Applause AE-32 Refurbishments / Cleaning.
Ovation applause ae247 how to#
Fortunately, these days it’s possible to get information about how to do guitar repairs from YouTube, so I spent some time researching what I could reasonably do, but for anyone reading this please don’t assume it is advice from an expert. In fact, I can remember when I was about 16 and had a £50 fender copy guitar, spending hours trying to lower the action by adjusting the truss rod – god knows what damage I did to that poor guitar. To be clear, I’m not a guitar expert and I’d never done any proper guitar repairs. The basic construction seems ok – the neck is still firmly attached to the body and the fret board and bridge also don’t move so I’m hoping with decent strings, new set of tuners, cleaning and some attention paid to the action the Applause will be OK when I’ve finished. To be honest, the kindest thing to do would be to give the guitar a decent burial, but instead I decided to have a go at restoring it.Īctually, despite my comments above, being a round backed guitar which is made from a plastic type material, I suspect that the Applause AE-32 has probably not been damaged as much by the extremes of temperature change as a normal, wooden guitar would be (as I’ll probably find out when I get the Ranger 6 down). On closer inspection, the frets were also pretty dirty and pitted. The whole of the top of the guitar was covered in sticky insulation material and the tuning pegs were rusted and gritty when I turned them. The strings were rusted and broke as soon as I tried to get the guitar in tune. I have to say that 19 years in the heat and cold had not been kind on the poor old Applause. Taking pity on it, I pulled it out of the loft and brought it down to see how it would sound after all those years (noting as I did it that I also have an Eko Ranger 6 in the loft as well!).
Ovation applause ae247 full#
Apparently, they were made by Ovation as a cheaper alternative to the full Ovation models and were an attempt by the company to make sure other companies didn’t produce cheaper versions of their trademark bowl back design – in effect they got into the cheap copy market for their own product!īack to my particular example and many years have passed since the guitar was purchased and for the biggest part of them, certainly since 2000 when we moved into our current house, the Applause has been laying in the loft forgotten.Ī couple of weeks ago I was in the loft putting away our cases after a weekend away and I saw the head of the guitar laying on the insulation material. I found this catalogue which includes the AE-32 which dates it from the late 1970s. There are volume and tone controls fitted to the side of the bowl, and a jack socket on the back. They were made in various colours although mine is the rather staid and boring looking natural finish. I know I used to own a Ranger 12 and traded it for another acoustic somewhere along the line so the Applause was probably the one.Īs an aside, to give some information, the Applause AE-32 is a round backed guitar with a body made of Lyramold (think plastic or fibreglass), a 20 fret rosewood fretboard, a mahogany neck, no cut away in the body and a pickup fitted under the bridge saddle. I can’t remember now what I paid for it, but I don’t think I bought it new and I have a vague recollection I may have traded an Eko Ranger 12 for it.