THE GUITARS OF JAMES ORMSTON BURNS
REFERENCE & RESOURCE PAGES:
SUPERSOUND (1958) - BURNS-WEILL (1959) - FENTON WEILL (1960-65)
ORMSTON BURNS (1960-1965) - AMPEG (1963-64) - BALDWIN (1965-69)
SHERGOLD WOODCRAFTS (1967-69) - ORMSTON (1968) - HAYMAN (1970-75)
BURNS UK (1973-77) - BURNS ACTUALIZERS (1979-82) - SHERGOLD (1975-92)
BURNS ACTUALIZERS
1979-82
1979 Burns Steer Prototype
Steer Double Cutaway prototype
1980 Burns Steers
Two of the 30 or so serially produced circa 1980:
The Steer pictured above has been owned by Paul Traas since 1981. If you have an original Burns Actualizers Steer, please visit Paul's site at http://members.upc.nl/p.traas/burns/ as he is compiling a list of other original examples!
1980 Steer Single Cutaway
c.1979 Scorpion Prototypes
Checkerboard Guitar Prototype
Striped Fretless Scorpion Bass Prototype
1980 Catalogue
c.1981 Jim Burns Guitars brochure
1980 Scorpion
Serial No. 800058
1980 Scorpion
Serial No. 800118
c. 1980 Magpie prototypes
c.1980 Trade Fair
1981 Burns Magpie
Magpie Prototype:
1981 Production model:
1981 Magpie Black
Note Scorpion Headstock
1981 Magpie Natural
Note Scorpion Headstock
1981 Marvin, signed by JB for PD
serial No 810182 (see also same number on magpie below)
1981 Magpie in White
Serial No 810182
1981 Magpie in Red
Note Scorpion Headstock
1982 BURNS Magpie
in suburst
1982 BURNS Magpie Bass
1982 BURNS Scorpion Guitar
Serial No. 820003
1983 Burns Bandit
Brownburst
1983 Burns Bandit
Serial number 30603
I have (seen?) one or two of this example(?) and as before I note the serial number is only three removed from the blueburst one I owned, which was 30603. There was definitely no manual for this or any other Jim Burns model - it was all the company could do to get the actual instruments out! Regarding the functions of the push-button bank, the pre-set selections are as follows:
Four grey push-buttons:
1. Neck pickup only
2. Neck & Bridge pickups out of phase
3. Neck & Bridge pickups in phase
4. Bridge pickup only
Two black push-buttons:
1. Coil split for Bridge pickup
2. Distortion
The square chassis control pots were A-B (Allen & Bradley) Mod Pots, made in Mexico and 500K in value. They were probably obtained from the same source that supplied components for the MM mixers built by Burns' parent company PA:CE Electronics. Quality was supposed to be high, but I found that they soon suffered from scratchy sounding operation due to static build-up, so not a good choice.
All the best, Paul Day
1983 Burns Bandit