Danelectro / Coral Firefly Project
~ Page 5; More Photos ~
Other Danelectro / Coral Firefly photos are provided for reference on the NEXT PAGE.
Some notes about missing parts and sources to get them:
TUNERS: All Fireflys I have personally seen had Kluson Deluxe, double stripe, individual 6IL tuners, as shown in the reference examples on Page 6. They are readily available at guitar parts houses such as Allparts or Stewart McDonald. They are MUCH better than Danelectro's skate key tuners ... trust me!
VOL AND TONE KNOBS: Gorgeous knobs are plentiful to suit anyone's taste; But if originals were desired then closeup photos of the correct knobs are HERE and HERE. A standing ebay search for dan +silvertone +knob -silver -tone with automatic email notification to you should bring results about every 2 weeks on average, but they're running about $60 for a set of 4 nowadays .....which makes alternative knobs look pretty darn good !
NECK PICKUP BEZEL: I happen to have one in my spare parts collection right now, but no telling how long that will last. The neck pickup bezel is exactly like the bridge pickup bezel without the rearward bridge platform on it; So the bridge pickup bezel can be a perfect pattern for a machine shop to make one very easily; Have them make a new neck and bridge bezel out of stainless steel and they'll stay fresh looking for a very very long time. Again see the reference photos on Page 6.
PICK GUARD: I have not seen a Firefly pickguard for sale since about 1972; BUT surely a good plastics sign company could make one from the photos on Page 6. An artisticly talented guitar tech also could or know someone that could. They were mounted by hollow hard plastic tubes that stood-off the mounting screws. You can see this mounting arrangement in the reference photos on Page 6.
BRIDGE: See options on Page 6, which is what I would do were I to rebuild this guitar (and I will if it is not sold by the time it's place in line reaches my bench ),
TAIL PIECE: I would install an original model Bigsby vibrato, or select a nice looking tailpiece from Allparts or Stewart McDonald (linked on Page 6). If I ever found an affordable original Coral tailpiece (shown on Page 6), I would consider buying it although I might very well like the tailpiece I had on it at that time.
No, this window for inserting the vol and tone controls faraday cage and capping it with the jack plate, was not the work of a chainsaw masacre; Not "wasting" time on "fit and trim" was not uncommon on economy guitars until the late 1970s. 20 minutes to finish-out this window multiplied by the number of guitars Danelectro was putting out, plus the total of all cost saving measures Mr. Daniels was expert at, would have been passed on to the end customer, and such cost savings really did add-up to substantial savings for end customers; And THE objective for Danelectro's chief, Nat Daniels was expertise at cutting costs where doing so didn't matter, and passing the savings to the end customer to make good quality guitars available to plenty of eager people who couldn't afford expensive guitars. Now countless people including myself look back on Nat's genius with utmost gratitude, honor, respect and appreciation.
