Check out this unbelievable guitar collection – A ‘Must-See’ for all Mark Knopfler fans

With this blog post I want to feature a website that hosts one of the most astonishing guitar collections in the world: Guitar Motel – guitarmotel.net It is not only a collection with many great vintage guitars like Fenders or Gibsons but also with exactly those guitars that are ‘the ones’ for us Knopfler fans – like Van-Nuys era Schecters (I guess the biggest collection of these in the world), […]

Building a Schecter Dream-Machine Style Telecaster Copy

Finally, I finished the second Telecaster-style guitar with Dream Machine brass hardware. You might remember my first build report about a Dream Machine Telecaster clone. Even back then when I started that first project, I already got the body and neck to start a similar project with these but never found the time to complete it. The idea behind the project was to assemble an affordable guitar that looks great, […]

Comparing sound: Schecter Dream Machine vs. Fender Strat

With the following video I was trying to demonstrate the basic sound difference between a vintage Schecter Dream Machine and a ‘traditional’ Strat. The Dream Machine is from about 1980, it has a Koa body and a one-piece Pau Ferro neck. The three pickups in the brass pickguard are the tapped F500T’s. It has s a hardtail brass bridge. The Strat is a 1983 Japanese vintage Squier Stratocaster, unmodified. Of […]

Two ways to connect the string ground wire on a Strat

For better hum shielding, the strings on electric guitars are normally grounded, which means they are connected  internally to the ground of the guitar. For this purpose, usually a ground wire is connected somewhere to the guitar bridge, in the case of a Stratocaster with tremolo this is normally a wire from the case of the volume pot to the ‘claw’ that helds the tremolo springs. As the springs are […]

Kluson guitar tuners for the Schecter Dream Machines

I am an official Kluson dealer now, so you can get the correct Kluson guitar tuners for a Schecter Dream Machine replica now in the online shop of my site. During the Van Nuys era, Schecter used Kluson guitar tuners for their guitars ans basses. I have seen a lot of Schecters from this time with Schaller tuners but I guess that these were not factory-original. Remember that authorized Schecter […]

Guitars with Brazilian Rosewood – Exporting from the US into the EU – What is possible and what not

I was involved in a few discussions about the possibility of buying guitars with Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) from the US  – e.g. Fender Strats from the  early 60ies – on the Strat-Talk Forum. After talking with two officials from Germany’s authorities / customs I got some new information which I want to present with this blog post. In Short – Brazilian Rosewood (Dalbergia Nigra)Brazilian rosewood is the wood of […]

Explaining and demoing the tapped Walk of Life Telecaster Pickups

The following video explains the idea of a tapped pickup as they are typical for the vintage Schecter Dream Machines, and demos the  sound of the Walk of Life pickups – my replicas of the Schecter F520T / F521T pickups. These are the pickups that Mark Knopfler plays in his red Schecter Telecaster – the one used for Walk of Life, and also in the black Schecter Tele that he […]

Guitars with Brazilian Rosewood: Info Update

I already reported in two previous blog posts (here and here) about the difficult situation we are facing when buying or selling guitars with parts of Brazilian rosewood (e.g. the fingerboard on vintage Fender or Gibson guitars). Yesterday I was on Germany’s biggest vintage guitar show in Oldenburg. Last year the show was cancelled due to exactly this issue – the problems of displaying guitars with Brazilian rosewood in public. […]

Restoring a Schecter Dream Machine Electronics

This week I had the pleasure to work an a Schecter Dream Machine. It is a really lovely hard-tail Strat with gold hardware. I am not sure about the wood (none of the codes that normally identify these) but the neck might be Pau Ferro (“Bolivian rosewood”). I am rather lost with the body, maybe ash that is stained, or Shedua, walnut,… ?? Any help is welcome so use the […]

Abigail Ybarra winding pickups

I recently watched this video on youtube and felt to share it with all readers of my blog. It shows Abigail Ybarra winding a pickup in the Fender custom shop. In case you haven’t heard of her, she started to wind pickups at the Fender factory in 1956, and again does so at the Fender custom shop today. She is the mother of pickup winding so-to-say.   The youtube video […]