1967 Danelectro-made Silvertone 1452 "Hornet" Electric Guitar

Update 2018: I finished work on this guitar in early October 2017 and I've been using it at every show since. It's a good one. Because I've changed a few things on it since then, I've updated this post with new pictures, a video clip (played through a Vox MV50 Clean amp), and rewritten the entire description.

I've long been a huge fan of vintage Danelectro products, but I fell in love with this particular offset model via repairs on one owned by a friend of mine. That guitar ticked a number of boxes off on features that I like -- 24 3/4" to 25" scale, offset body, and righteous old lipstick pickups with a hot enough signal to get a bit grungy. This one is much the same but took a little more tweaking to get it to where I wanted it.

When it came to me, it was all-original save that the frets had been swapped to jumbo frets. The final level/dress job hadn't been done, but I was happy to have new frets on it of the general size and shape I prefer. My work on it ultimately included that level/dress job, a new wiring harness install (everything shielded and a 3-way switch and master volume/tone in 500k pots -- the lower 2 knobs are there just for original looks and not hooked-up), and sanding-down of the white veneer of the masonite pickguard to its raw masonite under-layer. I also removed the pickup surround rings as they seemed to brighten-up the sound a little, removed the original whammy system and bolted/blocked the bridge in place, compensated the saddle, and set it up to play spot-on with 49w-11 strings. It's rockin'!

Specs are: 25" scale, 1 3/4" nut width, 1 7/16" nut string spacing and 2" bridge spacing, approximately 13" lower bout and 11" upper bout and 1 1/4" depth. Action is on-the-dot at hair-over 1/16" EA and 1/16" DGBE at the 12th fret. It weighs 6lbs 11oz overall.

I compensated and radiused the original rosewood bridge  saddle properly so it plays in tune up the neck. There's a set-screw ("micro-tilt") neck angle adjustment gizmo near the neckplate for easy action changes and the bridge has two adjustment screws on its front edge for additional action/back-angle adjustments. I have it currently set at a compromise between best pickup tone and good string height over the body. The neck is straight and has a C/D, medium-heft profile to its rear. It's fast but the wider nut gives it a retro, roomy feel.

The body seems to be made of maple, but failing that it may be poplar. The neck is poplar and both the 12"-radius fretboard and bridge saddle are Brazilian rosewood.

The Silvertone logo, original aluminum nut, and "skate key" tuners are still in great shape. The tuners hold surprisingly-well -- I've been playing this for 2-hour shows where I chop on the strings a lot and only have to tune when I begin unless, of course, I bump them like a dummy!

The bare, brown, masonite pickguard looks rad in person. I did put a layer of finish on it, but you can see the areas where my fingers and picking has rubbed-it-up. Just extra love!

Only the top two knobs function -- master volume and master tone. The bottom two have the original pots but they're disconnected. I like simplicity and as small a circuit as possible. The 3-way switch runs neck/out-of-phase both/bridge. This is because it's an on/on/on switch rather than on/off/on switch like in the original wiring layout -- which would've put the two pickups in series. The problem with the original harness is that it was crudded-out and had extra caps and whatnot between the pickups and their controls. It was sucking tone like crazy.

Inside the control cavity, the whole instrument is shielded, too.

While not pictured, this guitar does come with a good-quality, new gigbag.