Merry Christmas! Cleaning, Re-Stringing, and Setting up my Kramer Vintage for Sale :D 12-25-24
1So it's Christmas Time and I hope everyone received lots of Cashola, cause I want to sell a guitar! lol ;P
Anyway, it'd gotten dusty, and the strings were probably a year old, so I wanted to get it all cleaned up and set up for the next owner, and I thought I might as well stream the whole process, so anyone that might be interested in it, could see all the nitty gritty details, because I want to make sure a buyer knows exACTly what they are getting :)
This is already listed on reverb at:
https://reverb.com/item/86346999-kramer-baretta-vintage-2019-ruby-red-made-in-indonesia
And the rest of this description is basically the same as what I posted over there.
This is a:
Kramer Baretta Vintage
"Ruby Red"
Made in Indonesia
Manufactured 12/2019
(I purchased it new in April of 2020)
or the record, although this guitar's paint is called "Ruby Red", I would call it "Salmon Pink".
Weirdly, on camera, and/or in the right light, it often actually DOES look red. But to my eye's, in normal light, it's salmon pink.
When I bought this guitar, it arrived damaged.
I think most of the damaged was caused by the tremolo arm bouncing around in the box while shipping, because it was just in the box loose; not in a baggy, or taped down, or anything. Like they just threw it in there before shipping.
So there were a couple of spots on the bottom where the chips were deep enough to see the wood, and a few lighter scratches in the paint.
Also, one fine tuner was screwed all the way down and super tight, like Hulk Hogan had screwed it down or something lol
The tremolo bridge was also waaaay too high.
And since they loosened the strings for shipping, that allowed the Floyd to tile back SO much, that the spring plate under the over tightened screw actually dug through the paint and into the wood.
That is actually under the tremolo though, so it's not something you can see normally.
The other damage also isn't actually very noticeable.
Quality control was apparently on vacation the day my guitar was assembled though, because not only were there those issues, but EVERY thing you can adjust on a guitar, was set up totally off.
Even the locking nut hadn't been screwed down tight enough to the neck, so it'd actually move back and forth when you used the tremolo.
All of that was correctable though, and I corrected all that first thing (I had to, because it was unplayable when it arrived :\)
And all of the hardware and everything was fine, as the damage was only cosmetic.
The guitar itself, once it was properly set up, was pretty darned cool :D
Unfortunately, my hand just couldn't work well with the neck :\
I'd assumed it'd be a nice 80's/early 90s style shallow C profile, like the old Kramers I'd played before.
But, it's not. To me it feels more like a shallow-U, and my hand just does NOT work right with U profile necks.
For reference, the Baretta Vintage neck is NOT the same as ones on the Baretta Specials.
I actually have no problem playing on a Baretta Special neck.
Anyway, I tried getting used to it over the last few years, but in the end, this guitar just isn't for me :\
So I want to sell it and get something else.
The guitar is still just fine hardware/playing wise.
But when I went to clean it up, I noticed a few issues that had occurred over time.
The first was that the paint now has a lot of... I guess you could call them scratches?
Probably nothing that wouldn't buff out with a polish, or a waxing.
I noticed one small dent in the paint, which I couldn't get to show up in a picture, but it's there.
The black anodizing/coating on most of the small black screws has just inexplicably *gone away*.
It's not from wear, because when I was setting it up right after I got it, I removed the tremolo spring cover, and the screws for it have been sitting in a ZipLock bag ever since then. And they look just as bad as the ones on the guitar.
That's just cosmetic but I wanted to point it out.
And the last thing I noticed, was that a line/crack had appeared across the cream pickup bobbin.
Now, this guitar has *never been abused*, so I looked it up, and found this info.
"It is not uncommon for Seymour Duncan bobbins to have hairline cracks between the poles and/or screws. The company has been acknowledging this for over 15 years as " "spider legs." They're gas lines that are part of the injection molding process and they're not structural."
If it bothered one enough, they actually sell things like vinyls and stickers and such that go on top of the bobbins to change the color and such.
Anyway, after I gave it a setup and once-over, it played better than ever, so it's ready to go :)
For Reference:
The amp I use in the video is a 6505mh, which has a USB output that runs straight to my PC. (plus maybe a bit being picked up from the room by my camera's mic). I occasionally switch the channels, but the only "effect" is a little bit of the amp's built in reverb.
Broadcasted live on Twitch -- Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/purdydot