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So I drooled over this beauty on the Guitar Center used guitar web site for weeks and was wondering if I could sell enough guitars before it was picked up by somebody else .....
But through the magic of 0% financing (they promised 3 years) and GC's generous 45 day return policy it's now in my possession. Price was reasonable for a used blonde S400.
It is a 2011 Super 400
Plays great and is in mint condition
The sound is deep, rich and full ... I may be following in 2B's footsteps and becoming an 18 inch archtop lover more ... now I'm ready to try one of the 19 inch archops I see out there now and then
It shipped with very light strings so I threw some TI 12 flats on it ... I forgot how bright and metallic those strings sound when they are new ... but they are starting to mellow out now ... I had to tweak the truss rod a little after putting on the heavier strings, but the neck seems to be holding straight for now.
I will try to have the techs at Rainbow look it over before my 45 days are up .. but I don't see anything wrong with it
The only issue is that someone has replaced the classic Super 400 truss rod cover with a mother of pearl cover .... I'm embarrassed to say that after looking at this on the web for weeks and going over it carefully in the store, that I had it in my hands for an hour at home before I realized it is not the factory original truss rod cover. I'll have to see if I can correct that.
Funny thing ... my favorite guitar salesman from Rainbow is now working at the Tucson Guitar center .. so I have purchased my L5CES, L5WES, and the Super 400 from the same sales dude ...
The guitar was in one of the Houston GCs and I had them ship it the nearest Tucson GC rather than to my house .... that way if UPS demolished the guitar GC employees would be eye witnesses to the destruction ...
Seeing Danny formerly from Rainbow there at the GC made me feel better about taking the plunge
If anyone's interested in chambered Les Pauls or some PRS solid bodies let me know. I'll be selling some to help pay this off.
And I finally took some pictures of my L5 WES so here it is for a bonus
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08-21-2016 07:24 PM
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Wowza, Bluedawg! That sure looks like a keeper to me! And the Wes is mighty scrumptious, too. Congratulations, and play them both in good health!
Last edited by citizenk74; 08-21-2016 at 11:16 PM. Reason: spelling
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' Wow ' is right !!
Congrats and good for you !!
Dennis
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Man that is some evil looking wood. It's also reassuring to hear someone with a similar malady to mine
witness to the difficulties of showing restraint.
Big
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Well alrighty then! As the man said, "get busy livin, or get busy dyin'." Glad to see you make a decision after reading your frequent comments about wanting one...you deserve it BD! And she's a beauty!!! Congrats!
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If there were a Maslowian pyramid of guitar fulfillment, your's would be at the top! Congratulations on a real beauty! Jeff
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Bluedawg,
Awesome looking guitars !!! Excellent selection and wishing you many happy hours of play time .
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dawg, you stud you..
the wood on the Super 400 is almost unreal! Those killer Blonde S400's are in a league of there own. The best of the best.
Beautiful guitars. Thank you so much for sharing. Wow.
JD
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Congrats, Bluedawg! That looks NICE! Top flight maple. Surprising what's in store at GC sometimes.
The strap button spoils it for me. Thankfully, it's in the heel cap. An easy fix.
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Congrats on a score. I would move the strap pin to the center of the cap. Truly a beautiful guitar.
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Normally I wouldn't add a strap button myself ...... but that's the way it came and it does make for a good playing position with the strap ... maybe better than my usual string on the headstock approach
Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
Last edited by Bluedawg; 08-21-2016 at 10:34 PM.
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Wow, that is a special kind of awesome! Congratulations to this iconic pair of outstanding guitars!
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Originally Posted by Stringswinger
I'll ask the techs at Rainbow what they think ... at least from a structural stand point
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Beauty ! Congrats !
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Bluedawg, that figure of flamed maple is very Mike McGuire-ish
. Mike took over for a short five years tenure as Shop Sup. after Jim Hutchins, and he left his own stamp on the Custom Shop archtops.
All the archtops, especially the Nats, from the McGuire tenure featured intense tight fiddleback curly maple with no bald spots or mineral flecks, and curlicues of vertical mineral lines. Mike took off where Jim left off and raised it a notch.
When Philip Whorton took over, the figured maple became wilder and more varied in figure. More characterful, to put it nicely.
Bluedawg's 2011 S400CESN tops those of the Golden Age Gibsons. The maple has never been nicer. This is an expensive billet of figured maple. Look at how bookmatched it is, with tight evenly distributed homogenous fiddleback curl with absolutely no defects or bald spots that I can see. No knots. No mineral flecks. Across such a broad 18" expanse of wood. Amazing. Comes from a huge mature perfect maple tree.
Of course, one may say, they used whatever they had in the woodpile. I don't know. My own thoughts are each Shop Sup. hand-selected the maple and spruce for the top of the line archtops.
Bluedawg scored! I recall looking at the Super 400s online between 2009 and 2012 at Dave's and heaving wistful sighs, longings for a guitar that was out of my reach.
Play it in good health, Bluedawg. Let me know how it sounds!
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That is a beauty, but my experience with S400's is they are meant to be played and played and played! Some guitars you look forward to keeping pristine, but with a Super 400 I look forward to a lifetime of honest play wear!
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For the time being, yes. But this is about GAS, and I bet the pyramid may well grow even higher one of these days .... Originally Posted by helios
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Awesome Bluedawg,Can't get any better than that one. Sometimes size does matter.
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Oh, snap! Blue dawg, you got some guitars, now. That S400 is the true shizz.
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WOW! What a peach you got there!!! Good luck with it, nice 5 by the way too. Bob
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"The only issue is that someone has replaced the classic Super 400 truss rod cover with a mother of pearl cover .... I'm embarrassed to say that after looking at this on the web for weeks and going over it carefully in the store, that I had it in my hands for an hour at home before I realized it is not the factory original truss rod cover. I'll have to see if I can correct that."
they were shipping them w/pearl covers for a few years, maybe they ran out of the standard covers.
why someone drilled the heel cap offset like that is beyond me.
congrats on the NGD and enjoy....
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Congratulations, what a beauty. Hope it brings you infinite motivation to play and enjoy.
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Originally Posted by wintermoon
Interesting to know about the pearl covers possibly being factory original ....
If it's original I don't want to mess with it ... I'll have to keep an eye out for pictures of other 2011s and the years around that
I plan to take it down to Rainbow for their techs to give a good check out ... so I'll see what they recommend for the strap button
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I would love to add one of Danny W's Citations, Kalamazoo Award, or thin bodied archtops ... even one of his Johnny A's Originally Posted by oldane
For the time being, yes. But this is about GAS, and I bet the pyramid may well grow even higher one of these days ....
And then there are Benedettos, Molls, Campellones, Treniers and more to think about
LOL
But I'm also at the point were I'm ready to reduce my guitar numbers
the Super 400 looks like it will be my ultimate electric archtop and could be the last electric archtop guitar standing if I had to sell off everything else .... I'm not sure there's anything out there that could beat the Super 400 out of its place
So I'll be trying to maintain a balance between satisfying GAS verses minimalizing and trying to stay financially solvent
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Originally Posted by Bluedawg
My 2008 S400 has the same pearl cover, also a natural.
Locating the strap button on the bass side of the heel cap might be slightly better than putting it on the centerline of the guitar as it might slightly reduce the tendency for the guitar to tilt forward (as happens when the strap button is in this area).
Originally Posted by Bluedawg
I agree, I couldn't imagine ever parting with my Super 400. Amazingly versatile guitar for a big archtop. Kinda like a really big and really expensive Tele!
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