Another Vibra Artist.

[Jagger]

I'm grateful to David Martin and his posting about the Vibra Artist from last year.


http://www.shadowmusic.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=732&hilit=vibra+artist&sid=0759c02d3c7558372270a6fe6cda6ef0

This enabled me to finally identify my old,and first electric,guitar after some years of trying to tie it down.



I've realised that this is the wrong bridge in this pic



This pic shows the various colours that this guitar has worn,one of them being bright green Hammerite.The red is original I think,then it was gold,then it was Haemmerite.That's the colour it was when I bought in about 1972,3,4.It was in a barn.



Which is probably why the neck has looked like this for some years.That and the truss rod snapping a few years ago during attempts to straighten the bendy thing out.



And you may have noticed one or three things missing there,like some Tri-Sonics and a birdsnest of multicore.Well,they're definitely missing.Having just turned the whole house upside down for a year with building work the scratchplate is not to be found easily.There are places I have still to look and where it can be hiding but a lot of stuff got jettisoned in a cavalier fashion and there is the possibility of me crying sometime soon.My poor old first proper guitar with the magical sounds .Obviously a lot of that was fret buzz but it was my prefered weapon on stage before it became unplayable.

And just when I felt like a bit of guitar mangling after a fifteen year break.I've got a Pignose waiting and ready.If I can find the scratchplate and pick ups then I think I might go for a restoration job 'cos before I lost it it was all there.

Right,interesting stuff or old guff? You tell me.

The "Burns of London" plate and the tremolo arm were given to me back in the eighties by a chap called Len Styles who had a large music shop in Lewisham.He was amazed when he saw the guitar and told me that he'd worked for Burns in 59/60 and he identified this guitar as having been built in 59 for the 60 season.So an early one then.He said that this was built in a basement flat in,I think,Penge or Peckham when they were operating on a shoestring.He pointed at the multicore tangle as an example of using what was to hand at the time (ie cheap or free).I had no reason to doubt his tales and he did have a big box of Burns bits and bobs which the plate and arm came from.He told me not to bother getting the neck straightened as "they all did that".He was amazed to see one still in one piece.Especially one he almost definitely had a hand in making.

The search goes on........

[Bill Bowley]

Any reason why I am getting a big 'You are not authorised to view this image' under a red no go sign whereI assume the images are in your post? Is this a nother part of the 'sign in' problem?

[Bluesnote]

And me

[noelford]

If you click on the link above the images, they miraculously appear!

[Jagger]

Not on my browser they don't.It's probably my fault,I do tend to break things.

The gallery they come from is here http://www.shadowmusic.co.uk/gallery/album.php?album_id=124&sid=0759c02d3c7558372270a6fe6cda6ef0

I've reposted the pics.All the urls had been changed in the post to the picture you all saw.Spooky.So I've hosted them myself to see if that works.Still not found the scratchplate.

[Bill Bowley]

Got them now!

[Bluesnote]

Must just have been a glitch at the time, they came up next time I came in

[RayL]

Hi Graham

The first thing to sort out is the date of your guitar, to establish whether it is an 'Artist' or a 'Vibra Artiste'. The Artist came first - it had no tremolo, the neck had an 'offset contour' (deepest under the 5th fret), it had a maple fretboard and open backed machine heads. I can't check the offset contour from your picture, but all the other feature of your guitar say ' Vibra Artiste'. This would make it much later than 'late 1959 for the 60 season' - more likely a late 60/61 model. The tremolo arm with its black plastic tip is a later Burns design altogether - the Vibra Artiste had an all metal design.

The basement that Len Styles mentioned was at 131 Queens Road, Buckhurst Hill, Essex. Have you read either The Burns Book by Paul Day or Pearls And Crazy Diamonds by Per Gjorde? Neither of them mention Len Styles as working for Burns in the early days. Jim Burns' first employee was Les Andrews.

Although hand-wired, the early Burns guitars weren't a 'multicore tangle'. The earth wiring, for example, was uncovered tinned copper wire run point-to-point.

If you want to rebuild your guitar (and please think about having it resprayed cherry with a blown-in black neck as it was originally), then Trisonic pickups may not be too hard to find. They crop up quite frequently on eBay and there are also modern equivalents produced. The scratchplate will be much harder, but here I may be able to help. I've got a scratch plate for a Vibra Artiste that I was planning to use for a project but I've got so may things on the go that I may sell it as I just don't have the time to use it.

Ray L

[Jagger]

Thanks Ray.

Definitely not an Artist then due to the covered machine heads.And no I've not read the Burns book but did see a snippet of it about the early years and that didn't mention Len Styles either.And then there's my memory.It was at least twenty years ago when I was in Len Styles shop and it's not necessary that I was talking to Len Styles himself I suppose.Whatever,ancient history (guff then ) .

Yep,the neck has an offset,or is assymetric.Not noticed it before but once I looked for it I found it.The tremolo arm was that freebie I mentioned earlier so I figured it was later.And this one has an obviously factory fitted tremolo, so that nails the lie.One of the machine heads is damaged and was when I bought the guitar.I can't have paid more than 15 squid for it way back then.The guitar had three tri-sonics with a five way selector switch which also rules out it being an Artist I think?

As to rebuilding it, there is the small matter of the corkscrew neck and it really is bad,and the lack of the scratchplate and electrics and truss rod.Although I remember the pots to be a bit noisy they were original and I wouldn't want to end up with Trigger's broom.I'll continue the search later in the week to see if I put the scratchplate somewhere really safe and take it from there I think.I'll let you know If I decide on a rebuild.I've got a mate who's a master luthier who might get the job of straightening it out.

In the meantime,to satisfy the fifteen year itch (haven't even touched a guitar for that long,probably in a rut or something) I think I'm going to try out one of those Gretsch Electromatics I've seen popping up lately.

Rock on.

[RayL]

Hi Graham

If it has the offset contour neck, that would make it early-ish. On the other hand, a five-way selector is definitely an oddity. Can you remember what it looked like? The standard black bulbous casing with big white tip on the lever? Or some other sort of switch?

These guitars are getting rarer as the Trisonics are being stripped off for sale separately, so if you could get it restored you would be keeping alive a little piece of history!

Ray