Old Hofner Archtop rewire and TLC (pics added)

Dave-the-Pub-muso

Hi All, I recently bought this old Hofner Archtop and I want to set it up as a Jazz guitar. It does not have a great acoustic sound and will definitely need a pickup. There was clearly once some sort of pickup on it, but I'm a bit stumped as to what it might have been.

There are three knobs on it, one for tone and one for volume and then the third looks like it may have been a blending option.

The pickguard is missing and it appears as if there is only one loose wire (which looks like standard pickup wire to me). The weird thing is that this guitar has a canon output and I was under the impression that these only worked with pre-amps? There is certainly no preamp anywhere.

So.... I'm wanting to initially put a GFS or Armstrong neck mounted mini pickup on it, but I'm not sure if the electrics will work (i.e the canon plug)

Down the line, I may want to add a piezo transducer and use the blending option.

Anyone have any experience with any of this?

Some pics to illustrate

Thanks,
Dave

kapepper

some pics? Links to facebook does not work

cheers
karl

Dave-the-Pub-muso

Thanks Karl - I fixed the link - sorry about that!

Chocklit_Thunda

Remove the cannon and see how it's mounted... If the guitar has a large route that's bigger than a standard amp cable jack then you may have to fabricate a new plate that will for an amp jack. But I'd suggest removing all the wiring, and redoing it for the neck pickup and an amp jack. Basically you may just have to remove the cannon and mount your jack on a similar sized plate

Hope that was clear

Dave-the-Pub-muso

Chocklit_Thunda wrote: Remove the cannon and see how it's mounted... If the guitar has a large route that's bigger than a standard amp cable jack then you may have to fabricate a new plate that will for an amp jack. But I'd suggest removing all the wiring, and redoing it for the neck pickup and an amp jack. Basically you may just have to remove the cannon and mount your jack on a similar sized plate

Hope that was clear

Thanks Chocklit_Thunda - that is very clear indeed. I am still wondering why/how there was a canon plug there in the first place! Will post the outcome when I'm done.

Thanks,
Dave

Chocklit_Thunda

What confuses me most is that there's 3 knobs for one pickup... Unless its something like a volume for each coil and a tone, or a tone for each coil and a volume, I can't see why it would have three instead if just vol and tone... Unless the one is a switch/ blend... But again, why a switch for one pickup?

kapepper

nice guitar
what model/year?

Dave-the-Pub-muso

kapepper wrote: nice guitar
what model/year?

I'm not entirely sure - I've been scouring the internet (vintage hofner sites) and I've found some pics of similar guitars, but nothing that is exactly the same. It was sold to me as being over 50 years old, but I'm not sure about that either. I tried looking inside with a dental mirror, but I can't see anything.

It could be model:

450
455
or 4500

If anyone has any other possible models, please let me know.

Shot

AlanRatcliffe

'60s Hofner archtops with pickups usually had a metal pickguard and all the electronics were mounted directly on that. So I'm pretty sure that all the electronics you have there were done later by someone else.

I don't recognise the make, but somehow, I suspect that you have a piezo bridge there - the individual saddles look similar to the older Ovations. Have you taken the strings off and looked at the bridge?

If so, the bridge could be wired in stereo (hence the XLR and three controls). Could also be a balanced output - balancing is also often done with a small transformer (like in a passive DI box). Also as in a DI box, a transformer can be used to convert the very high impedance of a piezo pickup to something more manageable.

Still, difficult to say without seeing what exactly is there and how it is hooked up...

Dave-the-Pub-muso

Thanks Joe - I tried the mirror thing but failed - maybe its my technique! Will have another crack at it!

Alan, thanks for the info. Not sure if this bridge had/has a transducer, but my intitial guess was that one of the previous owners had a pickup and a transducer and used the 3rd knob as a blender.

I've ordered a neck mount humbucker from GFS and will redo electrics just with that for now.

Thanks again,
Dave