Fixing up my Sears Kawai 26133 electric guitar

guitars
gear
repair
Should’ve tried to do this a while ago
Author

Matt Crump

Published

August 6, 2024

Code
from diffusers import DiffusionPipeline
from transformers import set_seed
from PIL import Image
import torch
import random
import ssl
import os
ssl._create_default_https_context = ssl._create_unverified_context

#locate library
#model_id = "./stable-diffusion-v1-5"
model_id = "dreamshaper-xl-turbo"

pipeline = DiffusionPipeline.from_pretrained(
    pretrained_model_name_or_path = "../../../../bigFiles/huggingface/dreamshaper-xl-turbo/"
)

pipeline = pipeline.to("mps")

# Recommended if your computer has < 64 GB of RAM
pipeline.enable_attention_slicing("max")

prompt = "practicing synthesizer on a beach. the sunset is a synthesizer. The moon in the sky is a synthesizer. The trees are made of synthesizers. The ocean is music. colorful. 3d."

for s in range(30):
  for n in [5,10]:
    seed = s+21
    num_steps = n+1
    set_seed(seed)
    
    image = pipeline(prompt,height = 1080,width = 1080,num_images_per_prompt = 1,num_inference_steps=num_steps)
    
    image_name = "images/synth_{}_{}.jpeg"
    
    image_save = image.images[0].save(image_name.format(seed,num_steps))

Three guitars with problems sat on wall.

All three of these guitars have issues. The one in the middle has the most issues for the longest period of time.

I can’t remember when I first picked this up, say 14 or 16, or something like that. For the longest time I had no idea what kind of guitar it was (no label or model number anywhere).

It never really worked that well. The action was fine. It looked neat. It crackled. It only made sound when all the faders were in one direction. Pieces chipped off. One day it stopped working altogether. It’s been broken and hanging around for years.

Finding similar guitars online

Found some info:

Seems like this could be a Sears Kawai 26133 (or some version of this).

https://reverb.com/item/36471562-vintage-sears-kawai-26133-1969-sunburst

Saturn Guitar circuits:

https://www.saturn-guitar-circuits.com

nice example of repairing a similar guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OebpmmNFJ6Q&t=1208s

What I did so far

Not much

  • Some light resoldering. The neck pick-up was disconnected from one of the faders
  • cleaned the neck, looks much better
  • restrung
  • works a bit better
  • waiting on circuit cleaner
  • probably need to do a bunch more

Tone

Interesting surf clunker tone. Treble is super muffled. Need to investigate more.

Contact cleaner to the rescue

I should have misted contact cleaner into the faders and switches years ago. The pickups weren’t the problem.

Treble is back.

Basically, more or less playable now.

to do

Refret… Maybe redo the switches and sliders