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Today I linked up with a long time friend Doug Brewer and got a chance to photograph his double neck Mosrite that he assisted Semie in building in l960. Other than the pickgurad is starting to warp (which we will corrected in the near future) the guitar is virtually like new condition. Doug is a Gospel musician and finger picks Chet Atkins style. Doug was in contact with Semie throughout his life and at one time Semie cut the width down on the body in an effort to lighten it some, plus Semie upgraded the bridge from the bar style Vibramute. Notice the way the neck joins the body on the back side? Semie used resin to mold the contour so the neck flowed into the body.

WOW! That is one great guitar - Deke was right about gospel musicians taking care of their guitars - this thing is about as good as it gets. Great pix.

Dennis

Hey, WOW -
That's way cool. It's a wonderful example of his earlier work. Thanks for sharing.

OMG! That is one beautiful double neck!! Thank you for the photos!

WOW! Did you plug it in? How does it sound?

MWaldorf wrote:WOW! Did you plug it in? How does it sound?

Oh yeah! We spent about four hours going over everything, checking his guitars, my guitars, the web site, but most of all he focused on Terry's website and his double necks. Doug is wanting for he and I to plan a trip down to see Terry's guitars. He say's the necks on his Mosrite are to small for his style of playing so he doesn't play the double neck very much. He mainly plays a Country Gentleman but might be interested in one of Terry's guitars.

It's interesting listening to Doug talk about the construction of this guitar as he was a part of every phase of it's construction. He can describe how either Semie or he made each and every piece.

As for sound. It definitely has that distinct Mosrite sound much like my '64 and Adams '63. In comparison the Elliott pups on my guitar sounds a little darker but still very similar. Mel, you would love this guitar as the neck is about the same size as my '64. Too small for me. Also, for me, that octave neck is useless as it has too tight of string spacing. It would take a lot of dedicated practice to acquire the ability to finger the octave neck proficiently playing with the extreme tips of the fingers. I believe I'll have to make my double neck with a little longer octave scale.

dubtrub wrote:It's interesting listening to Doug talk about the construction of this guitar as he was a part of every phase of it's construction. He can describe how either Semie or he made each and every piece.

Count on my WoW too!
Those seamless neck joins plus the skunk stripes -all the way through the headstocks- caught my eyes straight away. Awesome instrument…vintage and yet still so clean,………man!

Yes, the man and the guitar truly belong together…if it ever gets a new owner while Doug is still around, the new owner will have to take Doug along with it too…

Thanks for sharing it with us Danny.

Love to see these classics in such pristine condition. The sunburst on both Doug and Elaine's guitars are fantastic. Doug's guitar has that distinctive early 60's red in the burst-it has a very slight purple tint. Maybe this only shows in photos, but I've noticed it in other pics of Semie made instruments from 1960 -1963.
Like Paul pointed out, those skunk striped, flamey, sunburst necks are outstanding. Only see this today in Terry and Ed's instruments.

Wow.... a piece of American history.. dubtrub please thank Mr. Brewer for showing it.
Does it have toggle switches?

It's interesting to note that the guitar's finish is pristine except some surface abrasion on the back (which can easily be polished out) was from an occasion Doug let Brian Lonbeck play the guitar recently at a night club. Brian's belt buckle rubbed it. At nearly fifty years old it finally got stage rash. Doug said he built the guitar case after carrying many years to various churches throughout the country in only a pillow case for a cover and never did he allow it to get scratched. The guitar had been dedicated in church when it was first built. Was that payback for playing it in a club?

I'll add a few more photo's of areas of interest. You will note that the vibrato is a cut down Vibramute. The ornate scroll work in the nitrate pickguard (not plexiglass as I originally thought) is cut out of the white material and the contrasting black filler is colored resin poured into the cutouts. The name inlay on the neck is cut from white plexiglass then set into routed letter pockets in the neck with black resin which creates the appearance of a perfect inlet. Looking closely you can see areas of the black resin, but you have to look hard for it as they are very tight fitting inlays. Also notice the pickup covers are the dog ear type that Semie formed in an oven. Doug wound the pickups himself on Semie's 'hand' powered winder at 10.5 K ohms. He said he cranked that winder for hours.