1966 Starfire III Review

onerailunder

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Man, great review. Your aluminum is markedly nicer than the stuff on my '64. My tuners had already been replaced with Grover Butterbeans, but I see they have different screw patterns than yours. I concur, a thin neck, light weight guitar with a jangly humbucker is just all kinds of fun!!
 

Guildedagain

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Awesome review. Thx for taking the time.

Why does it glow a sickening green? I was looking at my mondo bizarro F30 with my UV light at night, and it does glows such a sickening green, what isn't purple anyway. Ever try that on NyQuil? I think it's got some possibilities...

Tape under the bridge makes for a great but invisible mute ;-) Just be glad there was tape under there. I've several beautiful vintage archtops like this with insane gouging of the top from people moving the bridge around trying to intonate, the bridge is usually totally in the wrong place but the damage is done. I saw one just recently on eBay where the twin gouges were beyond description, went from under the strings to 6" over and up towards the neck on the bass side of the body.

Sounds like those tuners could benefit from a "thrust" washer, something never seen in tuners.

Probably a great candidate for a set of vintage Grovers. New ones are made in China, don't look of feel the same. Grovers from this era are "Pat. Pend." on the domed back covers, and they are quite sought after by the Flametop guys because they were the tuners Page, Clapton and others put on their guitars at the time.


But, you have to enlarge the holes to 10mm/3/8" and not with a drill bit. Use a reamer, slowly, from the bottom, from the top, check, ream, check, ream.

And Grovers are heavy, adding weight to the guitar but most importantly changing the balance for more neck dive.

With this odd diagonal pattern, it's best to look for tuners that would hide some holes but good luck.

When you're done prepping the neck for Grovers, or whatever, reach into that special drawer full of toothpicks (guitar tech's best friend ;-) find some round ones, trim em down a little until they fit snug, get a tiny bit of glue into the holes, push your mini dowels in, trim, let dry, and then apply litte drops of NCL with a touch of red alanine dye, they become very invisible, but more importantly the wood is sealed. Extra finicking courtesy of Dan Erlewine, I think he's got a videos on sealing/hiding hole.
 

GAD

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Lacquer fluoresces under UV light. Not sure why.
 

GGJaguar

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GAD, when you compare the '66 SF-III to the NS SF-III, I'd be interested to know the difference in amount of arch in the tops between the two. I'm beginning to think the NS series archtops have very little arch compared to the originals.
 
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