Dean Czech Korina Z. Stop laughing...despite the unrepentant rape of Dime's name, they actually made/still make top shelf stuff.
The burst is GLORIOUSLY hideous, in person, but fear not, this is the only burst Czech Z to see the light of day. After a few tweaks and a little bit of adjustment, it plays and sounds great. The black mung on the frets resisted like a housecat in a bath, but they did come clean. The stock, locally-built (local to Czechoslovakia lol)pickups are surprisingly good for 14-15k winds with oversized poles, brass baseplates, and ceramic magnets. I like these things but I had some leftover Detonator poles laying around, so I tossed them in for ****s and giggles after I potted them. I figured a little more focus on the bridge/neck coils might be beneficial. Since they're not position-specific, I ended up dropping the neck way down to compensate for the vibration. There are lower wound neck pups out there but this didn't come that way.
For those of you who don't know/remember, the Czech builds are fantastic. They were a fairly short run over just a few years, so if you pick one up, it really is a rarity. The archtops had THICK figured maple caps over 2pc real mahogany backs and the Korinas were top-quality white limba. All had ebony boards, as far as I know, and full Schaller hardware.
The factory wiring is super clean, but...
Ever notice there are some guitars where the tone stays true when you roll off the volume and there are others that lose high end? You can do the treble bleed mod with a cap and resistor per volume pot OR the old 50s Gibson wiring. Here's factory:
Here's what you need to do:
And here's what it looks like, now. I probably should have insulated the cap leads but I don't figure it's exactly flopping around:
The burst is GLORIOUSLY hideous, in person, but fear not, this is the only burst Czech Z to see the light of day. After a few tweaks and a little bit of adjustment, it plays and sounds great. The black mung on the frets resisted like a housecat in a bath, but they did come clean. The stock, locally-built (local to Czechoslovakia lol)pickups are surprisingly good for 14-15k winds with oversized poles, brass baseplates, and ceramic magnets. I like these things but I had some leftover Detonator poles laying around, so I tossed them in for ****s and giggles after I potted them. I figured a little more focus on the bridge/neck coils might be beneficial. Since they're not position-specific, I ended up dropping the neck way down to compensate for the vibration. There are lower wound neck pups out there but this didn't come that way.
For those of you who don't know/remember, the Czech builds are fantastic. They were a fairly short run over just a few years, so if you pick one up, it really is a rarity. The archtops had THICK figured maple caps over 2pc real mahogany backs and the Korinas were top-quality white limba. All had ebony boards, as far as I know, and full Schaller hardware.
The factory wiring is super clean, but...
Ever notice there are some guitars where the tone stays true when you roll off the volume and there are others that lose high end? You can do the treble bleed mod with a cap and resistor per volume pot OR the old 50s Gibson wiring. Here's factory:
Here's what you need to do:
And here's what it looks like, now. I probably should have insulated the cap leads but I don't figure it's exactly flopping around:
Last edited:
