Ovation Viper

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 8:26 pm

I'm sure there's someone on here has owned a few of these...

A friend of mine saw one for a good price and quite fancies it. I've not seen it in the flesh but he is well impressed by the sound of the thing and is now trying to work out if:

1. The soap bars are stock (did these not come with fancy mini hum buckers or some weird Ovation pickup with offset pole pieces or something?)
2. They came string through as stock?
3. Â£299 is a fair price (seems very fair to me)

They aren't the easies guitars to find stuff out about.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 8:33 pm

The bridge doesn't look right to me.

finboy · Post by **finboy** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 8:33 pm

I would love to buy a preacher/viper some day, I don't understand why they are so inexpensive

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 10:17 pm

Aye, that bridge is wrong as fuck - not sure what's going on there. I almost bought one a few years ago (for Â£350, and we're probably talking more than ten years ago), but it had all the right gubbins.

paul_ · Post by **paul_** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 10:27 pm

Agree about the bridge ass'y but I've never seen one with P90s either, and replacing minihums with soapbars (or vice versa) is a common enough thing.

It looks like the bridge setup is all on a plate? Bear in mind that could be concealing a big Kahler route or something. (Edit- or uh, no, I'm just a twat: the ferrules have been drilled south of the pickguard which has the stock bridge unit's holes in it, so it's merely been drilled for a more Gibsony vibe)

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 10:48 pm

Is it a completely new scratch plate? I can't find any pictures of originals with the knobs and switch in quite those positions.

► Show Spoiler

So, it looks like someone has drilled it for string through, replaced the original bridge with a tune-o-matic (tricky to tell exactly in that photo) and replaced the scratch plate.

Â£300 seems a reasonable price for a tastefully butchered one, no? They seem to ebay for closer to Â£500 in good condition.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 10:53 pm

What the fuck are these bridges supposed to look like? They all look like guitar bridges made out of other guitar bridges.

paul_ · Post by **paul_** » Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:02 pm

Might be the stock control locations, it just has smaller knobs and the photo is at an angle so it makes the pots and switch look more of a straight line.

Presumably the pickup routes will have been widened as a soapbar shares roughly the same footprint with the mounting ring of a minihum (at least on a Gibson where they hacked soapbar covers to do Deluxe rings), and it looks like a hole has been cut to allow for agreeable action with the presumably-taller TOM.

If the guitar plays nice I'd consider Â£200 off the going rate alright. Can't fault it in the objective sense, it looks fun and I always enjoy a noodle on an old Viper or Preacher on the rare occasions I've encountered them.