1978 Dekley S-12: Price: $1600.00 Serial No. 121-0056.
Purchased by Brenda Majerczyk, Jerome, Illinois

This restoration was truly a 'project'. Most know that Dekley prided itself in building guitars with a 'Pakawood' cabinet. This is a plywood-type of material that has been injected with a plastic resin. The result is a wood-grained appearance that is Formica-like in its finish. A few wood-grained styles were available. The front and back aprons of the guitar are made of 1/4" thick aluminum with a veneer of Pakawood glued to them. On this pictured model, form-fitting covers hide the actual endplates. Dekley would chrome plate these end-covers. When everything was bolted together, these guitars had tremendous cabinet rigidity. That is precisely this guitar. Some differences?

The chromed endplate covers had been scratched and some of the chrome had flaked off. I knew that if re-chromed, it would just happen again. Therefore I powder coated them. I then got carried away and powder-coated nearly everything else, including the legs. Whoever owned this guitar previously had a penchant for over-oiling its parts. As a consequence, the oil somehow got into the Pakawood and discolored it. It made it look awful. So, I fixed that by covering all the Pakawood with Formica. I love red! I chose to 'frame' the front apron with matching trim on its bottom edge. I also powder-coated it. Dekley never trimmed the bottom edge of this guitar's front apron. This guitar becomes more unique with my crazy ideas! Note also that I framed the pedal bar just like the guitar's front apron. Emerson wrote, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'. He must have been thinking of me. But, I don't feel that my action was 'foolish'. Overzealous perhaps!

Next, I replaced all the undercarriage hardware with changer bellcranks, knee lever clamps and pedal bellcranks of my own design. I made more modern-looking knee levers, replacing the stamped out metal ones that bent so often. Note that the cross shafts are square. Quick changes in a player's copedent can be accomplished with these changer bellcranks. New nylon bushings were used to fit the square 5/16' cross shafts. They need no lubrication.

The changer was slightly modified to permit the new and longer adjustment springs for the changer's lowering levers. This permits a more consistent feel to the pedals and knee levers when they are engaged. While installing the pickup I broke off the wires going into it. I sent it to Jerry Wallace (of TrueTone pickups) and had him rewind it with two outputs. I've always loved the old Emmons 1725 pickups (17,250 ohms). I had Jerry tap the pickup at the 1725 mark and then go on and put his normal 19,500 ohms on it. A toggle switch under the guitar permits you to try each output and decide for yourself which sounds best.

Note that the neck has been lined with aluminum trim. This enhances the overall appearance of the guitar by having continuity of the metal between the pickup and tuner blocks. The unique Dekley trim was returned to where it is normally placed on the neck. A new Dekley decal was made for identifying this brand of guitar. I installed a new Dekley fretboard.

The copedent on the guitar is an extended E9th. But, the guitar was drilled to accommodate a universal tuning. The drawback to my placing such a tuning on this guitar was finding the unique Dekley pedals to match the others. Had I been in possession of those pedals I could have offered this guitar with that copedent on it.