Peavey T-60 and T-40 - the early days, continued. . . .

Once again, I am very grateful for Chip's considerable input into this.
He is prolific, which for me is great - the whole story unfolds in great detail.
He was editor of American Gunsmith for about 10 years and wrote 
hundreds of articles, so he is no stranger to the keyboard!

This is going to be a lengthy post, as I am going to cover my oldest T-40,
while Chip continues with the story. 
The heads above show the subtle difference between the early (1977) one
and the later 1979

In the images below, you will see the "applied" dot markers that Chip refers
to in his story.
 The top image shows the way they are now and if you look closely at the 
bottom image, you will see that the dot is slightly raised. 

The tuners on the earlier one, are also very slightly different.
The top image shows early above and later below.
The middle image shows the earlier ones from above and the
image at the bottom, shows the later one from above. 

The early one also seems to have a nut at either end of the rod!
There are also markings on the neck and in the pocket - not sure
what they mean but I will check with Chip.

The pots are marked 77 and there are some scribbles and initials,
written in pencil. Brass bottomed pick-ups. 

This, as you can see, is currently stripped for an overhaul - 
not a restoration, as I like it the way it is but the switches 
are a little worn.

Anyway, more input from me next time - back to what Chip 
has to say.
I asked him this question - Did you set out to make the T-40 and T-60
a bit more special/innovative/different because of Peavey ethos/your 
desire to lead in another direction or because it was deemed as a good 
marketing standpoint - or a bit of both?

I was both a commercial artist and mechanical engineer when Peavey hired me 
and we both had the desire to build things using the most accurate and cost 
effective methods available, at the time. 
We both felt that most guitar designs and manufacturing methods were incestuous 
as everybody was copying what had been done for centuries. 
I was a machinist, dragster builder and driver, and knew that metalworking methods 
could make better and more economical instruments, than the antiquated processes 
used by all the manufacturers around in 1975, when I started designing the T-series 
guitars and basses.
Evidently, none of the luthiers had heard of Henry Ford, the father of mass production.

Things like the outline of the peghead and the ease of graphics were a well-kept secret 
for years, and we kept it to ourselves. 
As a commercial artist, I had been using rub-on lettering for years and naturally was 
ready with that in mind when we designed the peghead. 
The rub-on dot markers were successful because of the urethane paint we used
but a band touring the factory surprised the ladies putting on the dots and that 
embarrassed Peavey into changing to the inlayed vinyl dots.
It would take a book to relate the many changes to production that we initiated
but several of the innovations have changed the manufacturing of guitars worldwide. 
There are several holdouts, such as Gibson and Fender, who are trapped by the 
words they published and had to keep up some old, less-than-smart, methods. 
Fender hired me to bring them up into the modern age with Peavey, but CBS 
changed management to ex-Yamaha executives who were thoroughly indoctrinated 
by Japanese methods.

The wood supplier we chose to use was run by an old woodworker in Alabama who 
told me, "Son, in woodworking you work to 1/16 of an inch, not thousandths. 
We took him over to our Meridian, Mississippi facility and showed him that 
metal-working techniques worked with wood, as long as you controlled the
moisture level. 
He was sold on it and gave talks at wood industry meetings. 
With this process, we had to return any machined wood to a humidity-controlled 
room, each night until it got past the painting stage.  
Hartley (Peavey) and I are both aircraft fans and knew that nothing takes more 
abuse in the finish than aircraft sitting out in the sun and rain like airplanes. 
We got Sherwin Williams work up a catalyzed urethane like DuPont's Emron paint, 
which was way too expensive as it was "aircraft" related.

The only thing that we did for marketing reasons, even though we knew that it was 
wrong, was to make individual saddles with height adjustment like Fender. 
Peavey was afraid that Fender would use that against us while we were "the new kids 
on the block". 
There is no valid reason to support individual height adjustment for the strings. 
The  height of the strings should be in an arc that mimics the arch of the frets. 
We chose to use an inexpensive method of tilting the neck for string height 
adjustment, although most musicians refused to read any instructions. 
All other design features were done for functionality and not tradition.

Chip.





Many thanks, Chip - I have more questions for next time.

Cheers. :)  

Peavey T-60, T-40, Chip Todd - Hartley Peavey - "Take from the top!". . .

As I said in one of my previous posts, I am very lucky to
have a substantial input from Chip, himself and I am grateful
for the time he has put into it and he has indicated there is
more to come.

I you own, or have owned  a Peavey T Series guitar, I'm sure you
will find what Chip has to say, very interesting as the story unfolds.

Thanks Chip. :)

So, back to the beginning, from the man who put the "T" in the 
T series Basses and Guitars, in his own words.

I think that Hartley first thought seriously about making guitars in early 1975, 

as he hired me in mid-1975. 

Both Gibson and Fender were telling dealers that if they didn't buy amps, they 

wouldn't be able to get guitars. 

That's illegal and called "tying in a product". 

Both made amps; Fender's were pretty and Gibson could hardly give their 

amps away.  

Instead of starting illegal proceedings, Peavey decided to make guitars 

knowing that "a best defense is a good offense". 

I had a warranty repair center in Houston doing work for Gibson, Fender, 

Ovation, Harmony, and other companies after getting out of the monorail 

business. 

I had contacted Mudge Miller, a friend who was the Gibson Sales manager, 

to find out how I should get into the guitar repair business, as I had met him 

while doing repairs for a music store while in college. 

He advised me to go to Houston and not fight Arnold & Morgan in Dallas. 

I took his advice and moved to Houston. 

Several years later, I was delivering an Ovation acoustic to Brook Mays, 

the largest chain in Texas, a repair that involved  extensive work around the 

outside edges of the sound board. 

I had airbrushed a Walnut sunburst on the front to hide the repairs, went to 

Brook Mays to return it, and Peavey's Texas representative was there and 

saw the sunburst Ovation. 

Since Ovation didn't do any sunburst at that time, the rep. was impressed 

and flew to the factory to tell Hartley about me. 

I had a college degree in both commercial art and mechanical engineering 

and both tied in with starting a factory. 

The rep, Bob Belfield, flew me to  Meridian, Mississippi to meet Hartley, 

(several of the Peavey reps had there own airplanes, as they were making 

around $250,000 while the reps for other music manufacturers were making 

about $45,000).  

Hartley's first question was, "What do you think of the "Zero Fret"? I answered, 

"It's the most sensible way to automatically achieve a perfect action on fretted 

instruments but something that the Japanese guitar makers have screwed up 

by losing their nerve and making the zero fret oversized". 

He grinned his large smile which said that we were going to get along fine. 

He hired me that day and we "made the town that night". 

Bob flew me back to Houston where I gave my repair center to Kevin Perry, 

who was my main help in Houston. 

I started work for Peavey in June or July of 1975. 

Neither Hartley nor I played the serial numbers game, so didn't keep serial 

number/date manufacturing dates recorded, in fact, we started with the serial 

numbers in the 25000000 range and used blocks of numbers that we took 

from the amplifier numbers. 

We didn't even keep track of the starting date of production; the current serial 

number list is just "a wild-ass guess", at best.

The six digit numbers were used as a lame attempt at my trying to get around 

using amplifier numbers, as were the 8M numbers, since the serial number 

program didn't recognize letters.

  
Hartley and I designed almost everything together. 

About the first or second day at work, Hartley took me to lunch at a small cafe 

that had home-style plate lunches and we were talking neck production. 

We were drawing to each other on napkins and arrived at a novel neck 

construction together. 

I said, "Where's my traditional $1 which is what most companies pay an 

engineer for patents, and he quickly said, "You're eating it". 

We "co-patented" the invention together. 

The hardest thing we designed was the peghead, since he wanted six keys 

on one side like Fender; anything  far away from Fender looked funny to us, 

but we didn't want to copy Fender, 

We finally settled on the T-series design, but I made a 3 per side version for 

the first prototypes for the 1976 NAMM show. 

The first three prototypes were made in my carport, by Charley Gressett 

and Bob Lowe, (later changed to R.T. Lowe), with minimal tools, in two days. 

We hadn't planned on names, yet, so Peavey told me to make them up. 

I used "CT-1", (my initials), for the 6-inline peghead, "CT-2" for the 3/side 

peghead, and "CT-B" for the bass guitar. 

The later naming meetings in late 1976, were hilarious events. 

Some time before that NAMM show, Hartley told me,  

"We're lucky to have a very profitable amplifier program to sponsor us, 

so I don't want to go to market until you say we're ready".

You asked about the pickguard. With the compound curvature of the front, it 

took a whole bunch of screws to keep the pickguard from bowing up in places. 

People have complained about the screws, but fail to notice the number of 

screws on the Stratocasters, which had a flat front. 

We were never allowed the same rules as Fender and Gibson. 

  
I showed Chip this youtube clip, to see if he agreed with the content.
See from 0:58 to 2:50. 

 

  
The guy on U-Tube was mostly correct. He just flubbed a couple of minor facts.

We did use many innovative techniques, that changed guitar manufacturing 

around the world. 
Gibson and Fender were locked into antiquated manufacturing 

ideas by tradition.

He added this at the end

  
Sorry, this turned out to be "War and Peace", but the whole program was breaking 

new ground.

Chip  

I think it's a good story, well told.

More to come next time, with some images of my earliest T-40 and the
subtle differences between that and the main production that followed.

My thanks to Chip - I look forward to the next part.

Cheers. :) 

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