Welcome Always_Ben! Glad to have you here. I know nothing about those amps, but I do know you can pick up a silverface fender for less than half that and use some of the money left over to buy a trem pedal that sounds good to you. I'm partial to the Strymon Flint, which has trem and reverb. I like the reverb as a backup to my tank. I also know nothing about which guitars have thick necks, perhaps Gretsches? They sound really good for instrumental guitar music, especially in a 3 piece format. Best of luck on your search.

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

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Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

I'll second looking for an SG. This is mine. It has the thickest neck of any electric guitar I've ever played. I didn't put P-90's in because I only play surf with my strats.

I agree with Danny about looking for a silver face fender amp. Good deals abound.

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Last edited: Mar 12, 2017 06:21:35

FWIW, Fender's '65 reissue Strat has a very thick neck. Fender introduced those in '12, and it's had some beautiful color schemes in that time: Shoreline Gold (with matching headstock), Dakota Red and Burgundy Mist, all three now discontinued but easily found on eBay. (The only colors they've had the last couple of years are Olympic White and Sunburst, both still very pretty.) Just FYI.

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Last edited: Mar 12, 2017 11:15:23

1)
Just to throw something else out there as far as amps, have you considered an old Ampeg? They can be found for a low price compared to other vintage amps. They're built like tanks. Nice tube driven tremolo and reverb, I like both the trem and reverb, better than a SF bandmaster reverb I had.
The guy who started Ampeg hated rock, the amps were targeted towards jazz guys, so they stay really clean (partly because of the 7591 tubes and usually ss rectifiers=less sag) but take pedals well if you want dirt.
I've has a Rocket II,a Gemini I (12W) and a Gemini V (same as the I but 30W and a 15" speaker).
2)
For guitars, again to throw something different out there; Reverends. I've had my Six Gun III for a few months and I think it's the best guitar I've played. I really like the graphtech nut on it. The locking tuners and Wilkinson whammy are great as well. Nice chunky neck on it also. Many Reverend models seem targeted at surf. My .02 anyway.
Happy hunting!

I had an Encore and while it was a very nice amp, the reverb wasn't really suited to surf, even after I added a dwell control. I'd recommend a vintage Bassman/Bandmaster and real outboard reverb unit (or build a Surfy Bear), or a Strymon Flint as Danny suggested.

Badger wrote:

Unless you're locked into a hand-wired amp, give a look to Fender's '68 Custom Vibrolux Reverb (the Silver Face one). 2-10's, 35W, lovely onboard long-spring reverb (when you don't want to use your tank), very nice tremelo, and 2 differently voiced channels. Nice ones can be found used in the 750-850 range or in the 1100-ish category new. One channel is voiced typical BF Princeton-like scoopy Fender, the other is voiced like a Bassman and that one is your money channel for surf. It gives nice results at home & is certainly big enough to gig with.
Just a thought. Happy shopping.

I took a look at those. Very promising, though it looks like it requires a speaker swap to reach full potential based on common consensus, so I'd have to factor in the price of new speaker and getting them in.

Last edited: Mar 13, 2017 00:58:39

I was going to suggest an SG, but a Les Paul Junior with a Bigsby might work as well. PRS have thick necks, but I'm not familiar with their models.

http://thewaterboarders.bandcamp.com/

I forogot to mention that I want a tube bias tremolo in my amp, as opposed to opto. So that rules out a few suggestions here.

http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/1139/5-things-about-amp-tremolo/22018
Interesting

Last edited: Mar 13, 2017 16:12:34

gatorfiend wrote:

http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/1139/5-things-about-amp-tremolo/22018
Interesting

Particularly with modern iterations of those amps, you can't take that as gospel. The DRRI for example still uses an opto-coupled trem (and nobody complains about a Deluxe very often). But many other modern versions of the amps the article references now use simply a capacitor/resistor network to flip the wave, amounts of that controlled by the knobs on the front of the amp. So the Deluxe RI is opto, yet the Princeton RI is not, yet the Twin RI is opto.

The CVR I ref'd above, for example, has output bias tremelo - and not an opto-sensor to be found. Now the multi-tubed harmonic tremelo, like found in things like a Showman, is to me a way different & lovely effect - even if it was an electrically inefficient way to go about it. (No need for one here, which is why I bought a SurfyTrem pedal.)

It might be worthwhile in your search to hear some examples of each and/or go play a bunch of your candidate amps. There's an old '70 Silver Face Twin Reverb I wish I had back & I would not let the DNA of its tremelo deter me at all in using it for plenty-loud surf.

Wes
SoCal ex-pat with a snow shovel

DISCLAIMER: The above is opinion/suggestion only & should not be used for mission planning/navigation, tweaking of instruments, beverage selection, or wardrobe choices.