Check out the vid of this 60's Kay guitar.
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:24 pm
Cracking good! That player/seller could make a bouzouki rock like David Lindley!
He calls the vibrato a "tremelo", however. Well, I suppose I'd rather be a killer player than a linguist, though I'm neither...
Of special note in this guitar and video is the BOYD VIBRATO, fairly common on these $150.00 Kays, and once used on Rickenbackers. There's a factory test guitar (a '62 625S) that's currently in a couple of threads here on the RRF, which is the only 625 ever fitted with this device, but there were a couple of batches of "student model" 425Ss made in '66 and/or '67--I've got one in my own collection that's in the middle of restoring.
The Boyd was seen on mostly lower-end instruments, and was fitted with different whammy bars and covers depending on application, but the basic--and very compact--mechanism remains the same except for baseplate shape. It is very reliable thanks to its simplicity.
The mechanism is a neat pastiche of Fender (three heavy--18 gauge wire; short--20mm--springs) and Bigsby (thick horizontal axle/string anchor with a bearing on each end, although the bearing is nylon bushing or metal-to-metal rather than Oilite or ball-element).
Because it lacks the bearing smoothness and the lever/counterweight of a Fender or a Bigsby, it doesn't have the "feel" of either. What it does have is 80% of the sound and feel for 25% of the price. It was, however, a compact and easy-to-install unit.
It was surface-mounted with four short, stout tapping screws, right into the top of the guitar, and minus cover was less than a half-inch thick.