1960s Silvertone 1457 (Danelectro-made) Jamie Seerman Art Electric Guitar

This is a classic Silvertone 1457 "amp-in-case" model that my buddy Steve bought as a project from one of my consignors. The body had been stripped of paint, one pickup was damaged, some of the hardware was with it, the original wiring harness was both seized and missing parts, and the neck that came with it was damaged at the headstock and I bought it from the consignor for use on my own weirdo project. Steve found the current neck on eBay and supplied it -- it had been painted red at the headstock and stripped on the rear and this seemed just about perfect for it!

To this mix of chemistry, his friend, the talented Jamie Seerman, did some custom artwork for it! She punched a ridiculous amount of tarot cards out and applied them to the top and headstock in various patterns that emerge the more you look at it. How could it have been any better-done than this? It suits the guitar perfectly.

So -- work was a mix of stuff. My guy Ancel did the level/dress on the neck and did the soldering work. I compensated the saddle, repaired the damaged bridge pickup (that was hairy work re-soldering the leads from the pickup coil -- these are not particularly well-made internally and want to come apart on you), and reassembled it. Steve asked for flatwounds so it's setup with a lightly-used set of freebie D'Addario Chromes (recycle!) and adjusted for a wound-G setup at the saddle.

The end result, as you can hear in the video, is stellar. The new wiring harness opens-up the sound of the old Dano pickups quite a bit compared to the original 100k pots and the whole thing just feels cozy. These have a 25" scale and a 1 5/8" nut width but a shallower board radius, so they feel like an "inbetweener" instrument -- hints of various other makes but really their own thing. The modern Danos feel more like knock-off Fenders in the necks but these old ones just sing on each note. I still think it's mostly because they have to big old steel non-adjustable rods running their entire length, but I digress.

Hats-off to our three-way build, Steve and Jamie!