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Up for sale is a G&L Skyhawk!
It is a pretty uncommon early 80's G&L and one of the first designs Leo Fender created after he sold the Fender company. He took the original Fender strat design and tried to tweak the looks on it. It never caught on and people wanted a more traditional strat so it got canned for the series now known as the Legacy. This guitar, like the famous S-500, has a mahogany body (as Sprinter pointed out, other woods were available at the time) and a maple neck. This guitar was finished naturally and the only Skyhawks I’ve seen around on eBay have black bodies. Pictures of this beast can be found here: http://photobucket.com/albums/v298/t...20L%20Skyhawk/
I’m not going to lie; this guitar is beat up. It has nicks all over the body. This would make a great “beater” strat. The important stuff is that there are no nicks on the back of the neck so playing is smooth. I had the store that originally sold it to me, Cintioli Music, look it over and give it a good setup. They took out fret buzz that it originally suffered from. The body suffers from some weather checking, dings and scratches, but it is still structurally sound. The grain on the wood is nice and straight. I asked about the frets from Cintioli Music where I purchased it from and they said that there is still life on them and I have not noticed any playing problems with them. This guitar is from the 80s and whoever owned it before me played the heck out of it. The neck is straight as an arrow and it has the 3 screw bolt on construction unique to early G&Ls.
What has been done to it? The bridge single coil didn’t fit my taste or style of music, so I routed it for a humbucker and put in a Genesis sounds “Mr. Browney”.
This pickup does the whole EVH thing perfectly (the reviews speak for themselves) and that was an inspiration for routing it. The body was sloppily routed for two regular single coils and a humbucker. The pickguard covers the routing pretty well. The neck and middle single coils are stock G&Ls. I had WCR “SR” singles in there before and strangely enough, the stock ones sound better with the unique woods this strat has. The electronics were old and noisy, so a Fender 5-way switch, some CTS pots and a Torres Engineering blend pot did wonders. This gives some new, unique and useful tones on tap.
Don’t like the looks of it? Check out http://www.pickguards.us/pgordinst.htm. Chandler builds pickguards for G&L and a quick order for a S-S-S one will cover up any work done to the guitar cosmetically. ***I WILL include the original bridge single coil to return it to stock specs as well***. I took off the knob for the tone control because it got in the way for me, but it will be included.
So Chris, what’s actually good about this guitar? It’s a vintage G&L that isn’t produced anymore. The humbucker in the bridge makes it much more versatile and gain freaks will love how articulate and aggressive it is. It plays well (thanks to Cintioli music really working to iron out the few issues it had previously) and sounds fantastic. Here is a clip of it through my SF Vibrolux Reverb (nothing fancy at all). I put it through its paces, starting out with the neck with overdrive, to neck/middle overdriven, to middle/neck clean to middle single coil jangle at the end. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/3/thechrismusic.htm It's not the best playing in the world, I basically noodled with some dorian stuff, but it gets the general tone down.
This isn’t a collector’s guitar, especially in the condition it’s in, but it would make a great gigging guitar. It comes with the original Fender gig bag I bought it with. I’ve brought this around to different places and it’s quite a conversation piece.
It is a pretty uncommon early 80's G&L and one of the first designs Leo Fender created after he sold the Fender company. He took the original Fender strat design and tried to tweak the looks on it. It never caught on and people wanted a more traditional strat so it got canned for the series now known as the Legacy. This guitar, like the famous S-500, has a mahogany body (as Sprinter pointed out, other woods were available at the time) and a maple neck. This guitar was finished naturally and the only Skyhawks I’ve seen around on eBay have black bodies. Pictures of this beast can be found here: http://photobucket.com/albums/v298/t...20L%20Skyhawk/
I’m not going to lie; this guitar is beat up. It has nicks all over the body. This would make a great “beater” strat. The important stuff is that there are no nicks on the back of the neck so playing is smooth. I had the store that originally sold it to me, Cintioli Music, look it over and give it a good setup. They took out fret buzz that it originally suffered from. The body suffers from some weather checking, dings and scratches, but it is still structurally sound. The grain on the wood is nice and straight. I asked about the frets from Cintioli Music where I purchased it from and they said that there is still life on them and I have not noticed any playing problems with them. This guitar is from the 80s and whoever owned it before me played the heck out of it. The neck is straight as an arrow and it has the 3 screw bolt on construction unique to early G&Ls.
What has been done to it? The bridge single coil didn’t fit my taste or style of music, so I routed it for a humbucker and put in a Genesis sounds “Mr. Browney”.
This pickup does the whole EVH thing perfectly (the reviews speak for themselves) and that was an inspiration for routing it. The body was sloppily routed for two regular single coils and a humbucker. The pickguard covers the routing pretty well. The neck and middle single coils are stock G&Ls. I had WCR “SR” singles in there before and strangely enough, the stock ones sound better with the unique woods this strat has. The electronics were old and noisy, so a Fender 5-way switch, some CTS pots and a Torres Engineering blend pot did wonders. This gives some new, unique and useful tones on tap.
Don’t like the looks of it? Check out http://www.pickguards.us/pgordinst.htm. Chandler builds pickguards for G&L and a quick order for a S-S-S one will cover up any work done to the guitar cosmetically. ***I WILL include the original bridge single coil to return it to stock specs as well***. I took off the knob for the tone control because it got in the way for me, but it will be included.
So Chris, what’s actually good about this guitar? It’s a vintage G&L that isn’t produced anymore. The humbucker in the bridge makes it much more versatile and gain freaks will love how articulate and aggressive it is. It plays well (thanks to Cintioli music really working to iron out the few issues it had previously) and sounds fantastic. Here is a clip of it through my SF Vibrolux Reverb (nothing fancy at all). I put it through its paces, starting out with the neck with overdrive, to neck/middle overdriven, to middle/neck clean to middle single coil jangle at the end. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/3/thechrismusic.htm It's not the best playing in the world, I basically noodled with some dorian stuff, but it gets the general tone down.
This isn’t a collector’s guitar, especially in the condition it’s in, but it would make a great gigging guitar. It comes with the original Fender gig bag I bought it with. I’ve brought this around to different places and it’s quite a conversation piece.
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