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Corona, CA July 2006 |
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We flew
out to California again in 2006 to
visit our friends at CharvelŪ.
The CharvelŪ factory, once located in
San DimasŪ, is now a part of the massive
Fender plant in Corona. We are
gearing up with CharvelŪ to release some
killer custom runs in 2007, so we went
out there to work on some new (and old)
ideas. Let's tag along, shall we? |
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is a favorite and original vintage CharvelŪ neck owned by The Music Zoo's
Tommy Colletti that we brought with us.
It is from a pink Star. We had it spec'd out
and digitized for use in future custom
runs. (Note the small logo) |
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Music
Zoo owner Tommy Colletti with a CharvelŪ
San DimasŪ neck blank in the
manufacturing mill. |
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killer vintage hot rod flames paint job
is drying on this brand-new San DimasŪ.
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Here is
an original vintage San DimasŪ
pre-production neck owned by Tommy.
It was interesting to compare this with
the necks of today at the plant. |
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CharvelŪ also brought out this vintage
NOS brass tremolo; it was hard not to
mix it up with... |
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...this
brand-new reproduction. Our custom
runs in 2007 will feature the most
accurate parts available. |
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| A
brand-new NOS brass TeleŪ-style
bridge. |
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"What'd
you say about my neck?" This
CharvelŪ builder was sweating the
details and dressing a new San DimasŪ
neck. |
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| From
left: FMIC's John Walker, Tim Wilson,
and The Music Zoo's Tommy Colletti look
through the files from the early years
of CharvelŪ. This was a highlight
of the trip; there is stuff in there that
brought back a lot of memories.
Some great information here. We'll
give you a little peek... |
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A lot of endorsers had their own
files -this one belonged to Judas
Priest's K.K. Downing. |
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Rick James band's file. |
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Here is
a view of an actual CharvelŪ invoice for
a San DimasŪ guitar and bass which were
made for the Rick James band. This
is from 1982. A year earlier, in '81,
Rick James and his band appeared on
Saturday Night Live playing very similar
instruments. James' guitarist was
obviously "really into Eddie". |
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| A
hand-written receipt for a guitar made
for Willie Dee and a
guitar made for the great Gary Moore.
We blacked out the prices because they
would make you cry. |
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Here is
an invoice for the original and infamous
Heineken CharvelŪ, shipped to Gracin's
Pro Sound in Hempstead, NY.
Gracin's was significant because a huge
number of original San DimasŪ Charvels
passed though its doors; in fact, Tommy purchased his Trans Red birdseye
San DimasŪ there, brand-new, back in the
day. |
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| Here
is a picture of that Heineken axe along
with a beautiful birdsye trans, very
similar to our own. |
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Our
friend Gary Blankenburg of Music
Services in New York has provided us an
original 'dealers book' from the very
early days which contains dozens of 3"x5"
photos of various San DimasŪ guitars and
paint schemes. We will use many of
these rare pictures as reference on our
custom guitars moving forward. |
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One of
the many wild paint schemes found in the
vintage dealer's book. |
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A
vintage shot of San DimasŪ CharvelŪ
bodies drying around 1981. |
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| Here
is an absolutely killer original San
DimasŪ owned by Gary Blankenburg that we took
with us to Corona. It's another
favorite vintage piece we had spec'd out
for future production. |
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Finally,
a beautiful brand-new custom San DimasŪ
in Robin's Egg Blue that CharvelŪ had
just built for The Music Zoo when we
arrived. We are so glad and
excited to be working with CharvelŪ to
bring back the magic of the old San
DimasŪ guitars, as well as to have the
opportunity to now build some never-before
seen pieces. Stay tuned in 2007
for some very cool stuff! Thanks
very much to everyone at CharvelŪ and
FMIC for making this trip possible. |
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