any information on this kay guitar?

[wietse]

picked it up yesterday a kay from the 70's whith various effects build in.

there is a auto wah, tremelo, echo ,fuzz ,and a whirlwind.

i like the fuzz and the whirlwind, the last one gives you the feeling you are using a leslie speaker.

but there is almost no information on the net about kay, espacially the later models.

i would love to know the model name and wich factory made this one.

the body is all mahogony and he has a bolt on neck ,the guitar is in almost mint condition wouldn't they have altered the neck radius.

the former owner was a girl whith very small hands so they made it slightly thinner,if i paint the neck at that place you won't even see it.

http://www.guitar.com/Discuss/img/100/4992794/m4992794-2400.jpg

 

http://www.guitar.com/Discuss/img/100/4992794/m4992795-9669.jpg

[The Geoff]

I remember seeing one of these in Scotland - must have been the '70s or early 80's, but it wasn't under the Kay name, I don't think. Apart from that, can't help.

 

Geoff

[fogman]

Did you get the owner's manual with it?

[PBBPaul]

Looks like a fun toy.

 

I don't know much about them but have a look on eBay here and here for kindred spirits. You might want to ask them some questions or look on Harmony Central.

[BiC]

Kay was my very first electric. Got it in the mid-1980's. But it sure didn't look anything like that one. Your's looks a lot funner.

[Guitar Geezer]

I emailed my friend Jaime (the odd guitar guru) and he returned this info:

Lynn:

Believe it or not, I've actually seen one of these before. The one I saw

carried the Ventura name on the headstock (You'll see this double

split-diamond shape on the headstock on a number of Ventura models,

especially Gibson copies). Somebody had already rewired it and as a result,

it was hard to tell how engaging the various switches would alter the sound.

 

I would speculate it is from the early to mid 1970s. It's basically sort of

a knock-off of the Les Paul Recording model, c.1972. The Gibson LP Recording

model, you will recall, had low-impedance pickups and a variety of on-board

switches to control various functions. They never really caught on...

Hope that helps

[Guitar Geezer]

Info part 2

Okay, the obvious thing here is that somebody at some point fitted this

guitar with a truss rod cover with a Kay logo. Or that's the most simple

explanation.

 

I'd suggest that the owner check out Venturas manufactured during this time

period and see if construction details (such as binding thicknesses, neck

plates, output jack plates, screws) don't appear very similar to this

guitar.

Admittedly, this is probably not very easy to do in The Netherlands.

 

We have much better luck doing this in Texas, as the Ventura brand was

marketed by music retailer C. Bruno & Sons, which had a warehouse operation

here in San Antonio (Bruno was later taken over by Kaman, and I think the

operation was transferred elsewhere).

 

I know, more information than you really need...

[Guitarzan]

i had one of those, it was sold by Sears here in Canada. not all the effects worked when i had it. got it used for 50 bucks.

[Dak Lander]

I've never seen a Kay without the Kay name on it so I agree that it's likely a Ventura, or Sears or Monkey Ward version with the truss rod cover changed.

 

That Ventura stuff was pretty darned good.

I believe they got into trouble knocking off Martin acoustics & maybe Gibson was in on that deal too.

[wietse]

thanks guys but i think it's truly a kay, i knew of the excistense of this model made by kay so i was happy to see one on sale on a local sale site.

and i found another one on the net http://www.wildguitars.com/guitars.htm somewhere on that page, only this one is whitout scratchplate .

would be really weird if they changed the trusrod cover on that one too.

it's made somewhere in the 70's when the kay name was owned by a japanese company, and at that time the guitars also were build in japan.

[Blue Strat]

The later Kay guitars were made in Japan, I believe. So, it's possible that both Kay and Ventura had their guitars made by the same manufacturer and re-labeled. Kind of like what Samick does for a number of other companies.