Cimar Hard-tail strat

[curt1lp]

Hi,

I picked this Cimar (that was an Ibanez subsidiary I think) hard-tail strat at the dump for $15 Au. Anybody know anything about it. It has a made in Japan Plate, solid wood body, very light ? mahogany the wood's natural colour seems close to that. The guitar had no hardware except crappy tuners and brass saddles. The neck has a maple board glued to a maple neck. Jumbo frets. I have have refurbished it now. Rewired with cloth wire, jap squire pickups, PIO 0.047 cap. I have replaced the brass saddles as I wanted to use them on a another guitar.


It rings out like an acoustic when played unplugged.


This link is before







this is after

[BradKM]

Looks great!

I worked at a store that briefly sold Cimars in the early 90s, but yours looks like it predates those by quite a bit. It looks to be of much higher quality.

[Franklin]

Cool! I like it!!

[chuckocaster]

good score man. never heard of the brand, but from the headstock it does look like some offshoot of ibanez.

[Plugger]

That's the best looking $15 guitar _I've_ ever seen. Congrats. Let us know how she shapes up after a set-up.

-Mark

[curt1lp]

Thanks all,

Yeah I was thinking the guitar had a lot of potential when I saw it at the recycle centre of the local dump, especially when I saw the brass saddles. My thoughts when I saw the saddles were who puts on brass saddles then dumps the guitar? It looks like it would have been stored in a rough basement, seemed to have streaks of cement on the wood too.

The storage seems to have made the wood really dry (but resonant)though. I saw the dryness of the wood as a bit of wood crumbled where the top of the jack plate screw is as it was really close to the edge of the routing. I've had to use a long screw insulated as its very close to the tip of the plug lead right down past the routing and into the body to hold the top of the jack plate in place.

I had a closer look at the wood, it is a two piece body. I think the wood is maybe not mahogany the finish is quite thin but where it is chipped the wood is a pale tan colour.

She's all set up and ready to go I might put up some clips later.

[curt1lp]

Cimar unplugged:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/song...songID=4068231


Affinity Squire Body and Korean Squire maple neck unplugged:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/song...songID=4068228

Audiotechnica MB4K condenser mike about an inch and a half from the strings between the middle and neck pickup used to record. Gain turned right up on the mixer. Microwave oven noise in the background.

I used a mike and played unplugged otherwise the comparison is meaningless if amp and pickups are factored in. I think I got accross the sweet acoustic nature of the Cimar in the clips. Maybe thats an effect of the string through body and hardtail?