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February 2003
Posts: 398
Location: Gig Harbor, Washington | Not mine - but wish I hadn't let the last T go!
Thunderhead on Redding CraigsList
Asking $625...worth it no doubt! Hope someone can snag this!
Peace Be Upon Y'all~ |
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November 2007
Posts: 143
Location: Feeding Hills, MA | Wish I knew someone in Redding! |
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March 2006
Posts: 1634
Location: Chehalis, Washington | No kidding...so by the way, what's the difference between the T-head and the Tornado? I've never really asked I don't think. |
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Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Differences were gold plated hardware, Schaller rather than Kluson tuners, bound ebony fingerboard with diamonds and dots, proprietory pickups rather than Schaller. Both came with either trapeize or vibrato tailpiece. Also the electronics on the T-Head were different and a little quirky: The 3 way toggle was both pu's on out-of-phase/both pu's on in phase/both off. Controls were master vol, 2 x tone plus a pickup selector pan-pot. The Tornado was as you'd expect, a 3-way with 2 X vol and 2 X tone. |
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March 2006
Posts: 1634
Location: Chehalis, Washington | Weird. So correct me if I'm wrong, but both Tornado & T-head were 6 strings, and the Hurricane was a 12, right? Did Ovation do a hollow-body with a P-90 style pickup, or were they all HB's? |
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Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | All HBs |
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Posts: 15664
Location: SoCal | The Storm series never had hummers on them. They were all single coil p/u's..... |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Some had Schaller-made single coils with a blade polepiece, others had Schaller-made pickups with 12 polepieces, but I'm not sure if they were 'buckers or singlecoil. They sound like singlecoils. I wax-potted the pickups in a Tornado, but that was 10 years ago, and I can't remember for sure if the were singlecoils or not. I have a feeling that they were.
The very early T-Head's had the Schaller pickup with 12 pole-pieces. They also had an unbound fingerboard, 2 toggle switches on the upper horn and a 5-way tone filter pot (like an ES355) on the lower horn. They lost the 2nd switch and tone filter pretty early in production and also changed to a proprietary Ovation single-coil pickup. It looks very much like a DeArmond Model 200, and may have been manufactured by DeArmond, but the pickup was patented and Ovation patent records name Jim Rickard as inventor. |
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Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | Paul, wasn't there three different pu's ?
This one ...
And this one ...
And also this ???
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Yep, those are the 3 that I mentioned. The sunburst T-head has the Ovation singlecoil DeArmond-style pickup. The 12-string has a Schaller pickup with 12 pole-pieces, which may or may not be a singlecoil.
The third pic is an oddball T-head - chrome hardware and Schaller singlecoil with blade polepiece. That pickup appeared on the Eclipse and was also used on later Tornados, but never appeared in catalog specs for the T-Head. As indicated by the fret at which the neck joins the body, this looks like a late production example of a T-Head so they could have been using up parts inventory prior to the Storm series being discontinued |
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February 2003
Posts: 398
Location: Gig Harbor, Washington | Man...Dave's always got the most awesome pic's!
Here's an example of the work still being done at the Mothership...this Tornado got a new finish and all NOS hardware last year...
and here's a stripped-down before pic...
Best to leave these kinda projects to the real pro's! :cool: |
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December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by MisterGolf007:
Here's an example of the work Oh my goodness! That's absolutely luscious! If I ever require Niagara, I'll view this instead... 
Kurt ,
What's the story behind this one? |
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February 2003
Posts: 398
Location: Gig Harbor, Washington | Well, I may have to go back into guilt therapy just to tell the story, but here goes...
The prior owner picked it up in an estate sale and thought it was worth giving a second chance in life, so he sent it back to New Hartford where it went back through the factory a second time - Kim said it took nearly a year - and then the fellow tried to sell it on eBay for more than he had in it (over a grand to Mother & a local tech) but the market wouldn't bear it...
So, after a couple unsuccessful rounds @ eBay (been there/done that) I bought it off-line for 7 Franklins (delivered)...
Did I mention - he had a photography studio?!?
Anyway - you get the picture! :cool:
p.s. Anybody got a spare neck plate (or maybe help Woody & I fashion one with the help of a template?!?)...THX |
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August 2004
Posts: 709
Location: Germany | Thanks for the Storm lesson! A Thunderhead or Hurricane is next on my wish list.
Karl |
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July 2006
Posts: 44
Location: El Paso, TX | A T'head should be on everyone's wish list!!! I looked for several years once I decided that I wanted one (you know, a Mr. Campbell envy), and will not give it up. If the chance comes around, get one of these great axes. |
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Posts: 6994
Location: Jet City | I'll be driving through Redding on the 18th. If someone wants to work out a deal with this seller, I'll pick it up and ship if needed. |
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February 2003
Posts: 398
Location: Gig Harbor, Washington | Way to be the Team Player, Damon!
Somebody snag this one...you won't regret it! |
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May 2002
Posts: 1445
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada | Paul T;
You potted the pickups on you T? How'd they turn out? My JR-T-head pups are quite microphonic and should be done as well. Did it change the tone on yours? |
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November 2007
Posts: 143
Location: Feeding Hills, MA | Damon,
PM sent
Mike... |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Wayne, I potted the pickups on my Tornado (long gone) and my T-Head which I still have. Both were totally unusable onstage at anything but polite volume levels and they'd scream like crazy if an even slightly overdriven tone was used. Potting the pickups cured that, and it doesn't change the tone at all. |
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May 2002
Posts: 1445
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada | Paul;
Did you have to replace the foam backings of the pickups after potting? I would assume they would be ruined by the heat. |
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March 2006
Posts: 1634
Location: Chehalis, Washington | So Paul,since you are such an incredible wealth of knowledge to we clueless, what does "potting" the pickups actually mean? |
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May 2008
Posts: 1555
Location: Indiana | Have a look here Andrew:
Potting Pickups
Also, this overview from Stew-Mac covers rewinding and potting:
Vintage pickup repair
As an aside, this "Trade Secrets" newsletter series is usually quite interesting. You can sign up for email delivery at the Stew-Mac site. |
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March 2006
Posts: 1634
Location: Chehalis, Washington | Lol...I actually get StewMac's newsletter already, just never looked up much in the way of pickup repair. That info explains a lot though, thanks! |
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May 2008
Posts: 1555
Location: Indiana | Youbetcha. |
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December 2003
Posts: 1889
Location: Central Massachusetts | Originally posted by MisterGolf007:
[ . . . ]p.s. Anybody got a spare neck plate (or maybe help Woody & I fashion one with the help of a template?!?)...THX Kurt, the "neck plate" on a storm is just a square of pick-guard material to cover the bolt holes in the body. If MWoody doesn't already have something, I'd be happy to trace mine and send it along to you or Mike to make one. |
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Blonde T'Head on Redding CL!