Falcon 9 Rocket Launch, 1:26AM 8/14/16

Nikon D750, Nikkor 18-35mm lens at 18mm, f/22 ,  352sec., ISO 100

My younger daughter leaves this week for graduate school in Sweden.
We went with her older sister to Cocoa Beach, Florida to watch one more night rocket launch together.
Having grown up here on the Space Coast, space shuttle and rocket launches have been a recurring part of their lives.
She knows it could possibly be years, if she's ever able to see another rocket launch.
They never get old.

Trump Asked Russia To Hack American Government Computers!

Not really.  That was just the catchiest title I could think of.

WARNING! What follows here is a political screed, written by me, John Masters.  If you are thin-skinned, do NOT read this.  This is me angry and letting off steam.  I'm a really nice guy, but even nice guys get mad now and then.  Think of this as me getting my anger out "on paper" and putting it to sea in a bottle.

To  those who feel that "Trump invited Russia to hack into US State Department servers!"

Um, NEWS FLASH!  Trump was engaging in something called "sarcasm" when he "asked" Russia to find Hillary's emails. 

 

Please, for the love of Pete, Google the meaning of the word "sarcasm."

The word Trump used, FIND, does not, and never will mean, "hack into the United States State Department, or any other US government computers," mainly because...

Hillary's server she used for her emails was NEVER, EVER, EVER part of the U.S. State Department!  Hillary's server she personally had set up in the bathroom closet of a Denver facility (can't make this stuff up folks) used during her disastrous tenure as US Secretary of State WAS PRIVATE, remember? NOT in any way, shape, or form was this PRIVATE SERVER part of any US Government computer system.  I guess the media and the left didn't know or conveniently forget this in their desire for Trump to be "investigated."  That Hillary Clinton in her official capacity, knowingly placed secure US documents on an extremely vulnerable private server was a big part of why she was investigated regarding the emails in the first place.  

The irony here is thick enough to need a big man wielding a sharp machete to even scratch the surface of it!

The media, and apparently many Americans, were totally unprepared to handle the concept of someone running for POTUS to use sarcasm. 

The media, and the US political left in general, have always seen themselves as more hip, smarter, and better in every meaningful way than us rubes on the right.  Is it beginning to dawn on you that Donald Trump got under the skin of the media and the left in your hunger to see him go down?

You gotta admit, Trump TOTALLY made the media and the left in general look like the clueless fly-over-country types this time.

Here's the bottom line:

It is IMPOSSIBLE for ANYONE to go "find" Hillary's emails because:

A.) The server no longer exists.  It hasn't existed for a couple of years now.   It is IMPOSSIBLE to hack a non-existent computer.

B.) According to Hillary, she had deleted the 30,000 emails.  Consequently, even if the server still existed, the emails are gone, because, according to Hillary whom we all know never lies, the 30,000 emails were long ago deleted.

The absolute worst, most serious charge that could possibly be drummed-up and leveled against Donald Trump here is simply that he advocated a foreign nation to break into a private computer server.

I personally think that'll go nowhere.   

But the mainstream in-the-bag-for-Hillary media and the left tend to be pretty vindictive and so, I could be wrong.

How I See Things

My problem, is that I usually DON'T see things.

I'm one of those people that can travel the same path to and from, say, work, every day but then cannot tell you what businesses are along this well-traveled path.

I don't know if that's good, because I'm concentrating on driving, or bad, because I'm not aware of my surroundings as much as I should be.

But when I have my camera, I suddenly see everything.

This orange sunset in the windows of this boat caught my peripheral vision on Wednesday evening.

Had I not had my camera and was instead walking to meet a friend, I would have never bothered to stop and look over there, much less stop and walk back and forth like I did to get the best shot.

"Zoom with your feet" is good advice, even if you have a zoom lens on your camera. 

Sometimes the perspective change from using your feet instead of that zoom (if you can, but not advisable at the edge of a cliff) makes a lot of difference.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 28-300mm lens at 190mm, f/8 ,  1/80sec., ISO 800

While Two Black Men Die At The Hands Of Police Every Week (on average)...

   Using FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports and CDC statistics,  between January 1, 2009 and

December 31, 2012, there were an average of 4,472 black men killed by black men in America each of those years.

   Dr. Richard Johnson, criminologist at the University of Toledo, studied the details in these statistics from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control, and calculated that the average number of black men killed in both justified and unjustified police shootings to be 112 during each of those same four years.

   So, 2.5% of the yearly average of 4,472 black men killed by each other or cops, were death by cop. Again, FBI and CDC statistics.

   We're having internet rage, riots and police shootings over that 2.5% of black men's deaths, while ignoring the 97.5% of yearly black men's deaths that are within their own communities.

   Not much on the news about the 97.5% of black deaths due to minority on minority violence, except the regular reports of how many black men's deaths there are every week in Chicago.  The people in Chicago are killing each other at such an alarming rate, many of which are with guns in this city with a huge number of restrictive gun laws.  Go figure.

   And speaking of deaths that aren't making the news...

   According to the Centers for Disease Control, 12.8% of the United States population is black, yet OVER 35% of the yearly abortions in America are black babies.  During that time period, abortion deaths of Hispanic babies was 21%, while other minorities made up 7% more of the total abortion number.  At LEAST 63% of abortions yearly are brown skinned babies and some other minorities.

   Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was a believer in the "science" of eugenics, which she preached with a missionary fervor.

   A foundational thesis of the founding of Planned Parenthood, and that Margaret Sanger taught to anyone who would listen, was that "undesirables" should not BE ALLOWED to reproduce.  Black people were very much at the top of Ms. Sanger's list of folks she didn't want reproducing in the world, and specifically America. 

   Planned Parenthood is still the largest abortion provider in America today, by far.

   So, with the CDC yearly abortion number percentages above, it's brutally clear that Planned Parenthood still kills babies of minority mothers in numbers that would please Ms. Sanger and her eugenics believing pals of the early/mid 20th century.

   Adolf Hitler used the "science" of eugenics as a basis for his attempted extermination of Jews, the diseased, the handicapped, mentally unstable, gypsies, etc. in the 1930s and 1940s.

   In short, the numbers of minorities killed by police pales in comparison to the numbers of minorities killed by other minorities, and THAT number pales in comparison to the numbers of black and Hispanic babies killed by legal abortions in America each and every year.

   Police shootings of black men are being used as excuses for riots and the murder of on duty police officers, while the elephants in the room, the many thousands of minority on minority deaths, and the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of minority babies dying in abortions each year are pretty much ignored.

   When the media report, and the people of America get at each others' throats about the 2 deaths of black men by cops average weekly rate, I mentally think, "Why isn't anyone freaking  out about the 4,350 black babies that were aborted the same week those two black men were killed by police, and 4,350 black babies aborted the next week, and 4,350 black babies aborted the next week..."

   That my friends, is legal genocide.
   It's kinda hard to ask for God's mercy and blessing on America when that many innocent deaths happen day after day, year after year.

Gibson Four Conductor, Quick Connect Wiring Differences

A Public Service Announcement


Gibson neck and bridge four conductor humbuckers, wired traditionally, with solder, and to be used only as humbuckers without any phase switching or coil cutting, has long had the same wiring color scheme as one another.

When Gibson began to use printed circuit boards (PCBs) in many guitars like the Les Paul and the SG, at least since 2011 or so, there's a confusing difference in the bridge pickup's coils magnetic polarity and in the wiring color scheme WHEN WANTING TO WIRE IN OUT OF PHASE SWITCHING AND COIL SPITTING.

I have evaluated several different four conductor quick connect pairs of Gibson humbucker pickups and found the same wiring changes in all the bridge pickups.

I created the following picture and am posting it here in case others out there take a four conductor Gibson humbucker from the quick connect era and want to cut off the connector and wire it in WITH either an out of phase switching scheme and/or wiring in switches for coil splitting.

The several sets of four conductor quick connect neck/bridge pairs of Gibson humbucker pickups I've had all had these exact details, and I checked each set several times to be sure of what I was seeing.

 I am including my email address too in case someone sees a problem in my drawing.  I welcome corrections.

UPDATE: February 16, 2019
I have been contacted by a reader, who confronted this issue with the different wiring of newer generations of Gibson humbucker pickups that were produced with the quick connect wiring, as discussed in this post, and in the image/diagram below.
He had Gibson humbuckers with the quick connects clipped off, and wanted to wire his Les Paul into the Jimmy Page "this guitar can do ANYTHING" scheme.
This reader reported that by reversing the bar magnet in the bridge pickup resulted in the both the polarity of the pickup and the wiring then being as if it were an "old" wired Gibson pickup.
That was all he needed to do to "correct" this issue of modern Gibson bridge humbucker pickups seeming to be of different polarity and wiring when compared to the Gibson bridge humbucker pickups of the pre-quick connect era.
My heartfelt thanks to this reader for basically understanding what I talked about in this post, and to find an easy "solution" to traditionally solder wiring in the newer generations of Gibson bridge humbuckers created for the quick connect system. (Not to mention confirming that I wasn't insane in my conclusions here.)

Happy Thanksgiving, Thursday November 26, 2015

I have to say that, in a lot of ways, life has been kinda rough this year.

But every single time I even think about feeling sorry for myself, something or someone comes along in my life to remind me just how good I have it.

If nothing else, I have lived 53 years, even if I didn't always make the most of every day.

My older brother Paul died in 2001 at age 41.

I have lived twelve years more than he got to.

Thank you God, for all of your many blessings in my life.

Thank you God, for my life, my wife, daughters, sister-in-law, and son-in-law, and all the others I've been blessed to call family and friends, but who have moved on from this life.

God please bless America, though we're more wicked than ever and might not deserve your blessing. 

I know for sure we didn't deserve Jesus, and you sent him and he came willingly, and the Holy Spirit bore Him up and now guides us here while we wait for Jesus' return.

Happy Thanksgiving and God bless whomever might read this, whenever you read this.

Maggie

"...Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation..."  -- Margaret Thatcher

Something Completely Different from the Paris Terrorist Attacks

The last few days, with the islamic terrorist attacks in Paris, I've read and digested as much as I can.

Then President Obama speaks and all that I though I had digested curdles and makes me want to puke.

President Obama is the weakest, wimpiest President, well, certainly in my 53 years here.

So, instead of continuing to whine about the non-existent leadership from "the leader of the free world," I will post a pretty picture.

Posting a pretty picture for people to look at is at least as effective as President Obama's non-response to islamic terrorism in this world.

Photo taken at Melbourne Harbor Marina, Melbourne, Fla., on November 10, 6:49am.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 28-300mm lens at 190mm, f/32 ,  1/20sec., ISO 100

People Photography

People photography is not my specialty.

I am not a confrontational person, and when you're as big as I am, when I try to get close with my camera to people, their reaction kills whatever potential photo I saw.

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 48mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

You have to be a good people person and have a lot of personal charm to get good people photos, like a great street photographer does.

Saturday, I hobbled around downtown Melbourne for a little while, the afternoon light was glorious (as was the whole day).

At one point, I could see amazing light on the west-facing buildings of a side street. so I followed the light.

When I wander with my camera, I just look for interesting light around me and walk over there, good photographs invariably present themselves.

On the other side of the small street, where the light was great, a tattoo artist came out of his shop and sat down for a smoke.

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 95mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

He looked up at me and I pointed at my camera and asked if he minded if I took a photo or two of him and his shop.

He asked what the photos were for (people often ask if I work for the newspaper), and I said they're just for me.  I told him I'd lived here for eighteen years and I had realized that if I moved away I wouldn't have photos that represent this area as I saw it.  That I was trying to now take photos that would more completely show how I see the area where I live.

He said he didn't mind and set about doing stuff on his smart phone.

I took these photos.  

Thanks to Matt at Low Tide Tattoos!

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 34mm, f8, 1/160sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 48mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 95mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

Why I Didn't Watch Yesterday's Superbowl

I'm fifty-two years old.

I have had four back surgeries, have the metal rods and screws along my spine to prove it, and now have chronic back and leg pain to the point that I have a morphine pain pump in my side with a catheter that runs around my side to my spine.

At the end of the catheter is a needle that is stitched in place where the tip is inside the intrathecal space (where the spinal cord and spinal fluid are).

I get a few milligrams of morphine every twenty-four hours to keep me from going insane, or simply curling up in bed and giving up on life.

I hurt anyway, but most times, I can have a life.  Not anything like before my injuries, but still, I'm happy to be here.

And this, from a guy who once took pride in how much physical pain I could take.  I could shake off things that would make many crumble.  That was some misplaced pride, let me tell you.

I don't say all of this for sympathy, I am constantly aware of people around me and in the world who have it so much worse than I do.  I thank God for my many blessings every day.  I AM blessed.

But dealing with all the pain changes a person's thoughts, personality, and desires; no helping it, it just does.

On to NFL football...

When young, I loved watching Pro football.  I still love college football, I watch it a lot every fall, but I have totally lost my love for Pro Football.

I guess the eternal cycling of young men through college football keeps it fresh and exciting to my mind.  Pro football, not so much.  Not at all is more accurate.

Now if the New Orleans Saints had been in the Superbowl again, I would have definitely watched.  I'm a Louisiana boy who grew up in the era of Saints fans wearing paper sacks over their heads to hide in shame over our team's pitiful performances on the field.  The Saints back in the Superbowl, I would definitely watch.  For whatever reason as a kid, I loved the Minnesota Vikings, Fran Tarkenton was a childhood hero for me on and off the field, a real can-do guy.  I loved the Houston Oilers, Earl Campbell is still my most favorite pro player of all time to have watched on the field.  And of course, the Saints.  The hapless but lovable Saints.

But with the Patriots playing the Seahawks in the 2015 Superbowl, I forget which dumb Roman numeral they are up to, well, that was just too big of a yawn to me to invest my time.

The weather here has been so beautiful this week, sunny with a few puffy, cotton boll clouds, and a light breeze in case you almost started sweating.

If you haven't been to central or south Florida in the winter, I can just say there's a reason so many elderly people retire here, and that reason ain't Disney World; it's our winter weather.

So, yesterday, my back is only hurting normally, so I can steel my mind and try to do stuff anyway, AND I had a great desire to get out and take some photos with my camera.  I also needed to go to the grocery store for a few items, those in-between major grocery shopping trips items. I just wanted to stop at a a couple of local parks or something along the way to scratch this terrible itch to photograph something.  I wasn't expecting anything new, this is old, well-documented ground for me and my camera.

As often happens, I headed toward the beach, but started seeing interesting things in the golden evening light along the way, so I never made it to the beach.

Yesterday I learned that revisiting places I have photographed many times can still throw a few surprises, and therefore great new photo opportunities, at me.

This blog post is sprinkled with some of the photos I took while the rest of the world gorged on beer, pizza, chips, and Superbowl football.

Then, as a bonus, Walmart was as close to empty as I had ever seen it in many years, so shopping was fairly easy for me, no crowds or lines at the registers when checking out.

All in all it was a much better time for me than watching that game could ever have been, well, unless the Saints had been in there.

But probably even better than that scenario as well.

These were the only Saints I was able to see yesterday...

Favorite Photo of Atlas V Rocket Launch, Tuesday, January 20, 2015

This is the same post as on my John's Daily Digital Images blog for today.

Nikon D90, Nikon 10-24mm lens at 10mm, f/16, 139 seconds, ISO 200

Crop of above photo

I live about forty miles (65km) south of Kennedy Space Center.  You've heard of that.
Just south of Kennedy Space Center is Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where many rocket launches also happen, especially US military sponsored launches (Secure military base).  This puts this photo having been taken from about thirty miles south of the launch, as the crow flies.
This was a US Navy satellite being lifted to orbit on this Atlas V.
I knew the launch was that day, but sat, searching Google Earth for a good local location to get a time exposure shot of the launch.
I settled on, and went to Ballard Park, set up and took a few practice shots and waited.
When I saw a big portion of the sky light up behind those palm trees, I started my exposure.
This is one of my best photos I've taken in a long, long time.

The second photo is a crop of the first.
I just loved the way the light through those clouds looked there above that home and palm trees.

Picture Post, Sunday January 18, 2015

January 18th already?!
Sheesh.
Sorry I didn't get this up this morning.  Doesn't really matter since no one sees them, but here they are anyway.

Here are some sunset photos I took this week.
I had a back doctor appointment to adjust my intrathecal pain pump, a trip to the pharmacy, and I hoped I'd be through before sunset.  (I HATE the early sunset time in winter.)

I found a local park on the Indian River Lagoon (of Indian River fruit fame) that I had never been to. Better, I had never even known this park existed and it was an exciting find.

I got there after the sun had set, and there were few clouds to catch the after-sunset color glow on the clouds, but it was a gorgeous sunset nonetheless.

Without further ado, sunset photos taken Friday, January 16, 2014.  Pretty fresh, eh?

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300 lens at 40mm, f/16, 1/20sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300 lens at 190mm, f/16, 1/60sec, ISO 800

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300 lens at 220mm, f/16, 1/30sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300 lens at 300mm, f/16, 1/30sec, ISO 200

This final photo has Venus and Mercury in the upper, center, blue part of the sky.  (Click to enlarge the photos.) That is, if I remember my astronomy correctly.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300 lens at 52mm, f/11, 1/8sec, ISO 1600

 God bless you, and have a great week!

Picture Post, Sunday January 11, 2015

A week ago today, Jan. 4, I saw some great light in the afternoon.
I grabbed my camera bag, and despite the back and leg pain, headed for the Atlantic Ocean. Cabin fever seemed to have set in, and it was so nice outside.
Well, I never made it to the ocean.
I was almost to US Highway 1 in Palm Bay and as I approached a train crossing, I thought the crossing lights and such would make some interesting photos.
I love big mechanical things.
I parked in between some palm trees that decorate the median of the road and got out for a few minutes.

Nikon D90, 18-300 lens at 18mm, f/22, 1/25 sec., ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 120mm, f/11, 1/100sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 30mm, f/11, 1/100sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 48mm, f/11, 1/200sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 38mm, f/16, 1/50sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 18mm, f/8, 1/60sec, ISO 200

God Bless You!  Have a great day.

Paris Murders Over Mohammed Cartoons 1/7/15

The "religion of peace," islam, whose followers believe it is blasphemy to create an image representing their false prophet, the pedophile Mohammed, have expressed their love of their fellow man once again by shooting and killing twelve people in Paris.  The people killed worked for a paper/magazine which had dared print photo cartoons of Mohammed.

Radical islamists are acting in world societies as a virus more than a religion.

They are scumbag murderers who revere a murderous pedophile.

Above is an original cartoon by J.J. McCullough.

Meanwhile in the US, the Obama administration waits before making a statement, to decide whether the murderous shooters shouting Allahu Akbar were performing an act of terrorism or if it was just workplace violence.  Idiots.

Picture Post, Sunday January 4, 2015

I once loved posting my Picture Post posts on this blog most Sundays.

The sad truth is that most of these days, if I got up and grabbed my camera to head out for shooting, I'd have to stop and sit on my front porch for a while because of my back and leg pain.  I've learned the hard way there are levels of pain that will absolutely shut you down, none of this grit-your-teeth-and-do-it-anyway psychobable.  I get out and shoot when I can, and don't when I can't.

Also, I guess posting occasionally on Facebook kinda scratches the same itch that once got scratched by blogging, so I don't blog much any more.

But I like the ability to shout at the world on a blog post (even if I know good and well that no one will read it and comment) and that is nowhere near the same feeling as commenting on things on Facebook.

But here goes at least one more Picture Post, to try and start 2015 off on a good foot.

This first photo was taken last January, 23, 2014 on the boardwalk on the Atlantic Ocean beach at Indialantic, Florida. It is an 85 second exposure of an Atlas V rocket taking off from Cape Canaveral, about 35 miles (55km) north of us "as the crow flies."  It was carrying a telecommunications satellite.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300mm lens at 18mm, f/11, 85 seconds, ISO 200

This next photo was taken at Rich Grissom Memorial Wetlands (ususally called Viera Wetlands here locally) in Viera, Florida.  A really pretty, small park with an astonishing number of critters to see and photograph.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300mm lens at 18mm, f/11, 1/60sec, ISO 200

And here's a photo of one of the above-mentioned critters at Viera Wetlands.  A white ibis.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300mm lens at 300mm, f/14, 1/250sec, ISO 200

Here's a seagull lineup on a railing at Front Street Park in Melbourne, Florida.  The park is a popular boat launching site on the Indian River Lagoon (Intracoastal Waterway).  One of the seagulls in the middle seemed to be giving me a wary eye.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300mm lens at 300mm, f/5.6, 1/200sec, ISO 200

This final photo was taken in mid-December, 2014 in Indialantic, Florida.  Number Two Daughter and I were to pick up Lovely Wife from work and had a couple of hours to kill.  So we killed them by going and looking at some of the local Christmas decorations.  I have always loved these simple, pole-mounted decorations, mainly because I've seen them all my life in both small towns and big cities.  Just a pretty and simple Christmas decoration to brighten anyone's day.

Have a blessed day!

Happy New Year 2015

I remember back when I was in high school in the late 1970s, I would sometimes calculate forward to see how old I would be in the year 2000.

I would be / turned 38 in the year 2000.

And now that's fifteen years ago.

Wow.

Happy New Year everyone.  God bless you this year!

Sunset photo taken at Juan Ponce de Leon Landing, Melbourne Beach, Fla. on Wednesday 12/10/2014.

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-300mm lens at 280mm, f/32, 1/40sec, ISO 200

Micronta 22-214 Multitester (multimeter) User Manual / schematic

A Public Service by your's truly.

I have a copy of the user manual for the 1988-1994 Radio Shack Micronta model 22-214 43 Range, Range Doubler Multitester, Radio Shack's term for what the rest of the world calls a multimeter.

This is a really nice analog multimeter, and I use it fairly often in working on mine and friend's guitars.

There are certain situations in which an analog meter proves to be superior to a digital multimeter.

I won't bore you stupid  by explaining when and where I use an analog meter over a digital one, but I do know that Radio Shack sold many, many, many of this Micronta meter over the years and many are still in use.

BUT, good luck in finding a copy of the user manual!  I googled it and searched links about 10 pages deep and the closest I came to getting a manual for the Micronta 22-214 was 1.) paying a ridiculous price to someone for a .pdf copy, or 2.) malware dangerous web sites that supposedly will let you download a copy of the manual after you download and install their free software.  Jeesh, that's just asking to have your computer ruined.

So, in an extremely minor service to the public, specifically owners of a Micronta 22-214 analog multimeter who want to have a copy of the user manual, I took the time last night to scan mine and created a .pdf and a Microsoft Word document copy of this user manual.

I included a copy of the meter's schematic as the final page of this document, just for completeness.


At the risk of getting myself inundated with requests and trash emails, I'm gonna give my email address to allow folks to request a copy of this user manual that I will then send to them via return email.

The Microsoft Word copy of the Micronta 22-214 user manual is about 13MB, so your email might not allow you to receive a document that big.
The PDF copy is about 5.5MB so is the most likely choice for you to receive via an email.

My email address is mastersja at att.net.  Ask for the Micronta 22-214 user manual, and I'll send it along to you as soon as I see your email. (Still sending these out as of Wed. December 3, 2019)
P.S. I also have a copy of the user manual for the Micronta 22-204, but haven't scanned it.  If you can't find a copy of that meter's manual, let me know and I'll try to scan mine as soon as I can.

1983 Gibson Custom Shop ES-335 Dot, Pearl White

Since my back is more or less ruined and I went on long-term disability, I've taught myself, bit by bit, how to set up guitars for maximum playability and comfort, and do some fret work on them as well.  It takes me a while to get a guitar just right, working a few minutes at a time as my back allows, but it turns out that I'm pretty good at it.
 

I own several guitars, but being a little on the broke side of the financial spectrum, my guitars were all carefully chosen inexpensive guitars.  I chose for the best woods and construction I could afford, and over time I replaced the cheap electronics, pickups, plastic nuts, etc., with quality versions of those parts.  The result being that my guitars didn't cost much, but they play and sound great.  The added expense of upgrades was spread over time as I could afford parts and when good used ones came up for sale cheap on ebay.

Another way to get great guitars, if you can afford it, is to simply lay your money down, LOTS OF MONEY, for some of the best guitars on the market.  These guitars tend to play and sound great from the get-go, but there's no guarantee of this.

I have a friend at church who found out that I do guitar setups and and started bringing his guitars to me one or two at a time.  He has shown a willingness, for decades, to lay his money down on great guitars.  I get to play them for a while too, which is a nice benefit.

This particular guitar dates from 1983, two years after Gibson started producing reissues of the 1960ish ES-335 with the pearloid dot inlays in the rosewood fingerboards.

Looking back with 20/20 vision, many guitar players consider Gibson's "Norlin Era" (1974 -1986) to be a pretty dark time as far as quality construction and tone is concerned.  But this Custom Shop ES-335 is a lovely example of Gibson trying fairly hard to get things right during this period.  But, he had to pay a premium for a custom shop guitar.

This 335 has a pearl white finish, a paint scheme that I LOVE, on cars and guitars.  (I still want me one of those Fender James Burton Telecasters in pearl white.)  It's a soft, almost glowing, metal-flake white finish that is turning antique yellow.  The finish has natural checking (cracks in the finish) that happen to most older guitars that are finished with a nitrocellulose coat. 

The owner of this guitar is a true player.  He is a super-good guitarist, yet with no desire to know any details of guitar setup or to learn little things that can be done in literally two minutes with a screwdriver to make an electric guitar play and sound much better.

This guitar has been played a whole lot, but never abused, and simply put away after playing; no wipe down of the sweat from the body or strings ever.  The only changes have been new strings when needed.

So my first order of business was to simply take off the strings, the tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece, the pickguard, and CLEAN THIS GUITAR!  When I removed the pickguard, there was literally 1/8th of an inch of dust under there, dirt and crud held together by what I guess was old sweat.

Using a barely damp cotton diaper, I wiped and cleaned the whole guitar except for the rosewood fretboard.  Once I had as much grime cleaned as I could, I used a liberal amount of Virtuoso Premium GuitarCleaner to go over the whole guitar again.  This cleaned off the last of the built-up crud and also left a bit of lovely shine to the guitar.

Before I started, one would have thought the guitar had a satin finish.  Now it has a nice shine to it, yet keeping all of the honest wear that helps make a vintage guitar look well-played but still gorgeous.  It's a totally different look than the bogus looking "relic" finishes people put on new guitars with belt sanders, and true player's wear over decades really adds to a guitar's mojo.

The gold plating has worn off in all the places one would expect and after cleaning off the grime there too (some naphtha and lint free cotton swabs), the hardware has that nice, aged look to it as well.

Tim Shaw, a Gibson engineer during this time had been tasked with trying, within budget constraints, to recreate the Gibson 'Patent Applied For' pickups from Gibson's golden era of the late 1950s - early 1960s.  This guitar has a set of those fairly valuable "Tim Shaw P.A.F's" and the tone of this guy is pretty amazing.  Probably a mix of being an older, well-played guitar along with those much better than average pickups Mr. Shaw had come up with.

This guitar is clean, the potentiometers cleaned with DeOxit and working like buttah, and the action is fairly low, but not on the deck, just like the owner likes it.

I used some Stewart-MacDonald Fretboard Finishing Oil to bring the fretboard back to life, and it looks dark and pretty.

Only one problem left to fix on the guitar, and that's a buzz when pressing the 1st string at fret 7, that B buzzes on fret 8, which I have confirmed is a bit higher right there than frets 7 and 9.  That's an easy fix of about ten minutes to file, recrown, and polish part of one fret.

Just thought I'd share a few pics of this fairly rare guitar.  I've seen a few here and there on the interwebs, but there aren't many.

The original case needs two of the drawbolts replaced, but I've never done that.  I might try to add that skill to my set so that I can repair folk's guitar cases as well.

God Bless...