'm really itching to play the guitar in its finished, modified state!!)

Almost done!

Except for the Bigsby (I don't have it yet) and a pickguard, the DeArmond transformation is done!

Here's another grainy pic I took with my webcam. (don't have access to a proper digital camera)


I'll take better pictures once I can. As the bridge is taller, neck angle steeper on the DeArmond than on most Franz-era Guilds, I had to fabricate little spacers for the pickup covers, as the pickups sit a little higher than the covers allow. I used model-airplane white PVC sheet for this.

Also, I had to use a "deep thread nut" for the stock switchcraft switch, as the guitar's top is too thick for the standard nut to fit. My '62 X175 has that too btw.

Through my small apartment rig at apartment volume, it sounds VERY promising!!! A/B'd with my '62 X175, it sounds very similar, if not almost identical. These pickups sure have a lot of typical character.

I'm itching for the high volume/band test of course, as the true nature of this beast will only come out that way, but I have to say I have high hopes.

Very cool, Walter - a transformation indeed.

Cheers,
John

gigged it!

Well, I'm happy to report that it was a very worthwile experiment!

I just got back from playing the "sement blues" festival in Northern Norway ("Sjopsvikk"). It took two flights, a long car ride and a boat ride to get there from Brussels airport, so I took the DeArmond guitar. Right away, I was happy I did, because I couldn't take it on the plane with me - had to check it. (in a normal guitar case - wouldn't have felt too comfortable doing that with Guilds)

The guitar did get to Norway in one piece, performed admirably on both gigs, stayed in tune, and I was pretty comfortable playing it.

Those Franz pickups sure have a lot of character, because a lot of the tone I like from the vintage Guilds was there alright. The DeArmond guitar is a little treblier and somehow not as dynamic, and our soundguy said up front it definitely didn't have the Guild's low end, but I was happy. Perfect compromise, and exactly what I wanted - an "expendable" guitar for airplane trips that gives me some of the sound and feel of the guitars I'm used to.

There's a pic online of me with the DeArmond HERE

I still need to pot the pickups, put the Bigsby on it, and tweak the pickup and polepiece heights just a little, but all in all I'm a very happy camper.

walter, very, very cool indeed!!! you did an ace job. wish i could hear how it sounds, but from what you say, it must sound very cool. enjoy!! larry

Thanks Larry.

Got the Bigsby on it (Thanks Don!!), still working on a pickguard:

Wow, that is quite a project ! But I'm glad that I can still see those real Guilds when I go to a Seatsniffers gig here in Belgium...

By the way : good luck with the US tour, Walter, I think you guys are going to blow !

Thanks Caveman!

Finished putting a homemade pickguard on the DeArmond guitar yesterday, here's the finished guitar :

That looks great Walter!

A completely cool transformation. Beautifully done.

Cheers,
John Kidder

BTW, I think my daugher was working at that Festival - she's just finished at the street Festival in Haugesund in southern Norway, then was going to go north for one before returning to Olso.

What brand tune-o-matic did you use? The one I used buzzes and makes the guitar sound distorted acoustically. I used a Stew-Mac ABR-1.

It still buzzed even after I took off the retaining wire. I tried putting the wood bridge back on to make sure it wasn't anything else I changed and the buzz went away and it sounded like I took a blanket off the guitar. Now I will admit I did a lousy job slotting the saddles on the ABR, but before I replace the saddles, I'm looking for input on a possible better bridge.

I used one of the other TOM's that Stew-Mac sell - I got the archtop TOM with the wooden base (used the DeArmond's base though). It looks just like an ABR-1, but it's essentially a "mini-Nashville" in that it has individual retainer clips (that don't buzz) per saddle, but the ABR's narrower bridge body. It's a GOTOH bridge, and I keep wondering why they're not more popular, they're my favorite TOM in any case.

Coating an ABR's wire with clear nail-polish has worked for me though, you may need a couple of coats before it stops buzzing.

Making any progress customising your DeArmond guitar otherwise?

I mounted the P-90's, although I think I'm going to dowel the holes for the bridge pup so I can move it over a 1/16" so it better aligns with the strings. I should have listened to you about the harness because the pots are crap and really need to be replaced. I haven't started working on guard yet.

Putting a new harness in one of these is easier than in most archtops : the f-holes are actually large enough to pull a CTS pot through, so you don't need to do it through the pickup cavities.

You will have to ream out the control holes a little for CTS pots, as the original metric sizes are slightly smaller.

After finally replacing the crappy DeArmond Grover copy tuners with (very nice) Schaller kluson-alikes, my DeArmond guitar is now completely done :

[img:383:802]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/WalterBroes/DeArmondI.jpg[/img]

And here's a pic of it with its older brothers (sisters?)

[img:866:667]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/WalterBroes/Sunburstgoodness.jpg[/img]