Dedmans ES-2V

[Tweaky]

Christ, that reminds me of the first amp I ever bought with my own money, back in 1976 at a pawn shop.
A Old Fender Princeton 15 watt amp, in very good condition, for $75

I got given some huge GOLDTONE amp that hummed to buggery, along with a 1958 Levin Deluxe Archtop Guitar a few years prior to that, that had been retro fitted with a floating Moody pickup [crap ]....my widowed mother was dating a pro guitarist...sort of rubbed off...ended up getting his old gear.

[Simon Barden]

Nice! Levin made some fine guitars in their time. If it's a 1958, then that must have been one of the very last ones they made of that model. You still got it?

[Tweaky]

No, it got stolen.
Boy I miss that guitar, you could get any sort of sound out of it you wanted by just strumming it at different places, had a wonderful shaped neck as well, only problem with it was it didn't have a adjustable truss rod, so over the years the action became higher.
I didn't know anything about Levin guitars for a long time, that's until the topic came up at a gig, and Tommy Emmanual told me about them.
He said that Levin were actually a Swedish subsidiary of Martin Guitars.
I've seen photos of Djanjo Reinhardt playing the same model Levin when he toured the USA, only difference is the pick guard is a different shape.


I sent a email to a old mate last night [whose gig I was at when I got the info above-funny what triggers your memory] who I know had one of those Gallien Krueger 250ML amps, he replied saying it's at his sons place, and he's organizing that we meet up next weekend and have a blast on it.
I suspect more drinking will be done than guitar playing.

[Dedman]

got some work done on this today, not much but got the headstock inlay cut out and then routed and shaped the headstock. The sanding can begin on the neck and base coats before I can go further with the inlay. it's a stainless steel version of the diamonds I did in brass on the ES-5 , it has the pattern paper glued to it in the pic.
Of course my assistant was on hand to offer advice and keep the work dust free with her flapping.

[wokkaboy]

nice work Dedman, the stainless steel inlay will look unreal. So does the real diamond fit nicely in the recess ?

[Dedman]

pretty tight, will need a little filler one of the edges but as it's going to be solid black I can get away with it. It's better than the ES-5, so maybe next time I'll be brave enough to do one on a natural finish headstock. My first time with the SM router base, last time I did it by hand after flinging the wobbly plastic base on my neighbours roof ( in approved DB fashion I even yelled "go forth and multiply!" or something similar)

[wokkaboy]

haha no worries Dedman, so the SM router base gets the tick of approval ?

reckon someone could set up a good workshop from scratch with the amount of tools that have been thrown onto neighbours roofs !

[wazkelly]

Nice headstock shape Dedman.

[Dedman]

head stock sanded and shaped tidied, entire guitar was masked , stuffed with newspaper and primed. Primed my 1x 12 cab while I had the primer out. Sanding and second primer coats tomorrow

[Dedman]

first black coats went on today then ran out of paint. Sand, and other coat tomorrow, will fit and polish the inlay, then do a dry build and glue the neck before clear coating