Univox Custom

Believed to be made in 1968. Purchased in 1970. Ebony Les Paul clone made in Japan. Wood type is unknown. The body is encapsulated by some type of perloid. Cream binding. Gold hardware which has worn off in spots. 4 bolt-on neck.

Standard LP configuration. 2 humbuckers with individual pole adjustments, 2 volume pots, 2 tone pots and a 3 way toggle switch. Pots are 500K with 53mfd 2% tolerance capacitors. Shielded cabling. Tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece.

24.75" scale. 22 Frets. Width is vintage LP. Rosewood fingerboard.

I bought it used with a genuine Gibson retangular hard case with orange plush interior.

Everything is still original. It sat in a case in a good dry low humidity environment for 34 years.

The pups have a tremendous vintage 70s growl and sound fantastic on high gain amp settings with plenty of crunch. I can match Clapton's mother tone almost perfectly. I play Cream with it constantly. In this category I give the pups a 10. It also sounds very good playing metal such as Sabboth. Many people that have heard the guitar loved it for classic late 60s and early 70s sounds.

Now, for clean sounds such as 9th chord blues the pups are too muddy for my taste. I wouldn't dare gig with this guitar for clean playing. Thus, the overall rating sound rating of 6.

Naturally, it is not going to sound like an original 1968 Les Paul. But it sounds good enough. Especially when you consider current values: $10K for the Les Paul versus $250 - $350 for the Univox.

The pups are ultra-quiet like brand new humbuckers.

The guitars neck is very, very straight. I can keep a fairly low action on the guitar. The frets are in excellent shape. I had to buy new pickup height adjustments screws. I had to steel wool the grunge off the pup covers. The volume and tone pups were scratchy but cleaned up perfectly after some doses of DeoxIT power boost (THANKS www.univox.org). The quality of the guitar is actually quite excellent considering it was a low cost Japanese alternative (kockoff) to the always expensive (regardless of decade) Les Paul.

The nut needs replacing. It is cut at proper depth but somebody must have had 13s on it, or had it setup as a slide guitar, because the widths are much too wide for 10s.

I am going to replace the bridge and tailpiece with a Gotoh strictly for cosmetic reasons. All of the gold is pitted or worn off.

The spring clip on the input jack needed adjusting.

The body itself is in very good condition with minor knicks and scratches in the back.

Univoxs are built like tanks. You can probably drop this guitar out a 2nd story window and it would survive. There was a Univox that was once submerged for several days. It was dried out and was gig ready.

The guitar is going on 37 years and could be constantly gigged with.

I am tech support, LOL. Or my luthier at The Drinking Gourd guitar shop in Dayton, OH. The Univox brand was shut down in the 70s with Westbury guitars taking over as the more expensive replacement. Sorry to see them go. They were great guitars for the money.

I've been playing about a year. I bought this guitar in 1970 but never purchased an amp. It sat in my moms basement. I completely forgot about this guitar until I was helping her clean out the house.
I play Ibanez and Godins.

What I love most about this guitar is the highly desirable 70s growl that you just can't reproduce with a modern guitar.

Obviously, if the guitar were lost or stolen I could not buy another model to replace it. I would be truly sad mainly due to sentimental reasons.