Vintage 1978 Ovation UK II (Ultra Kaman II) Electric Guitar - Grey Burst
Weighs: 7.6 lbs

Includes Free Pro Setup - $90 value
See below for details.

Case:  Includes Ovation OHSC shown. Has small crack on the top, but is in good condition for its age.

Ovation's Top-of-the-Line:  The UK-II was made in the late 1970's alongside Ovation's Preacher and Viper solid body electrics, but this was Ovation's top-of-the-line electric guitar. UK stands for Ultra Kaman. Ovation designed it's composite body using state-of-the-art aerospace technology, and topped that off with a set of humbucker pickups, stereo and mono outputs, a mahogany neck with a bound, 24-fret ebony fretboard with mother-of-pearl bow-tie inlays, and gold hardware.

Composite body: The body is made from an aluminum frame encased in a mold of Urelite, a dense urethane foam. This makes the guitar stiff and light, and the hollowness gives it a very distinct sound, similar to a hollow-body guitar. The outer shell has arched top and back with a belly cut for comfort. It's painted to look like wood. The shape is very comfortable to play standing up or sitting down.

Age and Condition:   The CTS pots are from the 11th week of 1978, so we assume the guitar was made in 1978.

Condition: This guitar is 47 years old. It looks, plays and sounds awesome. We've gone through it and everything works as it should. The body is in great shape overall. There is a hairline finish crack below the bridge. The neck has a nice worn in feel. It's also in great shape, but there is a pea-sized nick Please see photos. The frets are worn, but still in very usable condition. It plays and sounds awesome. This vintage guitar has TONS of MOJO!

Pickups: Ovation made their own pickups for these guitars. The UK-II's came with dual blade humbuckers with series/parallel switches above each pickup. This particular guitar appears to have had its pickups swapped for a set of pickups from a Preacher. They are high-output humbuckers, about the size of a mini-humbucker. They use Alnico magnets and have about 30% more winding than conventional pickups. DCR is about 20k. They are clear and articulate when played clean and have the balls to push a tube amp into beautiful crunchy saturation! They sound wonderful in all three positions.

Phase Switches: The Preacher pickups are two-wire, so don't allow the series/parallel wiring of the original dual blade humbuckers. Since the slide switches were there, we re-wired them as phase switches. With both pickups on, if you put one of the pickups out of phase, it gives you that out-of-phase quacky sound, made famous by Peter Green. It is a very useful sound and you can easily switch it on and off by using either one of the mini slide switches above the pickups.

Stereo and Mono Outputs: This guitar came from the factory with a set of 1/4" output jacks. If you plug into only the Mono jack, it combines the output of both pickups like a normal electric guitar. However, if you use both jacks, you can send the output of each pickup to separate amps or channels. This can be useful, for example, you can send the neck pickup to your clean channel for rhythm playing, and your bridge pickup to a dirty channel for crunchy leads.

Vintage - Made in USA Quality:  These guitars are going on 50 years old and represent an amazing bargain in a Vintage, Made in USA electric guitar. Most Fender's and Gibson's of this era go for two to three times the price! We've seen these guitars online and have been intrigued. They just look so cool! Finally we saw one for sale locally, and had a chance to pick it up and play it a little. We were so impressed we bought it, then proceeded to buy several more to be able to offer a good selection to our clients. If you've played Strat's, Tele's and Les Paul's and are looking to try something new, this might be a good guitar for you. The Viper is of excellent - Made in USA - build quality. They play and sound wonderful and have a vintage vibe and ton of character all their own. We think you'll love this guitar. We know we do!

History of Ovation Guitars: On the banks of the Farmington River in New Hartford, Connecticut, there’s an old brick building that was home to Ovation Instruments and of course, the original acoustic round-back guitars. Ovation was the brainchild of Charles Kaman, an aerospace engineer, who ran a successful engineering company employing a staff of more than 2,700, with hundreds of scientists and engineers. In the 1960's, after visiting the Martin Guitar factory to have one of his acoustic guitars repaired, Mr. Kaman decided that his company could apply its technology to guitar making.

In 1966, after 18 months of research and testing, the Kaman engineers concluded that the ideal shape for a guitar back is semi-parabola. This shape produced far richer, fuller, deeper and more constant sound from top to bottom of the scale. The most practical way to form this shape was using aerospace technology to mold the back out of a new composite material called Lyrachord. When they showed one of their new guitars to jazz guitar legend Charlie Byrd, he remarked that the guitar sounded so good, it deserved an "Ovation". And the brand was born.

Ovation guitars have been used by legends like: Chet Atkins, Paul Simon, John Lennon, Mark Knopfler, Glen Campbell, Al Di Meola, John MacLaughlin, Eddie Van Halen, Brian May, Nancy Wilson, Melissa Etheridge, Matthias Jabs, Dave Mustaine, Joan Armatrading, Steve Lukather and David Gilmour to name a few.

Luthier's Assessment and Measurements:

• Serial No. E13632
• Weight: 7.6 lbs
• Nut width: 1.70"
• Neck width at 12th Fret: 2.10"
• Neck thickness at 1st fret: 0.83"
• Neck thickness at 12th fret: 0.88"
• Action (high e): 0.050"
• Action (low E): 0.060"
• Neck pickup DCR: 19.9k Ohms
• Bridge pickup DCR: 20.3k Ohms
• Fret condition: Good (8/10)
• Truss rod: Turns easily
• Cosmetic condition: Very good
• Functional condition: Excellent
• Playability: Easy to play. Low action
• Sound: Excellent.
• Overall condition: Very good

Features and Specs:

• Body Shape: Single cut
• Body type: Semi-hollow, arched top and back
• Body contours: Belly cut
• Body material: Aluminum frame composite
• Neck wood: Mahogany
• Neck profile: Medium C
• Fretboard wood: Ebony
• Fretboard inlays: Pearloid bow-ties
• Fret size: Medium jumbo
• No. of frets: 24
• Scale: 24.75"
• Fretboard radius: 10"
• Pickups: Ovation high-output humbuckers with phase switches
• Pickup switch: Three-way toggle
• Controls: Volume and tone
• Output: Stereo and mono
• Tailpiece: Schaller with six adjustable saddles (Made in Germany)
• Saddles: Brass
• Tuners: Sealed
• Hardware: Gold
  

About Del Mar Lutherie: We’re a small shop in San Diego County, California. We build electric guitars, hand-wired tube amps, and do mods and setups.  We also buy and sell vintage and used gear.  Our owner is a guitar enthusiast, wood worker and professional engineer by training. We’re part of the local guitar community (Fender, Taylor, Carvin).   We’re not open to the public, but welcome clients by appointment. 

Why buy from us?  Our customers have peace of mind that they are buying from a highly rated professional shop.  We've been doing this type of work since 1999 and have thousands  of happy customers.  We pride ourselves in providing best in class personalized service for each of our clients.  We are a Reverb Preferred Seller, and our approval rating is pretty close to 100%.

Dr. T’s Professional Inspection and Setup:  You may find a similar guitar at a lower price, but ours may still be the better value as we include our professional inspection and setup. This service costs from $80 to $150 at most shops. With over 25 years in the industry, we’re convinced that a good setup is the single most important investment to improve the playability and sound of your guitar.  Here’s what in entails. We inspect the guitar and address issues. Next, we remove the strings and tighten and set the drag on the tuners. We inspect the frets, find any high spots, then level, crown and polish. We clean and oil the fingerboard, restring, tune to pitch and set the neck relief, action and intonation. We then play each fret and check for fret buzz and fret-outs during bends, and we fine-tune as required.  Next, we test the electronics, clean and tighten pots and jacks and balance the pickups.  Occasionally, we find a fault with the electronics, so we dig in and diagnose and repair that.  Once the electronics are tip top, we play the guitar to make sure everything is just right.  Finally, we clean and polish the guitar, then slacken the stings to get it ready for shipping.

String Gauges and Settings:   We do our setups using common string gauges and settings, which we've found work well for most players. For electrics, we use 9-42 gauge strings for Fender (25.5") scale guitars and 10-46 for Gibson (24.75") scale guitars.  We set action to 0.050 on the high e side and 0.060 on the low E side. This action is fairly low and allows for easy fretting without buzzing or sacrificing tone. If you have special preferences, please let us know, and we will do our best to accommodate you.

Light Gauge Strings:  We recommend light gauge strings on electrics, which makes fretting and bending easier. And if you want more volume, just turn up your amp. I don’t know anyone who thinks Tony Iommi or Billy Gibbons have thin tone - Tony uses 8’s and Billy uses 7’s. If you use 10’s you might consider 9’s, or if you use 9’s try 8’s. It will take a little time to get used to, but you’ll be surprised at how much easier your guitar is to play… and if you turn up your amp a little, you won’t be sacrificing volume or tone.

Fine Tuning Adjustments:  Your guitar will be playing and sounding wonderful when we finish our setup. However, occasionally minor adjustments will be needed after shipping due to changes in temperature and/or humidity, rough handling or other unfavorable conditions. Since we have no control over this, we cannot cover the cost of these adjustments. However, if your guitar was mishandled during shipping, please let us know, so we can see if a shipping claim is in order. Sometimes it’s possible to get you a partial refund to help cover issues if we can show that they were caused by shipping.

Condition Ratings:  We do our best to be consistent with Reverb’s condition rating system.  Please keep in mind that Reverb’s descriptions are very general and can be open to interpretation. The guitar you get will be the one shown in the photos, and if it has any major flaws or defects, we will point them out in the listing. Our guitars rated below “Mint” will have signs of use and cosmetic imperfections, including minor dings, dents and swirl marks, which might only be visible upon close inspection. If you are sensitive to minor cosmetic defects, please let us know, and we can provide you with close-up photos.  We do not accept returns nor give partial refunds if you receive your guitar and believe that it should have been rated lower.  We’ve sold thousands of guitars, and almost without exception, our clients have not had issues with our ratings.  This tells us that we are doing a great job with our condition ratings.  

Standard of Care:  We strive to meet our clients’ expectations, and we want you to be happy with your purchase.  Guitars develop wear with use and it’s widely accepted that honest wear adds character and shows that the guitar has been played and loved. Our used and vintage guitars will have signs of use. Our Del Mar Lutherie brand guitars are hand-built and will have artifacts that some people might view as "imperfections".  If you want a guitar in “perfect” or “flawless” condition, we advise you to buy new from an authorized dealer or buy locally so you can inspect it in person. We do not guarantee that our guitars will be cosmetically flawless, and we don’t accept returns or give partial refunds due to cosmetic imperfections.

Specs:  We list specs as a courtesy. Some specs are measured by our techs. Others are taken from the manufacturer's data. Manufacturers change specs all the time, and their listed specs may not be 100% accurate. Also, some used guitars have mods that may not be apparent upon visual inspection. The guitar you will get is the one shown in the photos. If there are any "deal breaker" specs that you must have, please let us know so we can double check for you before your purchase.

Videos:  We often provide YouTube links to provide our clients with more information. These videos will be of a similar make and model which is representative of the guitar in our listing. 

Shipping:  We ship guitars via UPS ground. The fee shown includes shipping within the contiguous USA with insurance. It also includes packaging materials and our time to pack up and drop off at UPS.  For guitars, shipping costs are controlled by box size and insurance is based on value.

Delivery Time: We do our best to get your guitar setup, boxed and shipped as soon as possible. However, sometimes this can take a few days depending on our workload and other factors. Once UPS receives your guitar, they will estimate a delivery date, which you can access via Reverb. UPS will typically deliver your guitar within 2 to 7 business days after they receive it, depending on your distance from Southern California. If you're in a hurry, please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate you, or at least we can advise you of the estimated wait, so you can decide if you need to make other arrangements.

Damage Claims: Although rare, guitars sometimes are damaged during shipping. If you receive a guitar that is damaged, please let us know immediately so we can open a claim.

Returns and Canceled Orders:  We are a small business and can’t afford to offer free returns like the big guys. There is a lot of time, effort and cost involved with processing your order, pulling your guitar from inventory, setting it up, packing and shipping it. Please make sure you want the guitar before you commit to buy. If we agree to a return or to cancel your order, you will be responsible for shipping costs (both ways) and a restocking fee to cover our time.

Trades:   We are a professional guitar business. Anything we take on trade, we resell. Due to shipping costs and transaction fees, we only do trades in person. To make sense for us, we can only offer wholesale value, which is typically 40% to 60% of what it would sell for on Reverb. This is usually as good or better than Guitar Center.  If you’re OK with this, please send current photos of the actual gear you have for trade. We need brand, model, year, and condition. Note any mods, repairs or other issues. If your guitar includes a hard case or gig bag, send photos of that as well.