"I bought my Vintage Cherry Blues Hawk, serial #01650446, roundabout Christmas 2000, second-hand and in excellent condition (sadly after a couple of years' gigging the back is no longer as pristine as it once was!). I got on really well with the feel of the guitar, loved the light weight, but was a bit disappointed with the varitone - one of the reasons I'd gone for the 'Hawk was to try and get Strat sounds as I can't get on with Strats but love the tones. So I asked Hugh Manson of Manson guitars if he could rout an extra pickup hole, stripped out the Gibson electrics, and put in a set of Kent Armstrong P90s with the centre one reverse wound. Add in a 5-way switch, and I got a Gibson guitar with a nice beefy set of Strat sounds. To start I still had the varitone, but I decided to add in an active pre-amp with some extra eq (also from Hugh Manson). The toggle switch went where the varitone selector had once been, and the pre-amp fitted almost perfectly into the cavity where the dummy pickup usually sits. The pre-amp has 3-band eq which I have set for humbucker-type sounds with a bit of a gain boost, all brought in at the flick of a switch. The result is an extremely versatile guitar which is probably one of a kind. No doubt I've halved any value of the "little red guitar" (as it's always been known) but since the 'Hawk is a "never sell" I don't mind a bit. The 'Hawk also went through a brief period with a GK2 added to drive a VG-88, but that period of insanity quickly passed and I'm back to all-valve rigs these days. Oh yes; here's a tip for anyone who finds themselves with a dummy pickup coil lying around - you just need a base-plate, magnets, pole pieces and a cover and you have yourself a Blues 90 pickup :-)"