Members El Glom-o Posted January 10, 2011 Members Share Posted January 10, 2011 A local shop has had a Vox Super Ace in the used section for a while. It's tagged at $249. I'm thinking about picking it up for my brother. Anybody have any info about this model of guitar? Any way to tell when and where it was manufactured? Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members El Glom-o Posted January 19, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 19, 2011 Well, I went ahead and picked up the Super Ace. I've had it apart and here's what I've learned. It's a very cheap Strat-like guitar. The pickups, and pots look original, and of decent quality. The pickup selector switch is a made in U.S.A. replacement. The tone cap is made by Hunts and has a big melt mark on the side where it looks like it's been hit by a soldering iron. The tone controls didn't seem to have much effect, so I'm guessing that the cap is shot. Where JMI was saving their money is the neck, tuners, and bridge. The neck has no truss rod, and some of the frets are lifting out at the ends. The tuners are very cheap 6-on-a-strip open tuners, and have two or three non-original screws holding the crown gears in place. The bridge is an incredibly cheap attempt at a tremolo bridge that uses three very Telecaster-like saddles to give height adjustment and paired intonation adjustment. These saddles ride on a pivoting plate that also serves as the string anchor. The operating bar was just peened in place on that plate and has been broken off. A single coil spring between the pivoted plate and bridge base plate gives the spring action. Clearly, the thing to do is just lock the bridge down solidly, adjust the string height and intonation as well as possible, and use it as a hardtail. It does have a very nice chrome bridge cover that amazingly didn't get lost over the years. I shot some cleaner/lube into the pots, and want to do some testing with my multimeter before re-assembling it. Decal on headstock reads: SUPER ACE JMI Dartford Kent Another headstock decal just reads "VOX" in weird green and blue letters. Serial # on back of headstock reads "64504". The store tag on the guitar claimed that it was a 1964 model, but in the neck pocket, there was an ink stamp reading "JAN 1965". The knobs on the controls are very cool. They look like they were machined out and knurled by hand by Colin Hobbs or Clive Riggs on some lathe that had first machined breech components for Boer War artillery. Unfortunately, one of the three knobs is missing, as is the tip for the pickup selector switch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SirJackdeFuzz Posted January 19, 2011 Members Share Posted January 19, 2011 pix please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members El Glom-o Posted January 19, 2011 Author Members Share Posted January 19, 2011 pix please I don't have any of the one I just bought, but a Google Image search will show you several of them. This one looks like it. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c270/adapteradapter/vsa.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.vintaxe.com/boards/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D2380%26sid%3Dfeeb9aa65c53116a1bbcd754dc9813b8&usg=__PAlHF1an_pn5Qx40NDxeLo_tgHw=&h=453&w=604&sz=25&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=KCtPivYtVh3GkM:&tbnh=144&tbnw=208&ei=Yl83TbCVG4GBlAe_rfDYAg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvox%2Bsuper%2Bace%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG%26biw%3D1180%26bih%3D746%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=141&vpy=264&dur=7971&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=139&ty=109&oei=Yl83TbCVG4GBlAe_rfDYAg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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