Gretsch 8210 BST-1000

robinbowes

Starting a new thread so as not to derail @HarrySeven's Saving a Lost Cause - Tele Project thread.

Reading the aforementioned thread reminded me I had this under the bed:







For those not aware, it's a Gretsch 8210 BST-1000 "Beast", and it should look like this:



According the the serial number (MM-YXXX) it's from October 1979.

I bought it s/h in the early 80s and used it in my teen years indie band. I think this is from 1984:

[Picture gone]

Being as it was the 1980s, I wanted a trem, so I bought some Hohner thing and got the local luthier to fit it - yep, it required routing. At some stage, I bought a set of DiMarzio Dual Sound pickups from the  near Manchester Oxford Road station (I forget the name, don't think it's still there) and messed around with coil taps and suchlike. I lost the original pickups along the way. I stopped playing guitar for a while, and the Beast was put away.

Fast-forward to some time fairly recently, and I decided to bring the beast back to life.

I took it back to the very same luthier who fitted the trem in the 80s to fill in the hole and he did a sterling job (Dave Gregory - sadly now deceased). I now need to get a replacement pickguard made and choose a decent set of pickups with chrome covers (I don't like open coils) and the Beast will roar again.

I found this interesting article from Vintage Guitar Magazine, in 2016: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/vintageguitar/201612_v2/index.php?startid=30#/32

In case that goes offline, here are the images:

Adam_MD

Are you going full resto and keeping the original finish or are you going for something different? 

ICBM

Very interesting, I hadn't seen the catalogue pics before. The BST-5000 makes me think even more of Matsumoku, the 'German carve' body is like a Westbury Standard.

If you need to make a new pickguard for it, it looks much better with black than the original white I think. The white makes it look like a Watkins Rapier .

Henrytwang

I’d love one of those cool Gretsch  BSTs . If it was mine I’d probably put a SD JB/ Jazz set of pickups on it, I bet that it’d really rock!

robinbowes

Adam_MD said:

Are you going full resto and keeping the original finish or are you going for something different? 

I'll be keeping it original.

ICBM said:

If you need to make a new pickguard for it, it looks much better with black than the original white I think. The white makes it look like a Watkins Rapier .

I couldn't possibly see it having anything other than white!

skullfunkerry

robinbowes said:

Adam_MD said:

Are you going full resto and keeping the original finish or are you going for something different? 

I'll be keeping it original.

It would look great in Seafoam Green! Just saying...