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Joined:
December 2002
Posts: 7
Location: N.C. | New member, old Ovation player.
I started not to post after reading some of the Thunderbolt bashing.
But I figured if just one person was interested it would be worth it.
I'm the guy that designed the Thunderbolt. Everything except the headstock that is.
Can't trash me for that. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10583
Location: NJ | then I guess you read that I liked the guitar |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7236
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | LOL... welcome Icetrout,
The Thunderbolt has as many fans as foes I would guess. It's one of those pieces you either love it or don't. I wish the headstock was more Ovationesque. I realize that doesn't affect the sound much, but it does affect the overall appeal. |
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Joined:
December 2002
Posts: 7
Location: N.C. | Yes, We have a few fans...... |
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Joined:
December 2002
Posts: 7
Location: N.C. | I originaly designed it with the traditional headstock. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15677
Location: SoCal | I'd ask who designed the headstock, but it was probably the cad running the company at the time. |
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Joined:
December 2002
Posts: 7
Location: N.C. | It was probably Bill that came up with the headstock.
I don't know about cad...
We were old style, I used a drafting table. |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15677
Location: SoCal | Icetrout:
The term "cad" is even older than a drafting table and refers to somebody of ill reputation. I kinda figured it was Bill, or as he is known to me "seedoubleyoukaytwo". I was just trying to pull his leg. |
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Joined:
December 2002
Posts: 7
Location: N.C. | My oversight.
I should have put that together. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7236
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I'm sure we'd all (fan or not) love to hear (or read as it were) the process to develop the Thunderbolt. Name first? Idea first? Got hit by lightning and survived, decided to create guitar to honor the event? |
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Joined:
December 2002
Posts: 7
Location: N.C. | LOL,
Ok, The Thunderbolt saga. Short version.
In 1985 I was working for Ovation in their North Carolina factory. They were trying to move everything south at the time. Bill asked for a "new look" for a future collector series project we were starting on. The Thunderbolt was the one he picked out of all the sketches and had me draw it scale. The working name at the time was the "ZZ Top" guitar. The Thunderbolt caught hell from the beginning. I had one version with lightning bolts on the fretboard but they opted for a blank fretboard.
Shortly after Ovation packed up and headed back to Conn.
I was contacted 2 years later by my former boss D.J. to obtain my original drawings of the guitar so they could make prototypes.
According to D.J. Nancy Wilson saw the prototype while at the factory and had to have one. That's when they decided to make a limited production run.
So that's how it came to be.
But I don't know who named it. |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 147
| Maybe Bill came up with the name from watching the same cartoon show I watched in the early 60’s.
A young, mild mannered pony would dawn a horse blanket cape emblazoned with a Z and become the superhero known as ‘Thunderbolt the Wonder Colt’. |
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Thunderbolts daddy