Alvarez Regent (Model 5205)

[MaxVolume]

 

I found this on Craigslist. I think it'll be a decent guitar. The information I've found says that they were made from 1981 to 1985. This one doesn't seem to be too bad. I've got a brand spanking new set of tuning pegs I can put on it. I'll also order some bridge pins off of MF in black. But before I do anything, I just wanna know...

 

Good? Bad? Meh? Avoid? Anybody have any experience with these older Regents?

[Freeman Keller]

No experience with that guitar, but lots of experience with 30 year old guitars in general.   Know what to look for and what it costs to fix things - in particular neck angle, loose parts (bridges, braces), and worn frets.   Try to figure out why the seller is selling - did she just never bond with the guitar or is the action so bad that its unplayable?

Also, when replacing tuners its alway wise to take the old ones out and mic them - bushings can be different from model to model and the mounting screws almost never fit (but can be redrilled).   StewMac has the specs for all of their tuners on line which makes it easy to compare.

Lastly, pins come in several sizes and two different tapers.   Get the right ones.

Good luck, let us know if you get it.

[Oldguy64]

The old regents are pretty nice guitars.

I have two old Alarez guitars, and I'm quite fond of both of them

My 5013 is similar to the older regents, and is a pretty rugged old axe.

Mine is babied and has been since I bought it back in 1996.

I only recently retired it from playing out when a pretty Alvarez Fusion caught my eye, it already had electronics installed.

I would take the 5013 on stage tomorrow with my Dean Markley sound hole pickup. As that is the set up I used for years.

 

F this Regent has been loved, you may be getting a pretty good instrument.

Also, if you ar in a position to examine it and play it....do so as extensively as you can.

Make sure of all the things Freeman said.

Remember this is likely a laminate top. Make sure it isn't starting to "belly".

Also, make sure yo like the way it sounds. I've never played a horrible Alvarez.

I HAVE played a few that didn't sound as good as they played.

[randolph patterson]

I recently found a friend an Alvarez Regent 5205, and together we did every bit of the setup & minor repair work as she learned, in a marathon 15 hour session at my home. When the time came to remove the strings to do bridge setup, I used a hooked probe to slowly walk the metal portion of the bridge assembly from out of the routed slot on the bridge. I wanted to make sure there were no foreign objects in the slot. I was happy to see that this rout is cut completely through the rosewood bridge, leaving exposed a clean, flat section of the finished top. The metal saddle-adjusting base actually has a radius to the flat bottom where the saddle secures, and likewise, the bottom of the saddle itself has a matching radius molded into it. This was a near-miss, as I was about to sand the bottom of the saddle to lower it when I first spotted the radius. So instead, I removed saddle material from the top, slightly improving the radius as best I could.

 

Removing that metal saddle base had been very difficult, almost as if it were a press-fit arrangement. But this condition would be unintentional, as there'd be a need for free movement in the slot when adjusting the saddle height with the adjusting screws. They were missing from hers, and before I took it apart, I wrongfully assumed that the string tension was holding the metal part all the way down on the guitar top. However, it'd been stuck in an elevated position as delivered, and when I later reassembled the entire bridge, which included rather forcefully seating the metal bridge base to its maximum depth in the slot (using a mallet & caul -- that sucker was TIGHT!), & checked the string height, I was shocked to see the strings nearly laying on the frets!

 

The main thing I'm telling you about all this, is that before you remove any material from the stock plastic saddle or before you install a new saddle, you should make sure your metal saddle carriage is either seated to its full depth if you don't have the two adjusting screws, or that it can be freely raised & lowered in the slot without binding, if you do have the screws.

 

We decided to make shims out of a couple of my old broken guitar picks. We used a fatty for the bass shim, and a fender thin for the treble end of the saddle. Each of us made a shim and fitted it to one end of the saddle slot. I had also already made a slight (from one-eighth turn to one-quarter turn) tightening of the tension rod. I found 2 Allen wrenches that fit, and gave her one. The fretboard had almost zero relief after this adjustment, which was measured with the strings tuned & after a half-hour of allowing the wood to react to the adjustment.

 

If your guitar has all its parts and if the metal bridge part can move up or down freely by adjusting the two screws on the bridge, you should practically be okay if the body is solid. Ours wasn't bellied, and I had a fun time tapping out all kinds of good resonances, especially for a ply-top. We intensely eyed every seam and found absolutely no separations, particularly in the critical neck-to-body joint, and the tongue of the fretboard edges. we inspected the bridge's glue job and adhesion. We looked at the pickguard edges and the inlaid rosette. We noted that indeed, the black rear binding and heel cap are the real things, and not a paint job. We inspected all the braces with a light, mirror, and probes. The assembly seems to be the result of care and quality at every turn. The binding job was nearly flawless, as if such a thing were commonplace on cheap guitars.

 

We lubed up a decent set of replacement machine heads and I got out a drill & bit. I showed her how to mark the locations for the new pilot holes we'd need to drill for the new tuners, and she drilled the rest of them herself and installed her new tuners. I got her to get her hand inside and feel how I had to set all the string ball ends snugly against the bridge plate inside, taking care not to get them caught on the peg ends. The guitar got cleaned & polished up pretty snazzy along the way. She had done a lot of the actual inspection & repairs, for what few were needed.

 

 

This guitar has a very wide range of sounds, and holds together really well without blowing out when shredding. It does a great job of always making you sound like yourself. The loud-ish low end could be dialed up or down with the pick like a rheostat. We were pretty flat-out astonished. We had a total of 63 bucks out-of-pocket, because I picked her up a Snark when I got the Alvarez in the first place. It is really a swell guitar that she just loves, and now her man wants one, too.

 

I wish I could have kept it myself, but hey, business ethics. This started as a simple agreement to be on the lookout for a guitar for under 70 dollars, and it became a remarkable and unique experience for both of us, in ways that we'd never anticipated. I think I saw her fall in love with her guitar at every step of the way, while learning so many things about it, and oh yeah, we were both blown away when we realized how long it took us. From 2 in the afternoon until 5 in the morning.

I can't say that anything about this was in any way depressing!

 

 

[DeepEnd]

^ While I'm glad you were able to salvage an old guitar, I'm not sure what good resurrecting a 2 1/2 year old thread does in terms of answering questions nobody asked. My first decent guitar was an early 70's Alvarez 5020 so I do have a soft spot for them. That said, most of us would approach the guitar very differently. In particular, shims, especially cobbled from old guitar picks and just at the ends of the saddle, are a poor solution to saddle height and a tone killer. I'm glad your friend has a guitar she loves and I get that this was a rush job with a certain amount of half-assing involved but maybe in the future she can unlearn some of the bad habits you taught her.

[Neal]

Well, it's useful in that the info Randolph provided could be "useful". Let's not be too harsh in new folks bringing up old threads that they were searching for in order to start a conversation, if there's merit, let it fly, if not it will die of its own disinterest, eh?

 

Good first post Mr. Randy. Late, but good.

[Idunno]

Cool story and great 1st post.

[carguy]

FWIW (probably not much, I know) I have an old Alvarez 50something 12 string (it's packed away and I will have to get it out to confirm what the actual model number is). I bought it off my son number of years ago and he said he thought it was from the early 1970s. That sucker is one of best guitars I own. I tuned it a full step down to ease some of the tension on the neck and it plays and sounds great. It's an all around fine guitar.

[DeepEnd]

^ Probably a 5021: http://www.guitar-museum.com/guitar-20942-Alvarez-5021-12-string. When I was in college, a guy who lived down the hall in the dorm played one of those. I looked at one myself before I bought my Sakura 12-string.

[carguy]

I think that's probably the 12 string model I have. I gave my son $100 for it a few years ago and I often thought it's probably the best $100 I ever spent. I forgot to mention that it's acoustic-electric also. It's a great guitar.

[Neal]

Weeeee-llllll looky here! An old thread that popped up, and folks are flocking to it!

 

Let's all not be too quick to smack down resurrection. I mean, look how popular that Jesus fella is.

[Neal]

(Well, flocking in relation to posts..)