FTSD- Free 12 string day

[kirtley2013]

My friend from school (which I left last week ) told me that his dad had an old guitar in the loft with 12 strings, and he said that I may be able to have it, a couple months went past with nothing mentioned then I was at his house last week and he said to come and have a look at it, I had a look for literally 10 seconds then put it back, all I knew after that that it was an out of tune 12 string that needed a neck reset, his dad found it in a skip so he was happy for me to just have it.
Well today I went to pick it up and rescue it, I had to buy a case en-route just to carry it back on my bike, I got it back home and had a good look over it, it does need a neck reset, the bridge has a belly although it is not too excessive although overall it is in pretty good condition, I was also glad to find it had X bracing, I had a 60's 12 string with ladder bracing and that was beyond repair, atleast this one will make a good project guitar.

The guitar is an Italian made 60's E-ROS 12 string and it is surprisingly nice, I tuned it to 1 step down as I usually do then put it into drop C and played Statesboro blues, it sounded and played surprisingly good considering it needs a neck reset.

This will be a practice guitar because I am wanting to learn to repair guitars myself so it will be an ideal opportunity to learn to do a neck reset.

Here are some pictures, I will possibly post a video when I get a chance.

[plroad21]

Sweet! Love the quirky 60s vibe!

[Silly Moustache]

Eros (not E-ros despite the logo) were an Italian High volume maker - and are related or connected to Eko guitars.
I found this on an old forum :

...Eros were strikingly similar to the very first generation of the Eko Ranger series and more exactly to its forerunners J-54 and J-56 introduced in 1965: same five-piece neck construction, same rectangular neck attachment plate and generally only 20 frets (for its post-1967 Ranger VI and XII series Eko used a 3-piece neck construction with 21 frets as well as its distinctive trapeze neck plate). From all that we cannot but conclude that the Eko company hired F.lli Fuselli as a contract manufacturer in 1965-1966 for its J-54 and J-56 series as well as for the initial runs of the Vox Country Western and Folk Twelve. For some reason F.lli Fuselli started in 1966 to sell guitars under their own E-Ros brand, a reason most probably related to the terrible fire that devastated most of the Eko factory the 11th of April 1966.

Whether the Fuselli brothers wanted to take advantage of this sad opportunity to try their luck on the marketplace, or was it because Eko a few months later with its rebuild and enlarged facilities didn’t need anymore a partner like Fuselli, we cannot know. E-Ros guitars are reasonably common in Europe (especially in the UK) but there is no evidence they ever made it on the U.S. market. But now here’s the surprise: in the USA a number of folk guitars of obvious E-Ros origin were sold in the early 70’s with an Eko logo! I suppose that after the crisis that hit the European guitar industry as a whole in the late 60’s the Fuselli brothers stopped this operation and their luthiers joined Eko, bringing along the unsold inventory.

The guitars were very solid - laminated throughout and I thought that Ekos at least had a bolt-on neck. They were much loved by teenagers in the sixties as they were easy to play compared to other cheap guitars although they were not very loud as the box was so rigid.
There is a similar EKO ranger 12 string on ebay right now - asking £75 - no bids as yet.

Hope that helps.

[kirtley2013]

Thanks!
Do you know where I can find a trapeze 12 string tailpiece quite cheaply because this guitar has a bit of a belly on it and I would quite like to modify it to use a tailpiece rather than the current pin bridge.