1960s Egmond Typhoon 3V Modded Electric Guitar

This is a perfect surf-tastic, garage-rock plank. Well, not quite a plank as it's a semihollow guitar in the Danelectro fashion -- a thin ply top and back glued to routed-out blocking in the middle and with a pine centerblock under the pickups and bridge. And it's covered in vinyl. And it has an arm bevel on the lower bout. And its pickups sizzle and chomp.

And oh, man has this guitar morphed over time. I worked on it back in January and left its wiring and pickups "as-is" at the time, but had done a board level/reshape and refret with jumbos on it. It was really a pretty darn fine guitar just at that, but I knew it could be better.

Since then I've fixed its broken whammy by cobbling-together the original unit with own-make parts and some vintage Fender parts. It's now working -- with action similar to a gentle Jazzmaster whammy but only working in the down position with light-gauge strings. You get a little up-bend with heavier gauges on it, though. The arm is an older Jazzmaster arm with new black grip.

I also "fixed" its originally-wonky wiring by yanking the extraneous third pickup, removing its quirky rotary selector switch, and rewiring it (with a shielded harness) as a two-pickup guitar with simple volume, tone, and 3-way selector switch. It got a new Switchcraft jack and two vintage bakelite chickenhead knobs as well. There are a few small holes in the pickguard from where the original third pickup sat, but that means there's room for your pick and picking hand to do its thing, now.

And the sound? Yes, it sounds about a million times better in this configuration. While the pickups go out-of-phase in the middle (and no, I tried every configuration I could with the various pickups but to maintain proper ground on the pickup covers it had to be this way), all three positions are very useful. The neck is raunchy and gutsy with a good lower-mids aggressive sound -- and will drive your amp nicely. The bridge sounds like a somewhat-hot Jaguar pickup and has a cool, almost glassy, twangy snarl to it.

The middle position is surprisingly useful for being out-of-phase -- it drops the volume a little and if you strum acoustic-guitar-style in this position, you get a really "surfy" rhythm guitar sound. I love it -- the chords sound smooth and jangly and cut just right for backing work in a '60s way in a recorded mix.

As for playability: it's got it -- a short scale, medium-D-shape neck, 12" board radius, and big, fresh frets. The neck is good to go and quite stable and the guitar itself has been stable for the last 6 months. I've only had to tweak its rod when going up/down in string gauges. I've tried 10s through 12s on it and the neck likes them all. Currently it's got 10s.

Repairs included: a board level/plane, refret with pyramid-shaped jumbo stock, modification and replacement of the wiring harness (500k Alpha pots, nice 22 cap, Switchcraft jack, good 3-way), repair and modification of the whammy (far, far better than the original design which just warped in use), replacement '50s bakelite chickenhead knobs, replacement Gotoh aged/relic'd Kluson-style tuners (15:1 and excellent quality -- much better than the original), general cleaning, compensation of the bridge, and setup.

Setup notes: action is 1/16" overall at the 12th fret (fast and slinky), the neck is straight, the truss rod works, and it's good to go. Strings are 46w-10 gauges with a plain G. The bridge is compensated for plain G stringing only.

Scale length: 24 1/2"

Nut width: 1 11/16"

String spacing at nut: 1 7/16"

String spacing at bridge: 2"

Lower bout width: 13"

Body wood: plywood

Neck wood: unsure

Fretboard: rosewood, zero fret nut

Bridge: adjustable height, comp'd

Neck feel: medium C-shape, 10-12" compound board radius

Condition notes: it's overall fairly clean but the back has some odd discoloration marks -- perhaps from tape and a piece of paper on it? The pickguard has some minor cracking damage near the controls but is lined on the back with original metal reinforcement and so is a non-issue. The edges of the pickguard also have some mild damage and some of the screws are oversize and/or have small washers under them to help support fragile edges. The whammy unit itself is original but it has many non-original parts -- a baseplate reinforcement bit I cut myself and a recent Fender arm and Fender Bronco housing/receptacle for the bar.