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Location: Texas | I'd been keeping an eye out for a nice Storm series O for quite a while when I stumbled on this one just in time for SWMBO to get it for me for Christmas, and I finally put it down long enough to take a few photos…
It's in immaculate condition for it's age… it appears to have been in a closet most of the time for the last 40 years. It's all original, right down to the bridge cover. ;) This is one of the later ones with the "longer" neck.
I don't know for certain if it's an original Ovation case, but it looks pretty close to those that I have seen in photos. Regardless, it does appears to be an original case that was purchased with this guitar. It was extremely dusty and worn on the outside, but inside the case and guitar look almost brand-new.
It plays perfectly, and I'm very happy with the sound, which is surprisingly versatile; I can tweak it to a tastefully jangly vibe or go smooth and jazzy… it's exactly what I was looking for.
The neck pup's output seems just a little weak to me. It's got a very nice tone, but it just doesn't have the volume I'd expect compared to the bridge pup, (it's still simple enough to tweak the balance as needed.) I suspect that's a result of the neck (and bridge) having been moved in the final years of production (compared to earlier versions) so that the pickup is not in the optimal position (closer to the base of the neck.) That's just my guess, does anyone know?
There is a little bit of oxidation on the blades of the neck pup, too. I doubt that effects the sound, but I'd like to clean it up. Does anyone have a suggestion on what to use to clean it?
The only other thing I might want to do to it is adjust (or remove) the pick-guard. It's pretty high and comes closer to the high E-string than I'd prefer, and it's not as simple to adjust as some other semi-hollow bodies. I haven't even attempted to remove it yet, but it looks like it's screwed (and hopefully not glued) into two small blocks of wood. I can probably save those (since they're original) and make substitutes that better position the pg. Anyone have any experience with that, or have the same situation with the pick-guard on a Tornado?
Anyway, other than those tiny little quibbles, I am really pleased with it and I was especially delighted to find one with absolutely no finish checking or other damage… it's a sweet old guitar and I'm one happy OFC'er… |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | You might want to check the wiring. On many they used mini-jacks to plug the pickups into modules that have the vol and tone controls. It may just be a a little contact cleaner, or just unplugging and plugging them back in.
Nice guitar. |
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Location: Atlanta, GA. | Beautiful guitar.
I'm jealous. |
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Location: Route 66, just east of the Cadillac Ranch | Holy cow that's a pretty guitar. I never wanted an Ovation electric until now. Congratulations! |
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Location: Germany | Wonderful guitar, congrats!
I use Simichrome Polish for tarnished or dirty metal parts of my guitar, regardless if it's chrome or gold hardware. The result is always brilliant!
Karl |
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Location: Munich, Germany | Congrats!
These are wonderful guitars - and show up sometimes in great conditions. If they show up.
With your posting I realise that mine has a non original pick-guard:
KLICK!
So this has to be fixed by my side.
Best regards,
Kurt |
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Location: GA USA | Beautiful, I'm jealous. |
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Location: Bellevue, Washington | Wish mine was in half as good of shape as that! Great find!!! |
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Location: Tennessee | Very nice! |
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Location: Jet City | Gorgeous. Is there any checking on the finish? Even has the saddle cover, very nice indeed! |
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Location: liverpool ,england | great find stunning guitar no wonder your happy! |
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Location: Derry NH | sweet! |
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Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | Nice Get! Congrats... |
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Location: Texas | Originally posted by Mr. Ovation:
You might want to check the wiring. On many they used mini-jacks to plug the pickups into modules that have the vol and tone controls. It may just be a a little contact cleaner, or just unplugging and plugging them back in.
Nice guitar. Thanks for the suggestions Miles. All of the connections are solidly soldered, no mini-jacks to be found. However, once I had it apart anyway, I thoroughly cleaned the contacts on the switch (which did have quite a bit of corrosion) and also cleaned out the pots with a little contact cleaner worked in with plenty of knob twists. Then I spent a lot of time fine-tuning the height of the the pups and the bridge. I'm happy to say that the pickups now have very similar output levels, and it sounds great!
Originally posted by Charlie Ramon:
Wonderful guitar, congrats!
I use Simichrome Polish for tarnished or dirty metal parts of my guitar, regardless if it's chrome or gold hardware. The result is always brilliant!
Karl
Originally posted by Koenig Kurt:
Congrats!
These are wonderful guitars - and show up sometimes in great conditions. If they show up.
With your posting I realise that mine has a non original pick-guard:
KLICK!
So this has to be fixed by my side.
Best regards,
Kurt
Originally posted by Damon67:
Gorgeous. Is there any checking on the finish? Even has the saddle cover, very nice indeed! It has a few tiny dings and one small, <1/2", finish check hidden at the base of the bridge. I just found that when I took it apart tonight… Otherwise, it's in amazing condition, here's the back, it's flawless:
And yep, it even has the saddle cover, which comes off pretty effortlessly, so I can see how easy it would be to lose it.
I temporarily resolved the pickguard problem with two small wedges of wood to change the angle so it falls further below the high E string.
The bridge and saddle adjustments are, well, interesting, the system seems somewhat cheezy, but it may have been state-of-the-art back then… ;)
Anyway, thanks for all the congrats and advice… she's back together, all issues resolved, and I played her for a couple of hours tonight and enjoyed every minute of it… ;) |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | standing... Don't forget the neck adjustment. On these it's under that "neck plate" which is in reality just a cover to get to the neck adjustment and neck screws.
Kurt.. Your the pick guard on yours does not look original, although it looks like it's made of material from that era. What sticks out for me besides the logo which I believe started with the very first ones, is that it covers the 3rd pickup adjustment screw. All of the ones I have seen are notched to get to that 3rd screw. |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | Mine has the logo, but no notches for the pup screw. It's also got different pickups. Both my neck and bridge pups are the same as Kurt's bridge pup. |
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Location: Jet City | Originally posted by CrimsonLake:
Both my neck and bridge pups are the same as Kurt's bridge pup. Here's mine. It's an old one from '67. Serial number is 535
I'm pretty sure it's all original, right down to no wood blocks under the pickguard.
It sounds spectacular. The toggle seems backwards to me though.
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Location: Munich, Germany | So this is very interesting!
And now I see for the first time that mine has both types of pickups, while all of yours seem to have an identical pair.
I can`t tell if mine left the factory that way or maybe later got customised/serviced, since I bought it about five years ago on the german bay from somebody who didn't know anything about it's history.
Best regards,
Kurt |
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| Amongst all those little differences I'll tell you what doesn't change - still the best sunbursts in the business. Gibsons don't come close.
Beautiful guitars. |
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| Did anybody ever put a wound third on one of those?
What did it sound like? |
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Location: SW Washington | OMG that makes me want to shoot myself for ever getting rid of my Thunderhead! I wasn't into electrics then. Traded it in on a Takamine F400s twelve string and got $150 for it... yes that was LONG ago and I was clueless... Well, moreso than now... |
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Location: Texas | Originally posted by Mr. Ovation:
Don't forget the neck adjustment. On these it's under that "neck plate" which is in reality just a cover to get to the neck adjustment and neck screws. Thanks Miles… I'm happy with the neck right now, but for future reference, does that adjust the neck/fretboard height relative (and parallel) to the guitar body?
There seem to be a lot a variations of these guitars, especially considering the short period of time that they were produced. I don't think I have ever seen photos of two Tornados that looked identical.
My Tornado seems to have all the same hardware (and longneck) as the Eclipse model, minus the bowl-paint but plus the etched pick guard. It has a standard selector switch, not the phase-selector mentioned on Miles' Storm Series page…
Damon, yours is still in great shape. That's minimal cracking compared to any I'd found until I lucked-upon mine. "No wood blocks under the pickguard"? Interesting, the two small black wooden blocks that raise my pickguard above the body look original. I can't think of any reason why someone would have added them afterwards, so I assume they are OEM? Plus, I wouldn't think that the pick guards were OEM'd flat on top of the guitar… were they?
Does anyone else have wooden "risers" supporting their pick guards?
It's a very interesting guitar. |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | I also have the two black wood blocks supporting my etched pickguard. Mine has a bigsby trem bar. No checking on mine either... I was very lucky to find this one. I put flatwound strings on it... very smooth. |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | The Phase/Bypass switch was on the Thunderheads along with the pots being two volumes, a tone and a blend mostly. Most of the Tornado's and Eclipse I have seen were wired in the traditional manner. I actually prefer the standard wiring to that of the Thunderheads.
To my knowledge all of the pickguards on Tornado and Thunderhead models had the logo. Like in later models, they started the line with the logos on the pickguards and closer to the end of the runs... the started not including them.
Most all Storm series I have seen had the little "blocks" to raise the pickguard, and make it level. But they were just little blocks of wood and easily cracked. Plastic would have been a better choice I would think.
Damon, your pickguard does not look original to me either. It looks like the same person that made the other one made this one. While the material does look correct for the period, it seems very odd that they would cover the pickup adjustment. Although... anything is possible as we've learned over the years. |
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Location: Munich, Germany | If this would be a sign for a non-original part - this is what the non-logo-cover looks like underneath: No wooden blocks, but gum!
Referring to the oddness: Good point, Miles, but I think a neglectable one, if I look at my Slothead Reissues, for example, and the fact that you have to losen the D- and G-string to remove the TRC. Comfort seems not always to be the first thing in mind.
Best regards,
Kurt |
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Location: Jet City | Standing, Most all have the wood spacers.
Miles, I'm pretty sure it's the original. It's one of the first ones, actually it's one of the first Ovations period according to the serial number.
You'll also notice the straight end on my fretboard. The Tornados I've seen from this period are pretty much the same. No blocks, flat end on fretboard, no logo. Here's another example off g-base:
And another:
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Location: Marlton, NJ | Here's mine:
[list]
[*]Scrolled fingerboard
[*]Wooden blocks under pickguard
[*]Etched pickguard
[*]Early serial # Bxxx
[*]Bigsby Trem Bar
[*]No cutout for pup adjustment screw
[/list] |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | First tornados and hurricanes had squared off fretboards and no logo on the pickguard. Then came the logo and finally the cutouts for the pu adjustment screw. Then later they had to reshape the pickguard for the longer neck version and relocated pu locations.
Serial numbers did not start consecutively with the acoustics. I owned tornado number 012 which certainly was not the 12th guitar ovation ever made. The electrics started off their own serials about 12 months out of synch with the acoustics. So yes, there are electrics and acoustics with exactly the same number. At some point the electrics jumped a whole bunch of numbers so that they could share the same sequence with the acoustics. |
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Location: Jet City | Well there we go. I suppose it's safe to say that the pre-letter serials are still among the first thousand or so O's? |
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Location: Texas | I removed my Tornado pick guard tonight to make a modification, so I took a quick photo to illustrate the wood blocks discussed earlier in this thread.
I removed those two blocks (intact) and replaced them with shallower homemade versions to lower the pickguard.
I'm extremely happy with the setup now, but for future reference, would anyone like to explain exactly what/how the neck adjustment (under the neck plate near the neck bolts) on the Tornado works? Does it raise and lower the neck/fretboard parallel to the body or does it adjust the neck angle, or what? |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | neck angle |
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Location: Texas | |
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Location: Texas | Originally posted by Mr. Ovation:
neck angle Thanks Miles!
I didn't want to experiment if it wasn't necessary, especially since I'm so happy with it the way I've got it set-up right now…
…but it's definitely good to know for future reference. Do you need to loosen the neck bolts before fiddling with the neck angle adjustment? |
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Location: Nova Scotia, Canada | Standing;
Yes, you have to loosen the bolts, more so the two closest to the end of the neck. |
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Location: Connersville, Indiana | Hey Standing I'l trade you 1 ice storm, 3 really nice snow storms, 1 large gail of wind and a used Oscar Schmidt for the Tornado :D |
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Location: Connersville, Indiana | Ok I'll even throw in a few bent trees, you might have to straighten out a little but they should work. :D :D |
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Location: Texas | Originally posted by kitmann:
Hey Standing I'l trade you 1 ice storm, 3 really nice snow storms, 1 large gail of wind and a used Oscar Schmidt for the Tornado :D Nice try kitmann, but:
A. I know you'd never really cut loose the Bluesman so nonchalantly.
B. I've really bonded with the Tornado, so this one's gonna remain a Texas Storm…
;) |
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Location: Connersville, Indiana | Your right I won't give up my Bluesman but it was fun thinking about it. Those Texas Storms can be rough I've heard so take care of her and she'll take care of you. Congrats brother. :) |
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| standing - 2011-01-13 2:39 AM
The only other thing I might want to do to it is adjust (or remove) the pick-guard. It's pretty high and comes closer to the high E-string than I'd prefer, and it's not as simple to adjust as some other semi-hollow bodies. I haven't even attempted to remove it yet, but it looks like it's screwed (and hopefully not glued) into two small blocks of wood. I can probably save those (since they're original) and make substitutes that better position the pg. Anyone have any experience with that, or have the same situation with the pick-guard on a Tornado?
Bumping this necro as I have similar pickguard question...
I just recently acquired an Eclipse in very good shape:
I, too, am not happy with the height of the pickguard and want to lower it.
It would appear mine as two blocks of angled wood that the pickguard sits on (and screw go into this).
I am also guessing the wood blocks may be glued to the surface.
I'd like to drop the pickguard about 1/4".
Has anyone else attempted lowering their storm series pickguard similarly and what did you find with trying to remove the blocks if so?
@standing , did you have to do anything special to get the underblocks off on your tornado? Also, who much did you lower it with the new fabbed blocks?
Thx.
Chris
Edited by bartidge 2016-01-19 11:32 AM
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Location: Jet City | bartidge - 2016-01-19 9:22 AM I am also guessing the wood blocks may be glued to the surface. Have you tried to remove the pickguard? It's an easy thing to do. I don't believe they're glued. FWIW, My Tornado is very old and they did not have wood blocks under the old ones. The top sits on the pickup rings, and the bottom rests on the guitar body. The pickguard is screwed directly into the body without the wood spacers. I'm pretty sure that's how the old original ones were done, so it shouldn't be too much of a job to change yours. Just whittle those down to what you like/want. 
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Even Damon's demo pics are works of art! |
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| Damon67 - 2016-01-19 1:41 PM
bartidge - 2016-01-19 9:22 AM I am also guessing the wood blocks may be glued to the surface. Have you tried to remove the pickguard? It's an easy thing to do. I don't believe they're glued. FWIW, My Tornado is very old and they did not have wood blocks under the old ones. The top sits on the pickup rings, and the bottom rests on the guitar body. The pickguard is screwed directly into the body without the wood spacers. I'm pretty sure that's how the old original ones were done, so it shouldn't be too much of a job to change yours. Just whittle those down to what you like/want.
I haven't yet but I will give it a try...
Just wanted to make sure I wasn't in for some unforseen issues first.
I have a scratchy volume pot as well, so going to DetoxIt that this weekend.
Thx. |
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Location: Texas | It's been a while (looks like 5 years, based on this thread), but as near as I can recall, the pickguard came off with no problems, and the wood risers were easy to remove from the underside of the pickguard. I think the wood blocks may have originally been glued to the underside of the pickguard, (definitely NOT to the guitar body) but, regardless, that glue had long since dried out (and even if it was still holding, it would be simple to razor off the blocks.) The original wood spacers could easily have been trimmed lower, but I chose to save them as-is and replaced them with my own homemade shallower spacers. (I just cut them out of some spare soft wood.) I didn't even bother painting them, since they are basically invisible with the pickguard so close to the guitar body. With my modification, the bottom of the pickguard is now about 1/8" above the body of the guitar. (It was a major improvement, imo.)
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I meant to respond to this a few days ago... actually thought I did... Anyway.. excellent job Standing. I have also used thick nylon washers in the past. In fact I have a Thunderhead that I'm working on and will be giving the owner the option of the blocks or just the washers. |
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My "New" Tornado…