I can describe my experience growing up in the USSR, it's typical too: As a schoolboy or a young university student, if you wanted to be in a band, your school might have some band equipment. 8 times out of 10 it was unplayable, but this being state issued inventory (hence you see so often a big ugly hand-painted inventory number done in white or red oil paint, whichever was used to paint the fence around the school grounds), fixing it was not not encouraged, let alone a massive rebuild like the one you undertook. Luthiers were scarce and mostly came from a tradition of building classical guitars, so they had little knowledge of the peculiarities of electric guitar, and were of little help. Nonetheless, there was a small underground industry of building replicas of Fenders, Gibsons, etc. The results varied, to put it mildly. I was told of a story where a bunch of engineers who were all amateur musicians, who invited a bass player of some insignificant band from Czechoslovakia I think (otherwise I'd remember who it was) to their place to drink after the show. They got him so good and drunk that he passed out -- which exactly what they needed, since he had a Jazz Bass in his possession. They took it apart, made technical drawings down to screws and wiring, and put it back together. Now they were in a position to build Jazz Bass knockoffs for all their friends! There were also people who could do 1:1 replicas of amps and probably pedals (the Soviet effects pedals are another topic full of wonder and awe). Some musicians had a lot of money (usually from playing the most retched gigs: restaurants (taking requests for cash), country weddings and the like). They'd make deals with the tiny cohort of people who were allowed to travel outside of the USSR to bring them US instruments. My first guitar teacher (shitty teacher, to be fair) owned a 50th anniversary Black Beauty Les Paul with gold trimmings (a 76, I suppose) and a Fender Deluxe Twin Reverb. A captain of a freighter brought if for him. This is around 1984-85. There was also a dude who somehow got an ES-175 (which I got to touch once for a whole couple of minutes!) and then built a shitty copy (messed up the neck angle, neck extension wasn't free floating above the top, sounded meh, shoddy workmanship all around). There were also guitars from the GDR (Musima, some good archtops, the rest clunky and dead sounding electrics with shitty ergonomic), very rare (and good) Polish instruments, a lot of (underappreciated) Bulgarian Orpheus semi-hollow guitars and basses (they were built mostly of beech-and-maple veneers with maple braces and center blocks, so with some work they sounded AMAZING), and then there were consistently good Czechoslovakian Jolanas, they proved to be the only truly playable and well-constructed guitars, pretty much up to western standards. But all those were hard to come by and you played what you got, there was little choice. Most Soviet guitars required inordinate amount of work to be made playable (and you'd still get a non-functioning truss rod 95% of the time -- for some reason it was a universal bane of all Soviet guitars). Also, if you were a professional musician, employed at the State Philharmonic in one of their myriad variety bands, or folk music ensembles, or a jazz orchestra, you'd usually get issued something playable, like a well looked after Musima, and, as you rise through the ranks, the great and glorious Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and its leading vanguard, the Communist Party of the Workers and Peasants might buy you a Gibson. Oh yeah, comrade, that Super 400 that the Soviet jazz guitarist Aleksei Kuznetsov played - I doubt he bought it with his own money. On a more personal note, with some help from a proper luthier I restored an Ural, which is simply indescribably great (new wiring, new bridge, new pickguard, refret, minor tweaks all around, Thomastik flatwounds). Amazing jazzy, indy, shoegazy guitar with fantastic ergonomics, love the fat neck, like an early Gibson. I also converted an Orpheus 335-style bass to a 30" baritone and it's a mother. Like a cathedral. First as a proof of concept but I will make it permanent with a neck rebuild - some day. I lucked into a perfect neck from Musima 1665 and married it to a carved violin style body from the Orpheus Tremontium bass. I was going for the Lindsey Buckingham Turner 1 thing and I kinda succeeded, it sounds amazing, like no other (semi)accoustic. Musima Electra Deluxe is another project I am trying to finish -- I only got a neck with a mangled headstock and a body, so there will be little connection to the original instrument. However, it's 50-70 year old beech and it resonates amazingly. And I need to finish refinishing (haha) Jolana Disco Bass in black cosmic sparkle, it's almost done but things got in the way. I got it as a perfectly playable instrument but all dinged up, gouged up, so I'm restoring it. However, it's a marvelous instrument -- very different from Fender basses, more for virtuosic fusion players with classical guitar-like technique. Great ergonomics too.

In the USSR electric guitar strings were hard to find before the peristroyka. The guitar and bass players used to keep their strings on for years and never cut the ends of. Some even boiled their strings in hot water to prolong their life and remove the grit. It worked.

It's not quite what you asked for, but it is a Soviet-era related story to a degree. A few years ago, either 2016 or 2017, around 2am at the Bergen airport(Norway) while waiting overnight for my flight a drunk man stumbled over to me. He needed help ordering a flight ticket back home to Lithuania, because(in a heavy Eastern European accent) "You know how mothers are 'boohoo you never visit' so I need ticket". We couldn't figure out how to do it on his phone, so we had to wait until 6am for the desks to start opening up. So in that 4 hour window we ended up talking and even though he didn't speak much English he told me a couple stories of how he was in a punk rock band in the 70's or 80's in Lithuania and performed in underground concerts in Russia in an anti-communism effort if I remember it right. He had many scars from police brutality after being in riots or just from performing, he showed me some on his arms and it looked like they had brandished him! But that would not stop him! He even went to Berlin to participate in the fall of the Berlin Wall. He showed me a few punk songs he had grown up with, because I looked like a punk myself having long hair. I have to try to get my old phone to work again to find the songs because I only wrote them in a notepad app. I do take his stories with a grain of salt as he was very drunk, but what an interesting guy. He added me to Facebook and wanted to take some selfies and I obliged. I still have one of them saved from his profile, but his profile deactivated some time in 2018 I think. I can't seem to find him there anymore anyhow. So wherever you are, Armis, I was thoroughly entertained that night!

when the iron curtain was still up my dad went to West Germany with some friends because the valuta was messed up so my dad and his friends had a lot of money to burn (they couldn't take much home or get the money back) someone offered to sell a fully loaded handgun to my dad's friend and he bought it, they had a lot of fun with it, then came time to go home and the friend completely forgot that he put the gun in his luggage, so on the way home he was super scared, that they would check his luggage but luckily they didnt.

What a timing, I discovered your chanel by watching the previous part of this video, I juste finished it and this one is up !

Russian post-rock like Molchat Doma has been getting a lot of attention recently, we might be seeing a lot more of ex-Warsaw Pact guitars and sounds, it's a nice breathe of fresh air IMO

Back in the 80's, an American and a Soviet are having a conversation. The American says: "it's great where live; we have free speech. I can just go to my congressman and say ' I don't like Reagan and the way he runs this country' ". To the American's surprise the Soviet says: " I can do that too. I too can go to my congressman and say: ' I don't like Reagan and the way he runs his country' "

War is bad. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

This is the first time I've read a comments section all the way to the end. Brilliant.

Turned out very well. Congrats to the new owner. Tim keep up the great craftsmanship and hard work my friend. Jam on God bless.

Well the only story I have of the kind is that a couple of years ago I used to work in a (very shitty) guitar store and one day a woman came in with a bass guitar from Ukraine (I think). Anyway it was, pardon the pun, bas(s)ically a Tele P-bass of sorts simply named 'Bass 2'. It had a pretty interesting fake green tortoise shell pickguard and a sunburst finish with a single soapbar-like pickup in the middle position, though opening it up revealed it to be a single coil. It had the same DIN socket and I simply had to give it a bit of a setup and replace the socket to take a typical 1/4" jack. The setup was less fun as the truss rod was not adjustable so I ended up having to reset the neck. Interesting little tidbit though.

My father in law is an old luthier, he made and restored crushed violins. I bet he has more stories about the soviet era luthier scene. I'm definietly going to ask him about guitars next time.

Ooooh...."Comments" still open, this is a good sign...

Here, in my country (Hungary, one of the westernmost countries of the former Soviet block) those who wanted to play electric guitar played mainly Jolanas, or had some western relatives or friends bring some higher quality instruments when they visited the country. Actually, everybody hated these Eastern block instruments (the brand Jolana still lives in the memory of many guitarists as the embodiment of all evil), but some East German amps, speakers and microphones were quite good, to be honest. Some, who had the ability and tools, made copies of western instruments, but these often couldn't compete with the original in terms of quality, of course. This doesn't mean that back in the 70s and 80s pro Hungarian musicians didn't play "proper" intruments. If you look up pictures taken of the most popular bands back in the day at concerts, you will see that they all used Gibson and Fender guitars, Marshall and Fender amps, Pearl drums, Hammond organs, Fender Rhodes pianos etc. The biggest bands had their own equipment, but groups with smaller audience often lent these high quality instruments to each other during gigs and recordings.

I'm repairing an old 70's shortscale soviet custom "самопал" bass right now. On pickguard it's been written "Musima-electro", but it looks like a Teisco/Danelectro with gothic/sharp vibe. Board is very thin, neck doesn't have a truss rod, but hope on 50 y.o. wood it's made of. 4 magnets on each pickup. Maybe some work of engineer, that haven't seen an electric musical instrument. Thank you, it's really inspiring what you're doing.

I love the intro and your passion for learning more about not only things, but more importantly people. Differences make us unique and are a beautiful thing... it's quite sad to see when they are used to tear relationships apart rather than build them... especially when we're all on this crazy, yet wonderful roller coaster of life together. Thank you for sharing more of your wonderful content. Stay good. 😀

Such a beautiful piece of work! The sound is so whimsical and lovely with a hint of the meatiness that lurks below if you push it! Love the guitar!!!

Not only do I love your videos and your content, but I also love your attitude and the way you handle the comment section especially on this one. I know it takes some work to go and delete negative comments and I appreciate it. I'm not here for negativity. I'm here for your positive attitude your share of knowledge and to watch you do your cool projects. Thank you Tim thank you a lot.

Dude thank you so fucking much for this vid. I've seen the "soviet era" section on ebay guitars and seeing it on a platform mesmerizes me

Ive always loved the look of Soviet era guitars and basses, so seeing them refurbished and actually playable is right up my alley (and gives me a few ideas if I do end up getting one). Keep up the great work!

Tim's Silly Guitar Channel is a perfect name

What an awesome end product, mate. Sounds like I imagined it would.👍🏽 Glad to see the comments are still available, that's a positive sign.👌🏽 Good luck with the auction, I truly hope it generates a good profit for your efforts!

I love love love these Soviet era guitars. My singer has one, we had no idea where it was from before your renders, thank you. Maybe I can buy the build!

Terrific repair work on that guitar Tim & it plays great! IF I knew how to play guitar, I'd be one of the first bidders for sure. Good luck with the sale & I'm certain that it will sell fast.... 👍👍🎸🎸😉😉

Tim, awesome work mate! As someone born in a Communist state, I was fascinated to see how this would turn out. I think you restored the old guitar in a truly sympathetic way - it’s truly beautiful and sounds great too (unique tones there)! Loved your little tune at the end and your playing is really tight. I’m a fan! 👍

These guitars, not too well known in the west until now, are one of my passions. I don’t know why but I enjoy them immensely and love working on them. I’m working on buying an orpheus 12 at some point here soon. Thanks for the videoseries, I’ve loved reading the comments from the people who played them growing up.

Ah! And there's the Futurama! I had a Futurama II after a few tweaks it could really sing, the tuners were awful though so I replaced them with a set intended for a strat. I did have to file some material off of one of them to get them to fit the spaces. But despite the guitars weedy output through the pickups, when it was over driven it was a GRUNGE MACHINE! It was perfect for Teen Spirit with a jangly spiky clean tone and plenty of dirt and tone when over driven. I've often toyed with the idea of making a replica but built with a full scale neck and larger body! I miss that guitar a lot but it was a bit of a pain keeping it in tune and intonated properly but when everything aligned it was such a good thrashy guitar to play Nirvana covers with :-)

Love the respectful way you treated this old gem. Perfect for people tired of the same old, same old Fender, Gibson, whatever. So cool!

Great job, and dig the music video at the end. I appreciate the grand Guitarchaeology of Soviet guitars you had planned, and why you abandoned the project! I've been trying similar projects on my channel (the one I'm most happy with is the one on Hondo's headless guitar The Sting,) but man it is a heavy & ardourous task!

5:35 "if there is such a thing" There is now! 😄 I really like the whole DIY punk thing with those guitars, even in the decadent West in the 80s I had to "make do and mend" a lot, we didn't much money at all. This seems like just the same taken to ninja level. Really like this series Tim!

Tim, you've been brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed this video, and having said that: weird and "difficult" guitars, cameras and mechanical instruments have always been my dearest. Hooray to you!

Tim, I enjoy the vintage guitars too! They have so many hidden gems in their simple design! Love the videos! Keep them coming!

that guitar sounds beautiful! as a dude who is technically still growing up in post-communist poland during the 2000s, it amuses me to see these old pieces of "art" hahaha. the tone is great and i've noticed that the zero fret technique might actually have been pretty common in post-soviet countries. i recently got an old polish acoustic guitar with its neck broken (at the joint so it's not completely off) and i noticed that it also has a zero fret on there along with a nut. while i haven't been able to get it to work cuz of the damage it has, it still looks wonderful. sadly it lacks a bridge, but it does have a string holder similar to the ones you can find on a bigsby or an archtop (the ones that are mounted at the bottom side of the guitar and go into a V shape until they get close to the bridge). it's a fascinating topic these guitars, and they really sound so... red and communist. now to clarify i'm not saying that communism is bad or good, i'm just describing the tone so please no one get mad about these things. anyways love your work tim, and cheers from poland!

Great story telling. Love the ending song. That guitar is really unique. Good luck on the auction. Mahalo for sharing! : )

That control you have on the feedback is freaking awesome, I love it!

thats a really cool piece you wrote there at the end! Captures the sound and vibe of this guitar immaculately. Greeting from a post soviet country :D

i realy live the sovet parts in guitars, pedals and amps also i have seen alot of builds using war ascetics using enclosures big knobs, bits of kit i realy like the look of it when used creatively

you know what...after watching a few videos now..i realize your like a long lost brother....everything your doing and your attitude and only confirmed buy your words at the beginning of your video..same thing i have been doing for the last 30 years..cant even think of a number of how many guitar i have either built or modified..frankensteined etc over the years as a hobby and a passion..some good some bad....and the fact you got your own studio and play all the instruments....same here...i have no further choice than to absolutely smack that subscription button and say..hello brother..shout out from your new alaskan brother..loved the song..had a great 70's kind of vibe to it and the feedback at the end was classic..i know those old guitars well..Russian and other various European and obscure American guitars from that era...the pickups are so absolutely micro-phonic...and can only imagine what it must have been like to play them thru old tube amps from that era...love the channel brother..going to be going thru all your videos and enjoying your personality and your content..be well brother...

Nice work, the guitar looks and sounds cool! Good editing on the musical interlude section.

Tim, it's funny that we're both left-handed, but you play guitar righty and drums lefty, while I play guitar lefty and drums with a right-handed orientation (but I play open-handed). I was really anticipating this video. It was like the 12th day of Christmas when I got the notification, this morning. 😁

I've been watching you videos for some time now and I'm going to work on my first guitar build soon Man you inspired me alot

WOWOWOWOWOWO... super super super ... love a lot all the stuff you do... video projects and other memorabilia etc .. thanks Tim from italy ..

9:50 feels like you woke up in the experimental corner of mid 90's rock and i love it. Please write me an album.

That guitar came out sick Tim!! It looks and sounds awesome, really excited to see what you have in store next with the other russian guitars!

Great Luthier work. Really cool. I am really curious to hear what this cool guitar sounds like played by a guitarist.

So glad to see the finished guitar! It looks so rad, I'd love to get my hands on it. It seems perfect for an indie rock guitar

Tim I commend you for bringing up the history surrounding these guitars. If we decide to build a instrument in the US for example any parts we need are just a click away. Although not always great quality it's amazing how these guitars were built.

Great project, Tim, and especially cool you are totally open to see the results on eBay no matter what. I really like this wee guitar; very oddball

This thing doesn't need to be relic'd, it is one. 😄 Seriously cool project, and amazing that it didn't take much (at least on camera) to make it payable again. As somebody pointed out to me in a comment from the previous video, those massive toggles are just wall switches. I still think they look super cool. It's probably just my perspective, but US wall switches would just look silly on a guitar, or at least not nearly as cool. Looking forward to what gets resurrected next! Thanks for sharing!

Nice tune you play at the end and cool guitar. I see similar types on eBay every now and then but know I don't have the skills to get it running.

Man I love soviet guitars, a friends dad whos from Ukraine brought over a seven string classic guitar when he migrated in the 90s, he like to play gypsy music on it.

Your videos inspire me. It inspired me enough to buy a russian guitar. It looks rough and unplayable, but the potential is there. I'll be tuning in to more of your videos to see how I can improve on it.

I just found your channel and i already love it

Thank you Tim. I regained a little hope over here. Let's not be jerks. Words to live by. Also... Nice playing!

Regarding your comments on the comment section . . . I admire your optimism. BTW, Soviet era guitars have suddenly turned up on several other channels. I really enjoyed the video.

You are so much fun to watch. Such an interesting guitar. More of this!

The ascending arpeggios towards the end there was great. All together it was awesome.

My dad ( from macedonia ) has an old beaten up acoustic from Grič ( a Croatian company ) from the early 80's. It was a budget guitar when he bought it and the whole top broke at one point ( from a drop ) but it was repaired and tbh its very solid for what it is. Granted the action is preaty high because the bridge is lifting a bit but u can easily play open chords on it.

Wonderful. I really liked the demo piece you recorded with the guitar, it has a Khruangbin vibe to it.

I was a US soldier in 1976-79 and was stationed in West Germany in 1979. My job was to repair electronics used on Nike Hercules air defense missile sites. Nike Herc was a long range missile originally designed to shoot down airplanes. That was expanded to shooting down a squadron of planes with a nuclear warhead or surface to surface delivery of a nuke out to something over 100 miles. I am so glad we have backed away from that world. I got to be part of removing the nuclear warheads from one of our missile sites.

I have two of these USSR instruments. I would love to learn the cold war history!!. There are Tens of Thousands guitar set-up and repair Videos on You Tube,...boring, but very few channels discussing the innovation and Influence from the Eastern Bloc during 1950-1980. Thanks For posting this !

This is kinda inspiring me to pick up my old guitar project. Its made with barnwood from my grandpas old barn we had to tear down. Of course I saved as much as would fit in my closet and I've been making keepsakes for my family whenever I get the chance. I started to make a guitar for myself, but I busted my wrist from my job and had to put it down.

I improvised a nut for my Mitchell 12 string using a threaded bolt. It worked so good that I stopped looking for a replacement( it was meant to be temporary.)

I can’t wait for the next episode!!!

Like your closing studio song double or harmony guitar riffs and the major 7 half time breakdown.

Wow, those pickups sound amazing and unique. Very gold foil with ferrite magnets-ish.

A lovely restoration; and I’m loving the “one world” feel :)

That song you made for the video slaps. It’s a a banger

My favorite soviet cold war era guitars are the Jolana, they had a screwdriver to adjust it built into one of the strap buttons and I think that's just the coolest thing ever

Hey Tim here's a Cold War guitar story for you. I arrived in Czechoslovakia in 1991, shortly after the Velvet Revolution, and there were a few guitar shops opening up, and they had these very strange instruments: hand-made copies of Gibsons and Fenders. Apparently there was a big underground music scene under Communism, and everyone wanted American guitars, but owning a pair of Levis was a major life investment, so a real SG or whatever was out of the question. But it was communism and nothing ever happened so they had all the time in the world, so they got the plans and built their own. A friend of mine bought a fretless P-Bass which I used to gig with and it's the best bass I've ever played. Got stolen unfortunately. Anyway, the thing is that once the Wall fell nobody would be seen dead playing one of these 'fakes' (in fact better made than the 'real' ones) and soon the guitar shops were filled with imported instruments costing thousands of dollars. I had my eye on a hand-made Melody Maker, but someone bought it. The manufactured guitars and amplifiers, like this one you are working on, were pretty dreadful really. I was told people got the blueprints for Fender Twin Reverbs and AC30s and made those too, though I never saw that with my own eyes.

Wow I love your work and presentation of those odd guitars. 👍

i love these guitars, this turned me on to something i never knew before. i hope to have one of my own by summer time.

Imagine playing a Skynyrd cover gig, and showing up with that guitar through a Klempt Echolette! That would be AWESOME!

Amazing what you have done for this guitar! Bravo!

7:45 I would’ve removed the nut, widened the slot, added a Fender-style nut, and then use a chisel to slope the fretboard between the new nut and where the old nut used to be. Just what I would have done. Nice work

Interesting 23 inch scale. I just built a CBG 23" scale. I had to tune it to open G from E because I was experiencing the same issue with fretting too hard and going up a semi tone.

I'd also love to hear what it was like back then. I hope it was better than the situation in Brazil during the military dictatorship, where you couldn't (legally) import anything, so there were only national instrument makers. Issue was, the good stuff was expensive, so people got the cheapest instruments they could get - Tonante, or "Ao Rei dos Violões", a Brazilian manufacturer owned by 2 portuguese brothers, but the quality was abysmal. Pickguards that didn't get slack removed from the cutting, all pickups in strat-like guitars were wound the same, the necks were often warped, and other issues. Despite that, they were popular since it was the only affordable option in the market. To this day, there's people who are fans of them, and restore/fix them up like you've done here!

Im glad we have more accurate ways to intonate guitars these days...... excellent vid..

What a cool video. Very nice build!

That is an awsome song you made. Is that song on any streaming apps? Love to have that in my Spotify-playlist. Also Nice guitar and work. Kind greetings from a dude in Sweden.

Seen this in my recommended first time viewer and not disapointed at all. Kinda Cool guitar (not exactly my type but still kinda cool) and your picking technique with the crooked wrist reminds me of Marty Friedman keep it up man

с новым годом, товарищи! даёшь рок-н-ролл!!

It looks to me like a mashup of Futurama body and electronics with Jolana Star V neck. At least the neckplate is from Star V. I don't sure there is a difference in headstock shape of those two since I never had a chance to compare them back-to-back, but Futurama headstock seems to be more sharp at the end.

the scroll wheel in the guitar is super cool. i cant seem to find any scroll wheels with pots anywhere. wonder if those were custom made or what

I love ur channel mate..the only east guitar restoration I've made is an oural guitar..the best upgrade was to rip off all the crazy electronics and redo it..and it's amazing how the original pickups sounds really good...well the Trem is no way to work really and the neck still a log.. but I love that guitar

Hey, Tim. You might want to fix that link in the description. It goes to an error page, saying it cannot be found. Great work, by the way. I hope it sells. :)

There's this awesome Soviet-era bass that I want to rehab; it's so funky, and just awesome! Anyway, that bridge with the fret wire is the EXACT same one used on the Harley Benton Beatbass.

That bridge would have been the first part I would have chucked into the bin. I appreciate you trying to make it work.

I was growing up in former Yugoslavia. Until the tearing this country apart, it was one country mixing the best of the eastern and western world. We were socialist country but not under the iron curtain. People from the "West" couldn't travel to the "East", and vice versa. Yugoslav people could equally travel to both these sides, making Yugoslav passports the most appreciated ones on the "black market" :-) . We were living in the nice life standard, never having too much, but always having more than enough. In terms of musical instruments we could equally find to buy USA Fenders, Gibsons, but also Chechoslovakian Jolana guitars, and East Germany Musima, and Bulgarian Kremona guitars. Guitars from the "West" always had nicer mancraft work and finishes. Eastern guitars were not so fine in its appearance, but electronics was mostly a lot better than in the West-made guitars. Jolana basses that I still own now have really high quality Tesla pots, paper-in-oil capacitors, and oh my God, perfect pickups. I would advise to all open minded collectors to get some of Jolana basses from late sixties through seventies and early eighties. You will not pay much for them and you will be surprised with its sound. Cheers.

Sounds really good. Has that vintage smoky sound. And looks definately catchy, so to say.

happier part of eastern block here. I grew up in the socialist era in Hungary. Typical, available guitar brands in the 80's were Jolana (former Czechoslovakia), Kremona/Orpheus (Bulgaria) and Musima (former East-Germany). They all were a punishment and anyone, anytime would have swapped them for any western brand. Fun fact for westerners: because of state distribution, even those brands were not always available, so if you wanted a new instrument you walked in to a state owned music strore and picked the brand on offer that week or month. There was no wide selection to choose from at all.... So if you wanted to have a brand new Gibson or a Fender or alike, first you had to work your guts out, then either had to travel to e.g. Vienna (if you could buy enough schillings in advance) or find someone among the privileged ones who frequently travelled abroad (someone from foreign affairs ministry, or a professional sportsman or alike) and persuade the person to fetch you the gear. There were some used gears around though, I had a friend in the second half of the eighties in middle school who had a Japanese Fender strat and he bought it from a professional musician and that was really rad that time. And then, the 90's came and the borders opened up and all western brands swept in pretty fast.

Nice to see this piece finished!

Good stuff tim!.. I liked the video & song was good too!

I can't get over the rocker switches and the scroll wheel. I haven't gotten into guitar building yet so i'm having trouble figuring it out, but what do the rocker switches do on this one?

Pretty cool when you stop to think. It was made in a country and at a time that you could get thrown in jail for playing Rock and some jazz. It may have been illegal to even build it. Anything seamed American influenced was heavily frowned on. And someone took the time and effort to build a strat out of a lot of none guitar switches and stuff. I love the bridge! So glad you kept it!

Wondering about keeping the 0th fret vs. relocating nut?

I am familiar with Jolana [Yolah-na] guitars, a Soviet-era Czech brand. I own four from between ‘60 and ‘84. Two perfect to this day, two almost beyond redemption. They varied widely in quality even in cases of same model, same year. In my home country of Hungary for decades it was these or nothing. You can really see the thinking, innovation, problem solving minds of the builders. Browse a huge collection here: cheesyguitars.com/

I'm super interested in the pickups of the soviet era. I've heard they're great if you remove slot of the unnecessary wiring. Be cool to find the gold foil equivalent

Find a Tonika to rebuilt. Those things are hilarious.

Hey, so cool to see you taking on those Soviet guitars. I was born in the GDR and have a very similar one: A Jolana Star. Same body and neck shape, different materials and electronics. However, there's not a lot left from its original state. Back when my dad got it, he wanted it to look like a black Les Paul, so he cut away the upper horn, put the rotary pickup selector in the LP position and closed the back with wood putty, and added two more pots. Then he coated the whole thing with thick black paint. When I was a kid and the borders were open already (I guess it was in the late 90s), we did another modification: We refinished it in transparent brown and added a new white pickguard, and changed the electronics to two humbuckers and added an active preamp (bad idea, but I wanted this back then). For the pickups to fit, we had to remove a lot of wood, so the already bad sustain of this guitar got even worse... But it looks nice and it was a fun project!