Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Bringing your older offset back to life.
User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Mon Dec 30, 2013 8:00 am

Well it's back in my hands.

Managed to find a replacement knob for the one that was missing, as well as a few other parts.

Now I'm just trying to source correct DeArmond pickups. I'm debating (don't shoot me) on buying a Bobkat and taking all the electronics out of it as these two guitars both used the same set up. The only difference is that I would need the surrounding metal for the pickups as these mount to the body instead of the pickguard like on the Bobkat.

Another interesting note, apparently very few of these guitars were made back in the 60's before the guy passed away in the mid 70's. I've only seen two other examples out there, one being a natural finish with broiler type pickups and a supposed fiberglass golden sparkle one that is currently on eBay. Those other two examples were labeled as "300" and "400", while this one is "500". Which makes me wonder how many exactly were made. The neck is stamped A192 but who knows exactly how many were made since they never come up. I'd appreciate any additional information that people may have.

User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Fri Jan 10, 2014 7:22 am

Managed to snag some silver foils, should be here next week.

secndshft

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by secndshft » Fri Jan 10, 2014 7:42 pm

Gonkulator wrote:Managed to snag some silver foils, should be here next week.
:w00t:

Con-Tiki!
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 3112
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:00 am
Location: Pgh, where the zombies come from

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Con-Tiki! » Sat Jan 11, 2014 8:01 pm

Groovy.
Sorry couldn't help with the goldfoil plates.
Going to be great to see it all together, though.
(Christopher, also)
I've been to one World's Fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing i ever heard come out a pair of headphones.

User avatar
unvs
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:10 am

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by unvs » Sun Jan 12, 2014 3:02 pm

Never even heard of those guitars. Looks really cool! Here's hoping for some more pics!

User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Sun Jan 12, 2014 4:50 pm

Con-Tiki! wrote:Groovy.
Sorry couldn't help with the goldfoil plates.
Going to be great to see it all together, though.
Don't worry, I kind of figured that those specific parts weren't always looked after. The only downside is that no one makes them aftermarket.

User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Sun Jan 12, 2014 4:52 pm

unvs wrote:Never even heard of those guitars. Looks really cool! Here's hoping for some more pics!

They were made in a small number by a one man operation back in the 1960's. From the looks of it it appears that he used overstock parts bought from Harmony/Silvertone/Guild/Hagstrom and made them his own. The gentleman that use to make them apparently passed away in 1975 so there is very little known about them. I've only seen two other examples on eBay of these guitars and that's it.

User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Tue Jan 14, 2014 6:57 am

Silverfoils arrived last night.

Here are some pictures. All that's left is to re-do the wiring and cut the nut some more and it will be complete finally.

Image

Image

Image

Image

User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Tue Jan 14, 2014 7:21 am

Now...just to make sense of this wiring diagram.

Image

User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:05 am

Well some set backs...

Looks like this wiring harness is junk so I'll have to replace it.

I'm not going to do the complex wiring setup as it's easier to find the controls gutted from a one pickup bobkat than it is a two pickup version. So I'll keep all four knobs on but only two will work, but I believe the switch is still good.

More parts hunting for now.

User avatar
Gonkulator
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 2948
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:31 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Gonkulator » Sat Nov 05, 2016 8:47 am

Definitely neglected this thread quite a bit over the years.

I managed to find the correct wiring harness so I was able to just wire up the pickups without issue. I was also able to hammer down the frets that were sticking up but it looks like this guitar is going to need a refret sooner than later.

I also just managed to source the (what I believe to be) correct bridge and posts. Those should be coming early next week so hopefully that will also help with the overall feel of this guitar.

In the meantime, enjoy some more pictures of this.

Image
Image
Image

User avatar
mgeek
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 1436
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2014 1:03 pm

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by mgeek » Sat Nov 05, 2016 3:41 pm

This is fabulous...got way WAAAAAY too much time for guitars like this :?

User avatar
Fiddy
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 12391
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:38 am
Location: Canada Dry

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by Fiddy » Sat Nov 05, 2016 4:29 pm

:-* :-*

Looks great.

User avatar
joeld
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 437
Joined: Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:11 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by joeld » Sun Nov 06, 2016 7:16 pm

I love these old guitars, so cool. Was the body painted with the neck on?!

User avatar
volhoo
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 131
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2016 12:53 pm
Location: SoCal

Re: Deane 500 [Colorado Music Co.] Restoration

Post by volhoo » Wed Nov 30, 2016 8:12 pm

Way cool - great build

-

Post Reply