1960s Kay Swingmaster Hollowbody Electric Guitar
An acousti-centric, vintage-collecting friend of mine wants to try-out jazzy electric guitar. He was asking me about newer Ibanez and Gretsch models and finally went out and tried them. I'd told him that he should just find an old guitar and be done with it because he wouldn't be happy with them. Well, I was right! Then this beat old Kaybox showed-up in the mail...
Well, it's quite cool, I have to admit. This late-'50s, early-'60s era is when Kay actually built the vast majority of their necks with a comfortable profile and working truss rods, so they can usually shape-up to be good players if you want to sweat the work on them.
This one needed a fret level/dress (and a pretty heavy-handed finagling of the frets at the joint/extension area, as the neck had humped), some seam repairs, and a good setup to get going, but despite its absurdly-long-scale at 25 3/4" and its wearing Pyramid flats in gauges 52w-12, the neck is straight and it plays like a champ.
On this guitar, tone is all about the neck pickup and maybe the middle pickup. In those positions this thing sounds delicious. It's silky and old-fashioned and the adjustable poles on the pickups let string-to-string balance be perfect. It's pretty much exactly what he was looking for -- a vintage, clean jazz tone with just enough zip to keep it interesting. It's like having a set of mellow/less aggressive P90s on it.
These Kays have a propensity for the bridge pickup to be weak or underwound for its application. I'm thinking that this is so that when all three are blended (or the bridge just used on its own for an "acoustic-ish" chord-banging mode), it has a certain" sound."
Well, it's quite cool, I have to admit. This late-'50s, early-'60s era is when Kay actually built the vast majority of their necks with a comfortable profile and working truss rods, so they can usually shape-up to be good players if you want to sweat the work on them.
This one needed a fret level/dress (and a pretty heavy-handed finagling of the frets at the joint/extension area, as the neck had humped), some seam repairs, and a good setup to get going, but despite its absurdly-long-scale at 25 3/4" and its wearing Pyramid flats in gauges 52w-12, the neck is straight and it plays like a champ.
On this guitar, tone is all about the neck pickup and maybe the middle pickup. In those positions this thing sounds delicious. It's silky and old-fashioned and the adjustable poles on the pickups let string-to-string balance be perfect. It's pretty much exactly what he was looking for -- a vintage, clean jazz tone with just enough zip to keep it interesting. It's like having a set of mellow/less aggressive P90s on it.
These Kays have a propensity for the bridge pickup to be weak or underwound for its application. I'm thinking that this is so that when all three are blended (or the bridge just used on its own for an "acoustic-ish" chord-banging mode), it has a certain" sound."
The guitar is all-original save, perhaps, the tuners at the headstock. The body has collapsed a bit in the middle (like most Kay hollowbodies with F-holes), but the huge adjustment height range of the pickups meant that was a non-issue as far as setup/balancing goes.
The old Kay bridge-topper/saddle got a fresh recompensation/recut to the top to suit the 4-wound, 2-plain stringing.
There's copious amounts of sort-of grungy "repairs" to seams on the body, but at least everything appears to be pat for now. It's stable in service.
Comments
I find if the neck is st slightly further into the neck pocket, for a better angle, you can get the lead pickup up closer to the strings. And hence better & more balanced out put with the others.
Really cool underrated guitars, with great build quality, the tone of mine acoustically is amazing. And those Kay Kleenex pickups are great, like an old P-90.
All the best from Melbourne Australia, cheers Pete