velorush

Agreed, but the level of effort required (and accomplished)to have pulled this off so successfully doesn't seem feasible. Until recently, these weren't expensive guitars: What would be the odds of finding a shell pink Proto and Special and swapping out the necks? Seeing it person would be helpful, but from the photos the paint fade seems extremely consistent body to neck.

Somebody cleaned out their parts drawer! All kinds of stuff going on there. The surround on the CC pickup is odd, too, being rounded rather than pointed (and given the bevel is consistent it appears it was made that way).

That's bizarre! I for one would absolutely love it were it not for the doubly-ambitious price.

I've been watching that one on Reverb: 1980 Hamer Special - Great Player - Ready For ANY Style! | Reverb Watching because the neck seemed oddly large for the vintage: Weight: 8lb 5oz | Nut: W 1.66 H .89 | 12th: W 1.98 H 0.90 Can't figure out if the finish is solid or translucent. I think I see some curly maple veneer, but it might just be the lighting.

Sorry, not trying to muddy the waters. I ran across that Stike-finished bass immediately after reading your question and made (obviously) incorrect assumptions about the paisley finish.

Watched this last night: Afterward I thought, 'cool amalgam of useful features from several models. I wonder...' Fender American Ultra Luxe Vintage '50s Telecaster Maple Fingerboard Butterscotch Blonde US25002406 | Reverb $3,000? Three THOUSAND Dollars? WHAT? For a Telecaster? The linked example on Reverb is nice - less than 7 lbs. and the neck is a bit larger than the "Modern C" ridiculousness I never voted to be the standard, but the market segment of $3,000 guitars has some pretty heady membership. Wow.

@Stike's the man: ETA: @cmatthes - 8th post down.

That and I'm geek enough to find soldering up my own harness to be entertaining. 🤔

I get similar emails from Kraft Music (WI) - "call for deals!" I don't understand the setup: am I supposed to call and ask for a list of random products that are on sale or am I supposed to call on the hope something I'm shopping for is on sale? Either case seems an incredibly inefficient means of conveying discount information. If it's such a good deal, why not list the discounts offered on a special web page and move on? Are they selling Gibson guitars, for example, which prohibits advertising anything below MSRP on new merchandise? Maybe that's it... FWIW: I have never 'called for a deal.'

Anything to keep you infinitely engaged, commercial after commercial, resulting dopamine dependency and deleterious long-term emotional effects be damned.

Seriously, after building my own Strat I have absolutely no interest other than perusing any "innovations" that can be incorporated into another partscaster.

@Saul Goodman, we called them the '70's and '80's. They were the best of times; they were the worst best of times... Seriously, "blue-eyed soul" was a fantastic pop sub-genre that was absolutely dominated by Hall & Oates, with G.E. Smith on guitar and T-Bone Wolk on bass. Tons of great tunes. * all of the foregoing intended as helpful information, but retracted entirely in the case the title of this thread was intended as sarcasm.

I rather like the Parker guitar, though I've never had my mitts on one. Given the shreddertastic neck dimensions, it probably wouldn't work for me, but I appreciate the aesthetic.

The BBB of B is an encyclopedia! I was unprepared for what a complete download it was, both Rush and just overall bass. "Beauty of the Burst" is another beautiful book filled with pictures but also loads of nerdy information about construction and details. I keep waiting for Bonamassa to get hooked up with an editor / publisher. He could produce a true Encyclopedia Britanica of guitar complete with pictures.

Another Boomer Boomer since the early 90's. They seem to last longer and break less frequently to me.

FTCFThem: Keith Richards performing with the a five or six year-older-than-the-article-subject Les Paul guitar Robert Knight Archive / Redferns via Getty Images

Ages ago @murkat pointed me to Circuit Specialists and specifically to their soldering stations. I bought one similar to this and it has served me well. They have a variety of different models, none of which break the bank. They also sell lots of tips and spare parts.

Dude you are killing what is left of the 80's me!

Say it has been stripped - what a perfect guitar to buy and send straight to @Stike! Possibilities are endless and absolutely without regret!

The George Benson video of "On Broadway" that Don Kirchner had on repeat blew my mind every time I watched it. It still kills (IMO). Just a great update / revision - another example where the cover > the original.

Was explaining to my coworker (born the year I graduated high school) who he was. She was a high school band member, so I thought there might be a chance she'd heard "Feels So Good," but alas, too young to have heard it. She was impressed an instrumental jazz song could actually chart (I played a bit of it from Spotify). Prior Chuck Mangione, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a flugelhorn.

Loved those guitars! I bought a month-old used Model 3A (HH) in '86 ('87 model IIRC - no pickguard) and traded it in for a new Model 3 (HSS) after a couple of months. A guy in a local cover band had a duplicate of the guitar you're selling - unobtainium to me at the time.

Love that finish!

Absolutely. There are a number of quasi-conspiritorial threads constantly running through my head at any moment interacting with anything created by entities with varied and often nefarious intent. That said, I have found ChatGPT to be useful in helping me aggregate information for evaluation (rather than trusting AI to evaluate for me).