1960s Airline (Valco/National) 3/4 Res-O-Glas electric guitar
Apparently I forgot to take photos of this fella before it went home! It's owned by a local customer, though, so perhaps it will wind its way back here in the future for tweaking and surreptitious photo-snatching.
Suffice to say, it's one of those National/Valco-built "Res-O-Glas" guitars with a fiberglass top and back concealing a poplar or pine core that supports the neck. It's thus a semihollow build and shares a semihollow's fundamental, airy sort-of tone but with a raunchy, bluesy twist thanks to the pickups which -- to my ear -- only really sound great when pushed with some good drive.
The serialization for these is not as accurate as earlier models, but it's probably about a '65 or '66 model.
It was in for a fret level/dress, setup, and tuners but also needed a bunch of wiring tweaks as the original harness was wired strangely, one pot was non-functional, and the lead for the neck pickup kept shorting-out. It's now completely functional, intonated nicely (when my paws aren't playing it poorly), and simply an oddball little thing with its short-scale (~23" or so?) neck with its medium-C, hefty grip.
I mentioned to the owner that about the only way I can get away with playing on one of these is in open E because I'm not rolling my chords out of tune in it with the slacked tension and he took that to heart as that's how he has it tuned-up for the moment and he even squeezed a song out of it and sent it to me in email. Yes, it's now getting the life it deserves!
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