The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Quest Atak 2, green with yellow binding and black neck. Photos are details are following. May this post be used for documentation and (hopefully) information regarding this instrument. I had received it Friday, had a chance to play it with my band and at church, I really like it. The neck is fantastic in terms or size and width, and nice and smooth. Very easy to play. As for sound, well, it's an active pick up guitar and I'm not used to it. The third knob seems to activate or deactive the active circuit? Cavity pics are posted below, I'll let you all educate me on what's going on with it. On the the photos...

First pic, the entire guitar.





Serial number. MIJ. 1984 I'm assuming?



Bridge is a tremelo, but I'm not going to use it a whammy on it. Sustain isn't bad, but not great either. The saddles have string grooves in the center where the string should rest, so the former owner moved the strings to the side of the indentations where there are not string grooves. I'm guessing I can file the grooves out and make it smooth again, what are your thoughts?



Pickups are hooked up to an active circuit which you'll see soon. This is a shot of the rings and covers.



Tuners are OK, I tightened them up and they hold now.




Interesting yellow binding. Never seen an Atak 2 like this before.




A peak under the hood, so to speak, with the covers off. This is where it gets interesting. You'll see why soon.



Now this made me very happy. I was expecting a laminated guitar. But not so. Look closely where someone had routed a little extra foom for the trem block. Do you see what I see? See the wood grain going the whole way down into the body? Yep, it is solid wood. This is no laminated guitar body, it's solid wood! Probably Mahogany, since the top of the line Quests were made of Mahogany. The Quest catalog we have access to states that the Atak 2's were laminated Mahogany. Not this mystery model, this one is solid.



Control cavity photos. Here you'll see the wiring, single 9v battery, pots, switch, and active circuit. This is an area I need some help on. Your thoughts, could this be stock or not? The third knob hooks up exclusively to the active circuit, and seems to disengage it. However, the guitar only produces sound when the battery is installed.



... Here's the third knob that I was talking about, only hooks up to the active circuit...



Close ups of the pots below...




I've been playing it and haven't had the pickups out yet. This will come soon however, I'll photo them and post them on this same post.

I'm wondering what this thing is, I've never seen another Atak 2 like this. It's not in the Quest catalog we have. Any and all info pretaining to the questions I'd asked, general info on this Atak 2 series, or anyone that has a similar Atak 2, please chime in!

Cant tell you anything about it other than the yellow binding is cool , I like this color combo , But because Ive never seen one like this before , Im not sure if it is normal for these guitars to have different colored paint on the neck and body , Id pull off the neck just to see if everything looks original to the guitar , stuff like clean screw holes , scratches , colors and any indentations from a possible previous install

Hi Chad!

Love the pictures.... great details.

The pots are original and the sutures are untouched. I say this baby is 100 % original and stock. You just landed the high end version of the Attack 2 for a great price Congrats

There are lots of Quest models not in the catalog, I have 4 Quest not in there

We are just starting to discover these...

I say enjoy her! She is a looker.

P.

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MAA Member since June 29th 2009, taking one baby step at a time..... and failing miserably!

Very nice but I'm not sure thats mahogany.

Very nice & very cool guitar you have there.
I tend to think the bridge/tremolo is a replacement which would explain the extra routing & the fact that the previous owner has moved the string resting place on the saddles.
The new bridge possibly has a slightly wider string spacing than the original so the moved string rest helps alleviate this some.
The body wood laminations they speak of, generally go along the length of the body not through the centre like a pancake.
You may be able to notice some shrinkage lines on the back that possibly break her up into maybe a laminate of 4 or 5 pieces.
I really doubt the neck is not original.
Apart from the bridge she appears to be pretty much stock.
Great find
cheers

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My Guitars- http://matsumokuguitars.com/

Thanks for the info and suggestions everyone. I understand what you mean by laminate now, I was thinking that laminated meant that it would have been horizontally laminated (like plywood, which I've seen before in guitars). If laminated usually means wide strips glued together lengthwise, then it may be. I'll look more closely at it to see if I can locate any shrinkage lines.

Regarding the bridge, the G B and high E saddles are actually angled out so that instead of coming out straight they're slightly pointing off to the side. This is so they could relocate the strings out of the grooves yet still maintain correct spacing. So if you'd realign the saddles straight and put the strings back in the center of each of those saddles, the spacing would still be correct, the same as it is currently. And the bridge looks stock compared with another Atak 2 bridge I'd seen.

There's a photo of a blue Atak 2 on this site, under photos of Quests. Anyone know who owns that one?

I liked this guitar the first time I saw it, and now I like it even more. I shouldn't. But I do!

I think Trevor's right, that's a replacement bridge. If it were original, there wouldn't be a need to rout the cavity would there? (a bloody shame by the way). As for the saddles, I'd replace them rather than mess about with filing. In fact, I'd replace the entire bridge since this one appears to be made of cheap metal, hence the grooving. That's likely the reason for the poor sustain that you commented on too.

And I think Jorg is right too. That wood looks more like Ash than Mahogany.
Congrats on a great and unique find!

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"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
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Upon further research, I must conclude that the bridge is stock. This is based upon the five different Quest Atak 1 and 2 photos I've found on Google Images, which all show the same trem bridge as mine has. I tried to include them but it's giving me the "images may only be up to 800 pixels wide" again. Stupid thing. You'll have to Google Images "Quest Atak", and you'll find 5 good images with the same trem bridge. And last but not least, check the bridge on the Quest Atak 1T in the catalog. It's the same as mine. So either they all have the very same aftermarket bridge, or this is the stock bridge (as cheap as it may be)!

Regarding the trem block cavity, go back up to my photos and look at all the massive amounts of room in there for the trem block. A new bridge doesn't need that much. Even if it wasn't routed out, there would still be enough room for the trem block! This leads me to think that it was routed for extra room for dive bombs and others such non-sense, but not because it wouldn't fit. It has miles of room. I'll remove it then and check the holes. I want to take it apart before putting my NEON PINK strings on it. Any yes, I'm serious!!!

So far it looks like everything on this green monster is stock, based upon our detective work anyway. When we find catalogs with these things, that may clear a lot up!

I agree 100% with you on that Chad. After going over your pictures and every I have, she is stock. I would love if you could take pictures of the electronics in greater details. The electronics were available on the Manhattan series also.



Yep! Neon pink or purple would look amazing...

More pics!....

P.

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MAA Member since June 29th 2009, taking one baby step at a time..... and failing miserably!

Aye, your cry for more pics shall not go unanswered! I'll get in there hopefully with the Wife's fancy camera and get some great shots for posterity's sake.

Besides, photographing guitars is fun!