First Act Garage Master Guitar

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Lilly's Tacos, Santa Barbara, CA

Since my children have been old enough, I've had them go to Zoo Camp at the Santa Barbara Zoo. It's a great program and I highly recommend it.

While the kids were at Zoo Camp, I'd hang out in Santa Barbara. A few years ago, a couple of blocks off State Street, I found Lilly's Tacos. Located on Chapala right by the freeway, it's one of those places that serve only one thing and do a good job of it. No quesadillas, no burritos, no chips-just tacos.

$1.65 a taco, with grilled onion on the side, they are good. I usually have a couple of asada, a lengua and a cabeza, with an ojo if I'm feeling brave, all washed down with a Mexican Coke. Santa Barbara can be an expensive-though tasty-place to eat. Lilly's Tacos is perfect when I'm coming in for a quick bite.

Always a line that moves fast.

More on the Crown Guitar

More searching on the internet, and I found Heritage Auctions, which sold this guitar for $248 yesterday, June 30, 2011. It looked exactly the same as mine, even mentioning some difficulty with the electronics.

They had it listed as made by Teisco, which I thought as well. I guess the person who won that didn't see the Craig's List offering...And you might be able to talk me out of mine if the offer were good.

The Sound of the Crown

This is the the sound of the Crown played through an old Crate practice amp with a bit of reverb. It has an interesting but not exceptional tone. I'm not a great player, so all I'm doing is playing a D-A-G progression. It's not a great fretboard, but it does play.

I got a response from the Craig's list guy who said he still has the guitar if you want to buy it. He says he got it from a friend, and doesn't know where it came from.

I'm still trying to gather information.

(July 7, 2014, Rick's Note-One of the cool things about blogging is that I can go through and fix errors-kind of like a revision that doesn't have to wait to be published.

Anyway, I forgot to put a title on this, so finally, here is the title. The Crown posts seem to be the most popular).

More on the Crown Professional Guitar

So far, I've concluded that Crown Guitars were made in Japan during the 1960's. Apparently, Crown made acoustic guitars as well, and there are a few examples of a violin bass guitar.

Doing another search as I write this, I found this exact guitar listed on Craig's list. The picture is exactly the same! I was shocked, and if anyone is interested, it could still well be for sale. I emailed the seller just a moment ago, and I hope I get a response: sale-kqj8u-2443510357@craigslist.org

Then doing some more research, I found another at Fearless Guitars in Portland, OR, being worked on by the shop's owner: http://www.custom-electric-bass-guitars.com/fungallery.html

I shot them an email as well.

The tremelo bar, bridge, headstock and coloring, as well as the 4 pick-up configuration, look similar to some Teisco and Kawai guitars of the era, though it might just be a Japanese thing.

I'll post if anything else comes up. Someone somewhere must remember buying one of these things new and where they got it.

Crown Professional Guitar Part II

Friday morning I finished putting the tuning machines on the headstock. If you look closely, you'll notice that I had a difficult time keeping them all straight, but I did the best that I could. I took one string that I had recently removed, put it on one tuning machine, plugged it in and checked to see if the pickup were working.

The two closest to the neck were still troublesome, so I took the pickguard back off to have another look. I fiddled with the buttons a bit, and then noticed that I'd disconnected the ground from the jack to the volume pot. I would have to solder the ground.

In high school, I took an Electronics class. Soldering was part of our grade, and I wasn't very good at it. My soldering tends to be blobby. I didn't want to do any soldering on this guitar-that's why the Encore guitar is currently unplayable. But I had to do it to get this guitar working again. It came out blobby, but I got it done.

I have to wiggle the two pickup switches closest to the neck. Those two work in tandem, so though the buttons allow them to be selected separately, they seem to be happiest when on or off together. I decided to leave well enough along, and screwed the pickguard back on the guitar.

I found some Murphy Oil, which I used on the fret board, hoping that might keep the mold away, and polished up the guitar. This was all in the morning. I went to play with the kids for a while, letting the oil soak into the board, which seemed to help.

Then it was time to string it up. (In the picture, you can see my old Regal Parlor guitar that I bought for $50 in some antique shop 15 years ago. It actually has a nice tone, and might be the subject of another post some day). The strings went on well, and I tuned it up with my electronic tuner. There's a slight fret buzz on the low E, first fret. I set the action with the bridge just a bit high, which helps. Then I played it a bit. Everything seemed to work as it should, considering this was the first time I changed the strings in probably 20 years.

I tried to load some sound up, but couldn't, so that might be another post. It sounds okay, and the fret board is a bit rough. Then, I tried open tuning and used a baby jar I had in the garage, and that sounded pretty nice. I might have a half-way decent slide guitar. Now all I have to do is learn how to play slide!

Crown Professional Guitar

When I was little, I wanted to play drums. My parents were against that idea, and offered guitar lessons instead. I took lessons for about a year when I was 9 or so, using the "FAME" guitar method, which was all done with a record and some sort of slide projector at a music school in South Gate, CA (the same one, I think, that Weird Al Yankovic learned accordion in). I learned some basic chords, and got a Japanese built acoustic guitar that had an electric pick-up built in-maybe the subject of another post someday.

10 years later, I still wanted to play guitar, and thought that I would buy an electric. My girlfriend at the time had a brother who's friend had an uncle that was willing to sell me the guitar in the picture for $100, a "Crown Professional" electric guitar. It was 1982, and I think I overpaid considerably, but I didn't know any better. It was an electric guitar! I used the amp that came with the aforementioned FAME guitar, plugged in and rocked out, soon taking over the world of music, and selling 50 million albums worldwide.

Or not.

What happened was that I didn't know enough to know how to play, and being very inpatient, I didn't want to practice. So, I stuck it back in the case. I'd pull it out every now and then, try to play, and put it back in the case. The action was a bit high, and I could never get it to stay in tune. Then, I didn't have an amp, then I broke the high E tuning machine, etc., etc., etc.

In the meantime, I went to college and had friends that showed me a little bit, briefly had an old Danelectro, gave that back to it's original owner who then gave me a Japanese Encore (which will be another post), then bought a Japanese Fender Stratocaster (in about '87), which had fine tuners up a the headstock that I could never keep in tune.

Finally, I got serious. I bought an Epiphone PR 5 E, (in 1995) which I really like. Then traded in the Japanese Strat for a Epiphone Sheriton II, another great guitar. I decided I wanted a 12 string, so I bought a Mitchell from Guitar Center, which was a great value for the money. I took some lessons, and bought a Baby Taylor. I went from having no playable guitars to having 4 in a two year span, all different and all kind of fun.

Around that time, I pulled the Crown out of the case, and figured that I could maybe fix it with the right parts. I bought tuning machines and tried to install them. The pegs didn't fit the hole, so back into the case the Crown Professional went. I moved, got married had kids and other than serenading them in the bathtub, didn't play much for about a 10 year gap.

Then about six months ago, my father-in-law started playing, borrowing my Sheriton II since I was taking classes and didn't have a chance to play. He liked it, and bought an Epiphone Casino, and I had to practice to start playing with him. When he had my Sheriton, he got it professionally set up, and when I got it back, it sounded great, making me sound better. I started to practice more, and then I got to thinking about the guitars I had in the garage, an old Regal parlor guitar, the Encore, The Fame

and the Crown.

I started to take apart the Encore, and got stuck on the electronics last week. So rather than finish with one guitar, I decided to try to fix the Crown.

Wednesday, I took it out of the case. There was mold on the fret board, which I cleaned off with some Lysol wipes.

I plugged it in, and all of the pickups appeared to work, and didn't sound too bad. I took the strings off, unscrewed aluminum pick guard, and found that I had a solid body electric guitar. I've had it for almost 30 years, and it was probably another 10 or 15 years old when I bought it, so I'd say it was from the late 60's-early 70's. I don't know enough about wood to know what kind it is, but it's definitely solid. The electronics looked okay, too.

I found some Armor All wipes that I use for my car, and wiped down the guitar real good.

The tuning machines still didn't fit, and I need to do some other things. I put the guitar away while I thought about possible answers.

Thursday, I figured out the solution. I'd drill bigger holes, and push the new tuning machines through them. The only problem was I didn't have a bit large enough to make the 1/2 inch hole necessary.

I tried a wood drill bit, but that still didn't make a hole large enough. Then I realized that the hole didn't have to go all the way through, it just had to go enough to get the bottom part of the machine about half way through the head stock. I found my counter-sink bit, and used that.

That worked. The headstock is still pretty thick, though, so it took some doing, and I got the machine for the high E in. Then it was time to take out the other machines. I wanted to save them, because I'd like to take a shot at a shoebox guitar before the summer is out. There were five more machines, each held by two tiny screws.

Somehow I managed to strip every other screw that I tried to take out, making me very happy about the set of vice grips I bought at Lowes a few months ago. I'd squeeze the screw and turn it out. It took a while, but I got them all. Then I drilled with the counter-sink bit and put in two small pilot holes to keep the new tuning machines in place.

I have four in now. Tomorrow, the other two.

If anyone happens to own a Crown Professional guitar, please send me any information you might have. I found some stuff here on the net, and I'll try to post a link when I'm done.

Officer Dummy, Pacific Coast Highway

It's been over a year since I've posted anything, and it doesn't appear as though anything I've posted has been read. No matter.

The picture is of the CHP mannequin that hangs out on PCH (interesting that it uses the same letters). On this day he was right by Pepperdine, though he frequently gets moved up and down the coast. The idea is people automatically slow down when they see a cop car, and they have the extra cars anyway, so why not put them to good use.

My camera couldn't take a good picture of him inside the car. The reflection would bounce back at me, but up close, you'll notice he has no arms or lower half of his body. He does have a shirt with a pen in the pocket, cop sunglasses and a ballcap on. The inside of the care has no electronics, and I suspect the car has no engine.