I had the chance to play a mid 60's Mosrite ...

[sumlin]

I only ever had the chance to play one of those Eastwood copies - the originals are so much better looking and I can imagine the quality is like a 1000 times better. Very cool guitar!

Eastwoods - again - are copies in vague look only. Everything that makes a Mosrite (or a Univox, or a Black Widow, or a Gretsch Astro Jet or a Wandre) unique and of interest are always removed in favour of lowest-common-denominator tat. I have to wonder whether they've ever seen or played some of the guitars they've 'reissued'. Style over substance every time and every guitar they make is basically a low-end Epiphone in feel.

[DeathJag]

Vintage hounds at SG101 say the Hallmarks play and sound the closest to real vintage Mosrites.

That is a great explanation of why thicker strings are a losing proposition, thanks!

[Danley]

I use 9s on Jaguars so not really a concern :p Would love one of these (hope for an early set-neck.)

[ludobag1]

as i haven t try a mosrite before made mine i have choose 24;75 scale as i know before and jazzmaster profiil for the neck ;it is bad but i rarely play mine cause i am so habitued to my jazz , i have M3 pups in it ,not has they are bad but i find them pretty crude ,too powerfull and the guitar is better in crunch than in clean sound ,miss the middle position of the jazzy also ,will try in the futur to play it more ,the trem is really good to my taste ,more bigby than jazz
but a mosrite is this really cool look

[PJazzmaster]

as i haven t try a mosrite before made mine i have choose 24;75 scale as i know before and jazzmaster profiil for the neck ;it is bad but i rarely play mine cause i am so habitued to my jazz , i have M3 pups in it ,not has they are bad but i find them pretty crude ,too powerfull and the guitar is better in crunch than in clean sound ,miss the middle position of the jazzy also ,will try in the futur to play it more ,the trem is really good to my taste ,more bigby than jazz
but a mosrite is this really cool look

That also sums it up pretty well, thanks Ludobag!

[ludobag1]

i was too much habitued to use the jazz trem then the mosrite one is different i can't have it in hand like the jazz one ,need to change the position of my right hand a little ,but i am lazy

fews month ago i bring at rehearsale and i am a little disapointed ,cause i have lost my marks ,need to be really concentred to play the song i know well ,different postures ect ... ,the trem less accessible ,it sound different ,i am too much jazzmaster users

[will]

Also that the string spacing is really close? That would seem difficult to play.

All of the different guitar companies have a certain "character" to them - here's how I think of them (note I like all of these guitars, but I just like thinking about the motivation in how they were designed / constructed.):

50's-60's Gibson: Old-timey, high quality, with more hand-work than Fender - complicated binding, multi-piece glue-ups, set neck joints, inlays. ...clearly an acoustic company still trying to get the hang of electrics. I imagine a dusty factory in Kalamazoo filled with gray-haired folks with well-worn workstations. To me they come across like someone's dad trying to be cool when they introduce guitars like the Flying V or Explorer, and the lines feel more 30's than 50's (check out that art-deco sideways vibrato!) but their guitars always feel like care has gone into them.

50's-60's Fender: lover of mass-production, not too much hand-work - mostly trying to get work done with machines for the sake of quality and consistency, great new ideas for construction and style. Parts are soooo nicely interchangeable because of that consistency. When Gibson was thinking of how they would build guitars, Fender was thinking of how guitars would be built...and played - so much care in ergonomics! If you love industrial design, there's lots to love.

Mosrite: Those mass-produced guitars got you down? check out a Mosrite. If Fenders were made by an ace Industrial Designer, Mosrites were made by a Fine Artist, for better or worse. Semie (and you can tell that the guy had a personal hand in a lot of the guitars) spent time differently than either of the above companies. The appearance of a Mosrite has some industrial-space-age beauty, but with some labor-intensive care put into the craft - like beautifully sculpted bodies, polished tremolos, beeeeeautiful deep finishes. ...but unlike Gibson, Semie didn't have a long history of making instruments, and unlike Fender, he didn't have a knack for cutting down on production costs. Neck joints are trimmed and adjusted for each guitar by hand, and sometimes the neck screw holes aren't aligned so well or the bridge saddles are all to one side of the bridge to get things close to intonation or guitars have fractionally different scale lengths. (USE A RULER, YOU FINE ARTIST!!) Pickups are strange combinations of wire, sheet plastic, wood and a dollop of bondo. Before the internet, folks would just sort of figure out stuff on their own and come up with odd solutions.

...this is all to say, check out a FEW Mosrites if you can - there's a TON of variation out there. Whenever I work on a Mosrite I think "Semie - WHY DIDN"T YOU MAKE A JIG!?! STOP EYEBALLING YOUR DIMENSIONS!!" because common components like pickguards will be different between examples of the same model, and necks don't easily interchange. Heels will be different widths and bridges will be in different places. Mosrite 12-string tuners are trimmed and filed individually to fit the headstock, and tuner holes are not in the same place on every guitar. Sometimes Mosrites look like Semie was using out stuff that he had laying around, and other times it feels like he was getting bored and wanted to try something weird to freak people out. Fenders and Gibsons feel like final products, and Mosrites always feel kinda like playing a prototype.

Finally, to answer your question!

Most mid-60's Mosrite 6-strings have an approximately 1.5" width nut (same as a Fender "A"), but by the later 60's they are more Fender-like in their width. Like a wide neck? try a Mosrite 12-string - they usually have a 1.75" wide neck. You'll find that Mosrite necks feel really shallow and flat. ...they remind me a bit of hair-metal guitars in that regard. Also, the original frets are reeeeeally low and flat, so I've managed to find that the lowest action is on my Mosrite. Don't like low frets? you're not alone - lots of Mosrites have been refretted.

Also, Mosrites are totally inconsistent in detail, but a bit more consistent in quality than Fenders or Gibsons, so there is less shame in a 70's Mosrite - though some of them are pretty odd and you can tell that Semie was in dire financial straights when he was making them, so you might see oddly-combined pieces or less-than-ideal cuts of wood.

If you see a Mosrite where all of the pieces seem perfectly matched, machined, and manufactured - check closely - it might be Japanese. If you see a Mosrite with reeeeeeally shoddily assembled parts, it might be one made from spares that someone bought from one of Semie's several desperate moving sales.

[mgeek]

Fenders and Gibsons feel like final products, and Mosrites always feel kinda like playing a prototype.

That's a really good post, thanks, I can almost imagine what they feel like from that.

Eyeballing where things went reminds me of the Fenton Weills I collect...no two are alike, largely because they just eyeballed where the scratchplates went, then eyeballed where the pickups went. Amazing how much that spacing changes the look of a guitar

[R_T_Hermit]

I’ve been kind of holding back while I looked for an old Polaroid pic, but no luck so far. I bought a used Ventures Mark V in... let’s say... 71. IMHO it had the most beautiful sunburst I’ve ever had in my hands. Without straining to recall facts that may be slanted due to time I am positive it was quality from one end to the other—although it was the first name brand guitar I owned. I played it through a small. Gibson tube amp that hummed between passages, but that combo could ooze with bluesy tones.

The neck was really thin, and felt quite narrow to me, but I never considered it difficult to play. I could bend any string I wanted. I also recalled the trem was stiff and not at a good angle for me, but you could spin it out of the way. I kept it for a year and then traded it in on a new Gretsch Nashville—the model that didn’t say Chet Atkins on the pickguard. I still have the Gretsch. Of course the neck on the Gretsch initially felt like a tree, but I got used to it and, since I was playing Country, I felt like the tones I could get from the Gretsch better fits the bands I played in.

Sometimes I want the Mark V back just to own it, but I’ve become a dedicated Jaguar player. I have 3 of those and it’s my opinion that the Jag’s would fit my hands better than the Mark V. Someone else might think differently, but I have a 63 that’s so easy to play that it’s sometimes hard to play.

The upshot is that I recall the Mark V was as quality a guitar as they get. It was beautiful and capable.

[sumlin]

...this is all to say, check out a FEW Mosrites if you can - there's a TON of variation out there. Whenever I work on a Mosrite I think "Semie - WHY DIDN"T YOU MAKE A JIG!?! STOP EYEBALLING YOUR DIMENSIONS!!" because common components like pickguards will be different between examples of the same model, and necks don't easily interchange. Heels will be different widths and bridges will be in different places. Mosrite 12-string tuners are trimmed and filed individually to fit the headstock, and tuner holes are not in the same place on every guitar. Sometimes Mosrites look like Semie was using out stuff that he had laying around, and other times it feels like he was getting bored and wanted to try something weird to freak people out. Fenders and Gibsons feel like final products, and Mosrites always feel kinda like playing a prototype.

This made me chuckle...
Mosrites are *crazy* guitars. On the same instrument you'll find detailing and design work that is impossibly complicated and simultaneously find things that are so shonky you question whether they are original to the guitar (they almost always are - beware the Mosrite that's 100% well-built!).
For example - I have a Brass Rail (serial 43). The engineering on the brass part of it is so overcomplicated - the 'rail' is a thicker-than-a-trussrod rail of brass going from the headstock to the bridge, set into the neck so it's visible on the fretboard. It is a work of art. The same guitar is routed in the front and back for controls so you hold it up and can see straight through it. The back route looks to have been done properly whereas the front one looks like it was done with a bread knife.
The way the neck fits to the body is totally different on every Brass Rail I've seen - he really was making it up as he went.
There is a circular control plate on the back of the body and it only fits in one position as all the screw holes are drilled at uneven intervals.

I also have a Mosrite made Acoustic Black Widow - the last 3 frets are hilarious. It's a 24 fret double-octave neck. Semie took over the manufacture of this design from Matsumoku in Japan so had to follow the specs given. He clearly wanted to use existing parts he had laying around - including the standard Mosrite fret marker dots. However, by the time the neck gets to 24 frets the spacing between frets is too small for the dot markers. Semie solved this by just spacing the last 3 frets equally so they fit the dot size. Genius.

[carron]

I played a Mosrite recently in a guitar shop, a 60's Celebrity semi-hollow, and it was so good that I almost bought it. I wish I did buy it.

Incredible tones and it felt amazing. Being a vintage guitar, it buzzed in one fret position but that could have been easily fixed. I think not buying that guitar is feeling like my biggest guitar regret.

Mosrites are great. I live in California; every now and then they appear in the used section of guitar shops, though it does appear that indeed no two Mosrites seem to be alike.

[sumlin]

I played a Mosrite recently as well, a Celebrity semi-hollow from the 60's and it was so good that I almost bought it. Now I wish I did buy it.

Incredible tones from the Celebrity I tried, and it felt amazing. Being a vintage guitar, it buzzed in one fret position but that could be easily fixed. I think not buying that guitar is feeling like my biggest guitar regret.

Mosrites are great. I live in California though and see them used in shops once in a while.

Was it buzzing plugged in? My Mosrites have a lot of string noise/rattle unplugged due to the non-existent frets but it doesn't translate to the amplified sound. Or if it does it doesn't affect it in a bad way.

[carron]

Was it buzzing plugged in? My Mosrites have a lot of string noise/rattle unplugged due to the non-existent frets but it doesn't translate to the amplified sound. Or if it does it doesn't affect it in a bad way.

Yes it was buzzing when amplified as well, but only in one position due to fret wear. I figured I would change that one fret. I have done that before.

However, the guitar is gone from the store and I was left gassing for one.

[sumlin]

Was it buzzing plugged in? My Mosrites have a lot of string noise/rattle unplugged due to the non-existent frets but it doesn't translate to the amplified sound. Or if it does it doesn't affect it in a bad way.

Yes it was buzzing when amplified as well, but only in one position due to fret wear. I figured I would change that one fret. I have done that before.

However, the guitar is gone from the store and I was left gassing for one.

Always bear in mind that if the frets are original then the fretwire to replace them is hard to come by. I'm not sure it's a standardised size - someone in the luthiery world would know better than me...

[mgeek]

Always bear in mind that if the frets are original then the fretwire to replace them is hard to come by. I'm not sure it's a standardised size - someone in the luthiery world would know better than me...

I've always understood that the difference in the frets was that they were ground down very low, after installation, rather than being unusual fretwire to start with, but happy to be schooled if I'm wrong. The details are fascinating!