Early Mosrite "German Carve" process

[KRamone27]

Heck I haven't lived in Oklahoma in 21 years I forget where everything is almost.

[EFElliott]

Hey Terry.

Do you know what happen to Larry's original dougle neck?
Did he ever get it back? Sometime back in the 80s I heard
it was hanging in a casino in Reno, Just wondering.A few years
back I made around 25 electric mandolins with "German Carved"
Maple tops, it takes a bit longer with a grinding disk, your right
about Basswood, you have to be careful are you'll carve away
more than you want. Here's a couple of photos of one of my
German Carved mandolins.
Ed.

[Deke Dickerson]

Hey Ed--

If you go back on the "Double-Neck" thread you'll see I posted a picture of Larry's original doubleneck the way it exists now. Larry has it, it's in a plexiglass display case, the inlays are starting to crumble and come out, but it's still all there.

It looks pretty much the way it did when you held it in the photo way back when but with black pickup covers now.

Deke

[TerryTNM]

Hey Ed,
Nice job on the mandolin's. The maple (?) binding looks great. On second look maybe it's the body wood masked to look like binding? Super carve on the scroll.

Deke - I missed the page 2 pictures myself. That's the first shot of Larry's guitar I've seen in present times. And that blown-up photo of that young kid holding my first doubleneck . . . looks like he could use some Clearasil.

[EFElliott]

Deke thanks!
For some reason I missed the photo you posted
of Larry's first Double neck, Yeah it looks the same
just with black pickups, in that photo I have it was missing
the neck pickup on the standard neck, I just had my hand
covering over the pickup cavity.

Terry....
Was Larry's Double neck built at the Granada Hills shop?
Did you have a hand in building it?
I read somewhere you traced around it for the pattern of
your very first double necks way back when.

I had one of the Granada Hills guitars, It looked pretty much
like the one R.C. Allen had at Deke festable, I bought it at
the old Bakersfield Swap -O- Rama for 20 bucks, Semie had been
so nice to me, giving me parts and materials for my personal
guitar projects, I just brought it to work one day and gave it back
to him. It seem like it ment a lot to him, he remembered building that
very guitar, it had an unusall white stripe in the fingerboard wood.
I kind of got him in trouble with his wife-at-the-time, Christine, Semie
started reminessing about this old guitar and recalling details about
San Ferndano, Chistine slapped Semie on the arm and complaned
that he remembered more about a darn old guitar he had built 20 years ago
Than what he had done yesterday,(Sometimes women just don't get Guitar Builders)
Ed Elliott

[TerryTNM]

Hey Ed,
I couldn't say for sure it was built there but the time frame that the Moseley's lived in the Granada Hills home according to Dana Moseley was 1955-59, it probably was. I did the tracing of Larry's guitar at Town Hall Party in 1957. I never worked on Larry's guitar at Semie's . . . I was just a kid. I wish I had asked more question when there. I first met Semie sometime in 1957 when my folks moved to the area.

I remember working on an order of about 12 to 15 of those single neck guitars that Semie was making for a local music store in San Fernando called Castle's Music. Deke has one, I saw that R.C. Allen had one and now know you had one that was returned to Semie. You know, whenever I re-tell the story about those guitars I use the numbers 12 to 15 but can really only remember about 6 or 7 of them. It might be that originally 12+ were ordered but less were actually made. I just don't know. I do know that this was happening at the time Semie's first marriage had come apart and he was trying to pack up and move asap. So. . .

-Terry

[Deke Dickerson]

Great to hear you guys talk about your days spent with Semie.

Larry's original guitar was probably made in Rev. Boatright's toolshed in Norwalk, didn't he get it around 1955? I think Semie was still at Rev. Boatright's then. Hard to say.

I have personally seen three other of those 1959 guitars (the one that I have and R.C. Allen has). I saw one with an extra AP-6 pickup (with creme cover) by the bridge at Music Music in El Cajon about ten years ago, and I saw another one that belonged to a guy who has a guitar store in Berkeley. (not Fat Dog--this other guy)

Then there's also the 1959 doubleneck that showed up on ebay. Looks like it's from the same batch, or around the same time. Very plain and crude compared to the others.

Deke

[Dennisthe Menace]

Quit killin us ....guys....PIX PIX PIX....

[Deke Dickerson]

Hey, I have posted pics of most of these already! you'll have to search the archives to find them but I posted pictures of my 1959 single-neck Mosrite and also the weird 1959 doubleneck one that was on ebay a while back.

I know how the temptation is to only look at the top 10 active topics on this forum, but there are a lot of good things to be had by searching the archives.

Deke

[Dennisthe Menace]

Hey, I have posted pics of most of these already! you'll have to search the archives to find them but I posted pictures of my 1959 single-neck Mosrite and also the weird 1959 doubleneck one that was on ebay a while back.

I know how the temptation is to only look at the top 10 active topics on this forum, but there are a lot of good things to be had by searching the archives.

Deke

I can't believe how many times I have mentioned this same exact thing........
only to become a "victim of my own coicumstances,"