Fixing Gav's Guitar

Fixing Gav's Bass

2009-08-04T21:25:00.003+01:00

Whilst Gav is away getting hitched or something, I've been having a go at his Bass. This was a one-evening project, rather than a year-long experience. Really all I did was solder a previously disconnected grounding wire back to where I assume it must go, and give it all a good clean. Several years of built up grime on the neck were replaced by a nice 'dressing' of lemon oil. Bridge cleaned and lubricated. Body cleaned. Nut lubricated with Teflon^TM grease. Tuners tightened. Tarnished pickup poles detarnished (Well, I managed to lessen the tarnishing anyway) Wiring checked, etc.

I'm sure that only one pickup worked before I started, which was why I was fixing it anyway. Unfortunately I forgot to test it out beforehand. Anyway, they both work well now!

I also recently treated my 'Stratocaster' to a bone nut. Thankfully, I avoided contracting anthrax whilst carving and sanding the bone. It went quite well, but I think that I will have another go at it in the future (replacing the one I already did).

Some photos of the finished article

2008-05-06T22:24:00.004+01:00

Multitasking: Playing a guitar and smoking a fag.

Thrashing it. Plugging it into an amp actually revealed that my soldering was not too bad. No terrible humming noises at all.

Before Gav got his grubby mits on it.

Nice new plastic bits.

I did the back too.

It's done!

2008-03-22T21:01:00.003Z

The strat wiring kit arrived this morning, so I spent this afternoon wiring up the guitar and finishing it off! It works! Photos and maybe even a sound clip or two to follow!

Strat innards on their way again

2008-03-11T16:12:00.003Z

After emailing StewMac over their error, they have apologised and (hopefully) sent the correct parts this time. They even said that I could keep the pliers (fret pullers), which is nice. I don't imagine it would have been economic to have a game of trans-Atlantic pliers tennis, the pliers having originated in Germany, been imported to the USA, sent to me in the UK, only to have me return them to the USA again! I also don't imagine that I'll be doing any fret pulling any time soon.

Mess up at StewMac

2008-03-10T17:31:00.002Z

I got my stuff delivered from StewMac today. Unfortunately good news doesn't always come in small packages, as the suspiciously small package that perched precariously on my letterbox contained no Strat wiring kit; It did however contain a pair of pliers that I didn't order. Handsome as the tool is, it will not bring a Strat to life, and I fear that it will soon be winging its way back over the pond. I have of course emailed StewMac, and await their reply. I was hoping to get this project finished before Gav's birthday, in 6 days time. It ain't happening for this birthday!

Plastic knob update

2008-03-09T00:00:00.000Z

A woman from Allparts keeps phoning me when I'm out, leaving messages about the knob, as it's now become available; Unfortunately the credit card I used when I originally ordered it has since expired. In any case, I ordered a set of white Fender knobs a while ago, which were cheaper, and will look better.

I sat down to fix the electronics last weekend and found that the lot, possibly excluding the pickups, is in a sorry state. The pots have a furry tarnish, and I seriously doubted their usability before they spent a winter in my shed. The whole lot was so seriously manky that I went to Stewmac and ordered a new set of innards. Plus some Guitar Grease (graphite nut lube), and a bone nut for my own Strat, which I guess will no longer be vegetarian after the operation; Guitar magazines tell me however, that a bone nut will sound like a £1000 guitar. Hopefully I can avoid contracting anthrax whilst shaping the nut, which I imagine is winging it's way across the Atlantic, or whatever it's called nowadays, as I type this. Even more hopefully, it will arrive quite a bit less than a year after I ordered it, unlike the case of the pink plastic knob (One of Sherlock Holme's less publicised cases?).

Tiny plastic knob. Currently it's in Japan. Should be in U.K.

2007-05-01T22:47:00.000+01:00

I emailed All Parts. They say that the switch tip is on order and is currently on its way from Japan.

This guitar is going to have a bigger carbon footprint than a wookiee chimney sweep.

Whoops

2007-04-29T17:39:00.000+01:00

I sprayed the lacquer on to the guitar body (several thin coats). It looked good and it really made the metallic flakes twinkle. I let it dry completely, then I sanded back with very fine wet and dry paper, ready for the last coat. I kept noticing this thin 'skin' forming as I sanded. Then I realised it was the entire layer of lacquer coming off. Whoops. Apparently there are more than one sort of lacquer available, and I obviously used completely the wrong one. I've had to peel off all the lacquer and there are still little flakes of it all over. When I got sick of peeling off bits of lacquer, I hung the guitar body back in its wire, where it usually resides. The wire promptly broke and the guitar body smashed into the floor of my shed. Now there's big chips of paint missing on the base and the back. Whoops, again. So some serious respraying is needed, then some lacquering with the correct sort of lacquer (which I have already purchased).

Having forgotten why this project started, I asked Gav the other day if there was actually anything wrong with the guitar (I can remember now that there must have been, as this is how it ended up in bits - not everyone takes things that work fine to bits to see how they work, like I do, although those that do usually observe well enough to put things back together fine, like I do not). He told me that the guitar just didn't work (electrically). I can see that some of the wires to the selector switch are disconnected and I hope that this is the extent of the problems and that the pickups are OK. The pickups, which you may remember have been covered in all sorts of pen and paint combinations, are now (and hopefully will remain) flat white (first coat done, so far). I know painting pickups it seriously wrong, but nothing will get them clean, and replacements aren't an option.

And the switch tip still hasn't arrived from All Parts.

Body paint

2007-04-06T19:03:00.000+01:00

I painted the body of Gav's guitar! Halfords don't sell pink paint off the shelf, so I just chose the daftest colour they had instead.T Gav's guitar is now the same colour as this little bit of motoring history:

Which is, in fact "Rover Tara Green". Metallic green. Nice.

The scratchplate, knobs, screws, etc came from Allparts! All I'm missing now is one switch tip.

Now I'm off to go and spray some clear lacquer all over!1!

Primed

2006-12-11T19:36:00.000Z

I primed the guitar, sanded it back and then primed again. Now it's primer gray. Now I need to pick out some colour for it. Then comes the painting and clear coat. Then I need to salvage the replacement hot rail humbucker off my old guitar -an Encore Coaster (pointy headstock, locking nut and metallic red body made of chipboard, nasty, but I played it in FMW)). I'll probably slavage some of the other hardware off it too.

The Coaster is in bits in my loft. I'm not overly keen to go and get it because of the wasp's nest up there. I guess all the wasps are dead by now (I hope, anyway), but I hate wasps and there's always one or two dopey looking wasps up there, no matter what time of year. There are something like 5000 species of mammals (including humans, cats, dogs, bears, wales, etc), but there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of species of wasps. And the ones that don't chase you round the garden or drown themselves in your drink, are parisitic wasps (not nice for the host). I'm not against biodiversity or anything, but I'm sure that we could do without a few thousand species of wasps, animals no better than a bee with an ASBO.

Guitar designs

2006-09-28T19:07:00.000+01:00

Hastily photoshopped possibilities for Gav's guitar.

Pink!

2006-09-24T16:56:00.000+01:00

This is the approximate colour that Gav wants his guitar to be:

Bridge cleaned

2006-08-28T12:40:00.000+01:00

I got most of the paint of the front of the body. A few dents still have emulsion embedded in them.

Those tricky horns.

Bridge before cleaning.

Bridge after cleaning. Better than it was anyway.

Began sanding

2006-08-27T18:01:00.000+01:00

I sanded most of the paint off the back of the body, but this was only one layer of emulsion thick. The front has at least two layers of emulsion. Inside the 'horns' is going to be tricky too.

And not forgetting Gav's doodle in permanent marker.

These scratches were underneath the emulsion; they might even have been underneath the tobacco sunburst finish.

I put the bridge with its seized up saddles into a bath of release agent. I'll leave it overnight. Hopefully it will dissolve some of the emulsion and the various other crap too.

Nasty rusty stuff. The Union flag must have been painted in crimson acrylic paint because that's what's embedded in the lettering on the bridge saddles and on the springs and bolts. This is never going to be like new, but it's got to look better than this.

The guitar

2006-08-26T16:29:00.000+01:00

Bandmate Gav's guitar is knackered. It was bought about thirteen years ago by Gav's bro, and for many years served as his main guitar. Then he got an Epiphone Les Paul and this one eventually got passed to Gav.

It's a Vester 'Tradition Series', with an 'Original Concept Body'. Basically, it's a Strat copy. It used to look like the guitar on this page. Except it has a white scratchplate. Over the years the guitar got several custom paint jobs. It's been covered in stickers, sellotape and pictures from magazines. It was completely coated in yellow eggshell emulsion paint, and finally a coat of matt white emulsion. The scratchplate (I think) was painted with a Union flag at some point. The neck only had a bit of emulsion where it bolts on to the body. The headstock had a few stickers and the tuners were badly tarnished/rusted. In this photo I've already given the tuners and neck a good clean.

The guitar is in bits because when Gav painted it white, he realised that it didn't work any more. He completely dismantled it. It's in a bad way. The bridge part is rusted and the screws have seized up. The switch and pots are very dodgy. The pickups might work but they have been painted too at some point. All of the white knobs and the switch tip are missing. Half the screws are missing. The pickups screws and springs seem to be too few.

The output jack is covered in white emulsion.

I am going to do the body first. Then the hardware. Then the electrics. After sanding the multiple layers of paint off I will do a new paint job.