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 Interceptor find 
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Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:42 am
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Location: Oakland, CA
Post Interceptor find
I've been reading through a couple of Interceptor threads after stumbling upon one earlier today. Can anyone tell me more about this?

- 2 non-MFD humbuckers
- kahler vibrato
- I can't find the serial number anywhere. Heel plate replaced with something else? Dunno
- The controls look like: individual volume for each pickup, a pickup selector switch and treble and bass rolloff knobs. I don't know for certain yet because I haven't fixed the broken solder on the input jack.
- A lot of wear and tear
- two distinctly different styles of knobs


There is a mystery hole through the body and into the copper shielding plate of the control cavity. It appears this is a professional hole, not done by some hack with a hand drill, so I assume it's a factory hole. Original switch was moved? Maybe there was a second switch? What could it be for?

This thing has gunk from sitting. When I dust it, it just smears. What's a good way to get the mildly sticky goo off? Soap and water? Any other solvents?

Is it possible to order replacement vibrato arm from anywhere?

Tomorrow I'm going to fix the output jack and take off the neck to see if I can learn anything more.

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Sun Jan 14, 2018 1:37 am
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Post Re: Interceptor find
...Wow, that's a dream.

I'm unfamiliar with Kahlers; how would one perform without a locking nut? G&L didn't seem shy about doing this, but I wonder how they would deal with slacking the strings. Locking tuners? Also, wonder if the serial is covered beyond legibility by the crinkle plate.


Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:03 am
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Hi sclera,

What a find! Doesn't look all too shabby.

It is a similar Interceptor HH as I discuss in this post. The pickups look like original Schaller humbuckers. The hole is where the mini-toggle pickup selector used to be. So you are correct, that hole is original. The added separate volume control and where the pickup selector switch currently is are modifications. You can compare the picture you took of the control cavity with the one in the referenced post to get more details.

The serial number is supposed to be on the neck plate. Hard to figure out what happened there. From the looks of it, given the absence of a spring cavity on the back, it seems it is not a vibrato replacement where once upon a time this guitar had a DFV with serial number stamped on it. You could check whether the body is plugged, i.e. a spring cavity was filled with a piece of wood. Although, to do this, you might need to take off the Kahler, I reckon. Most likely, it either never had a S/N (there are 2 without S/N in the Registry) or they replaced the neck plate. However, there is not a string lock behind the neck either which is somewhat weird given the presence of the Kahler. Complete neck replacement? Who knows, but also not likely. Otherwise, the guitar looks very much like Joe Maas' 2nd X-body interceptor HH. Note, that guitar does have a string clamp behind the nut.

Mildly damp rag with some soap and then wiping it off with clean damp rag should do the job for cleaning.

Kahler replacement arms are readily available on eBay.

Hope this helps,

- Jos


Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:06 am
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Wow, thanks for all the helpful info!

So I got the neck off and cleaned the guitar finish up with some warm water and a capful of Dr. Bronner's oil soap.

Serial number is still nowhere to be found. It's definitely not on the neck plate, ie. not one of those where there's too much paint to read stamped numbers. The numbers simply aren't there.

The Kahler baseplate wouldn't budge after I removed the four visible mounting screws. Are there more screws I'm not seeing?

The date stamp on the neck is March 14, 1984
The date stamp on the body neck cavity is hard to read because of paint and some chipping, but to me it looks like Sept ?? 1986

Upon further inspection, one of the pots is definitely not the same as the other three. One has a silver color shaft, the other three have more of a copper color.

I got the pickups working; one wire has simply come detached from the input jack, probably from twisting.

Neck pickup reads 8.08 kΩ
Bridge pickup reads 7.97 kΩ

Whatever replacement wiring is going on is funky. It's more like a Gibson wiring with one tone knob assigned to each pickup.

I've also had difficulty setting up and tuning up the vibrato. The guitar keeps going out of tune and not staying in tune. Maybe there's something I'm not understanding about how to set up a Kahler yet (my first one).

Anyway, still a project. It's making noise, but not a player yet.


Last edited by scelerat on Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.



Sun Jan 14, 2018 7:09 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Kahler parts are also available at whammyparts.com. You could probably find some kind of manuals to download either there or at Kahler.com to help with the setup.


Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:43 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Things I still need to do:

1. Replace the missing micro-tilt screw. Are these orderable from G&L?
2. Get a part number for the replacement vibrato arm (I see them on ebay as you Jos said, but it seems there are a couple of different options)
3. Restore the electronics - would the Interceptor have come with the PTB system? one volume plus passive treble & bass bleed pots?
4. do something with the remaining holes

Here are some more pics of the neck heel, neck pocket, and pickups:

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Sun Jan 14, 2018 8:47 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
John C wrote:
Kahler parts are also available at whammyparts.com. You could probably find some kind of manuals to download either there or at Kahler.com to help with the setup.


You can download the pictures in this post for a Kahler set-up manual. And if you want to hear it fro the horse's mouth, here links to a triplet setup video by Gary Kahler himself (the links are reported by URLVVoid as suspect, so copy and paste them in your URL field of your browser):
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iaex6G5qNWU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QQXti9k3iw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl1BjBU0jng


Hope this helps,

- Jos


Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:50 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
scelerat wrote:
The Kahler baseplate wouldn't budge after I removed the four visible mounting screws. Are there more screws I'm not seeing?

Hi scelerat,

I think the 4 screws should have been it. This is how a Kahler 2320 is put together:
Image

Hope this helps,

- Jos


Sun Jan 14, 2018 11:03 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Great help Jos, and everyone.

As for the stuck bridge assembly, maybe it's just the finish holding it down. Is there any reason I actually would need to take the mounting plate off of the body? Seems like it wants to stay there, so I think I'll assume this was a factory trem and leave it at that.


Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:37 am
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Hey scelerat,

What a great find, congratulations! :thumbup:

The rest of us just want to know where you're uncovering these treasures. Have fun with that one for sure.

_________________
Cya,
Sam


Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:03 am
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Post Re: Interceptor find
scelerat wrote:
Great help Jos, and everyone.

As for the stuck bridge assembly, maybe it's just the finish holding it down. Is there any reason I actually would need to take the mounting plate off of the body? Seems like it wants to stay there, so I think I'll assume this was a factory trem and leave it at that.


Hi scelerat,

I'd only be willing to take it off if I really, really, really wanted to know whether the guitar ever had a DFV. But I figured out a different way to test this hypothesis. Since the guitar still has a nitro finish, which has a tendency to shrink, you can hold the back of the guitar at the proper angle for lighting and check for any weird seams. Depending on how many pieces of maple were used, you should see 1 or 2 running the complete length of the body. If there is a plug, you'd also see a rectangular one. My prediction is there isn't any and this is just the way the guitar was built.

BTW, thanks for posting all the pictures. As you might have noticed, there is a special interest for this model among many participants on this forum. ;)

- Jos


Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:12 am
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Post Re: Interceptor find
I'm not sure if this detail of the back helps since it's kind of blurry, but in person it seems like there's a faint line going right down the middle the body, so i think this is simply a factory Kahler on a two-piece body. No evidence of filled-in body routes.

Sam, in answer to your question about where I got it: the Amigo Guitar show in Marin on Saturday.

A friend of mine is a guitar dealer and he put the G&L bug in me. He has a particular obsession with the SC-1s and SC-2s. In the last four or five years I've been buying and selling G&Ls here and there as finances and fancy allows, including several SC-1, SC-2, SC-3 of various styles, a few ASATs, an early F-100, an early S-500, and an early L-1000 bass. So at this point I've seen a handful of old G&Ls and have registered most of them here on the forum. I'd even read about the Interceptor, so I was familiar with it. Never seen one in person.

There was a booth at the show that had a lot of cheap Japanese and no-name guitars, another interest of mine. I like old '70s and '80s Aria Pro IIs, and I was looking at a well-kept Wildcat on a stand that was being offered at a practically free (for a guitar) price. Was reaching for it, then saw this Interceptor lying on the table next to it. A piece of masking tape had "400" written on it. I thought maybe there was a digit missing on one side or the other. I took it to the fellow who ran the booth and asked him what he knew about the guitar. He said he had it for a while, thought it was kind of rare, but at this point he was trying to clear out a whole bunch of stuff that hadn't been selling. I asked if I could plug it in.

While I waited for him to find a cable, I looked over the guitar and tried to think of everything I knew about G&Ls: what the knobs and tuners would look like, where the serial number might be and so on. Since I couldn't find the serial number I thought maybe the Kahler was a later addition (it may well be -- still a little unclear). Then the thought crossed my mind that "maybe it's a counterfeit." I mean, these are rare, right? It couldn't possibly be $400. Then I thought, that's silly. Who would bother to counterfeit a G&L, admittedly a rare guitar, but really only known by a relatively small group of people? And then sell it for that cheap. No, I felt certain it was authentic.

I plugged it in. No sound. Played with the knobs, flipped the switch, double-checked the amp and the cable. Something was clearly wrong with the electronics. The fellow at the booth frowned. "That's funny," he said, "it worked the last time I tried it. But that was a few years ago. It's been sitting for a while. Tell you what -- I'll knock off $50."

"Ok," I said, "that seems fair."

I didn't have the cash in hand; I had to find an ATM. The closest one was in the Embassy Suites across the parking lot and a small creek from the Marin Center. I asked the guy to set the guitar aside for me. I walked quickly to the exit, then ran across the bridge. I was sweating. Not from running, just anticipation. The ATM would only let me take out $200 at a time. I tried taking out a second $200. DENIED. Gah! Noooooooo. Luckily it was my bank looking out for me. Suspicious activity pulling out money from an ATM next to a guitar show. Maybe my wife called the bank, knowing I'd be at the guitar show. Ha. Cleared it up via text messages, pulled a second $200 out, then ran. Then walked swiftly and purposefully back to the booth, trying to suppress my excitement. I got the guitar and a receipt.

Since this collecting game is all about impressing other people (ha. that's sarcasm if it's coming from me) I showed my guitar dealer friend and he made some very satisfactory "ooo" and "ahh" sounds and asked me how much. When I told him, the look alone was worth the price of the guitar. He's had a couple go through his shop so he was familiar with them.

I went to the show with two other friends. All three of us walked away with a prize we were happy with, so we went to celebrate with enchiladas and beer at Juan's Place, a Berkeley institution.

The hunt is really fun. But I like playing this guitar, too. It's pretty much working and set up now. I'm probably going to restore the knobs to a single volume and two tone controls, and maybe add a switch for series/parallel for the middle position since the hole is already there, then do something to fill the hole someone made for that fourth pot. I love the pickups: bright and articulate. The Interceptor is surprisingly comfortable to play.

Can't wait to play this thing out with my country/pub rock band. (not sarcasm this time :-)


Mon Jan 15, 2018 2:28 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Great little story, with $50 bucks knocked of to boot.
:clap:


Mon Jan 15, 2018 3:27 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Wow, that's got to be the find of the year and it's still January. Congrats on the amazing find.

Tom, (a mere mortal with no Interceptor).


Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:10 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Congratulations on a nice find. A friend of mine "Gabe" alerted me to your Interceptor. This is the first post in years, just reset my password, LOL!!! My guess is this was an employee guitar, put together out of parts. I personally love Kahler equipped G&Ls with 3# or wider necks. I also love Interceptors in general, and modifying G&Ls when they aren't near mint. If you are interested in trading it, I have very nice guitars up for grabs and I'm in the East Bay area.


Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:26 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Been playing it off and on all day. Sorry Jeff, this one may be in my hands for a while :-) I'm always up for grabbing a beer and talking about G&Ls however. The "employee guitar" explanation wold make a lot of sense and would explain the lack of serial # (I think).

It's such a weird looking guitar. My wife thinks it's ugly. I merely suggest that it transcends the conventions of mundane guitar aesthetics.

I'm serious about playing out. It sounds great. I think it's the combo of those Schaller pickups and the maple body. It's very bright and present. And again, the LOOK of it -- it needs to be seen. It's a guitar that demands a reaction.

Another thing is that the fretboard almost looks like it's rosewood. I have a couple other ebony-board G&Ls and they don't look like this at all. It seems more brown and porous, though it's still pretty smooth compared to other rosewood boards I have. Is the ebony on some necks treated or something?


Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:11 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Cool! Nice to meet you. I have a few Rarebirds kicking around that I dig. I play out on the weekends, and for me, I dig the Kahler over Dual Fulcrum. I have a few very nice four bolt G&Ls, Dual Fulcrum that just can't match the tuning stability of the Kahler that I should put on the market place so they might actually get used. On all my players, I've swapped out the pots, and schaller pick ups. I been running various Bill Lawrence pick ups from Becky, and Zexcoils.


Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:51 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Wow! Great find JefF-100!

Cheers, Dan


Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:02 am
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Post Re: Interceptor find
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but, Jeff-100, please tell us about the zexcoils. I have heard very good things about them, although the price has so far kept me away....


Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:36 pm
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Post Re: Interceptor find
Danley wrote:
I'm unfamiliar with Kahlers; how would one perform without a locking nut? G&L didn't seem shy about doing this, but I wonder how they would deal with slacking the strings. Locking tuners?


I've been playing with this for a few days now. Key is getting the strings settled around the posts. Without a locking mechanism doesn't seem much better than any other traditional vibrato system (Fender 6-screw, 2-post, G&L DFS etc). The main thing I notice is the action of the Kahler unit is smoother than others I've tried. It seems like there's a more continuous tension throughout the travel of the unit than a more cam-like feel of the DFS. Not a huge difference, but different.

Locking tuners would be an improvement on this guitar. I'm not a heavy vibrato user though. If I was doing deep dive bombs all the time I would think about doing that.


Thu Jan 25, 2018 10:00 am
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