This one came into my possession a couple of weeks ago. I had the intention of taking the pickups of it and selling the other parts. But I felt a bit sorry for it and decided to bring it back to life.
It was just about playable but the faults where the plywood body had a big split along right through the middle layers. The scratchplate was cracked and broken and the pots had had it. It also had selector switches which didn't work very well. I'm not sure about the original make and model of this. The pickups look like Guyatone ones and on dismantling are quite unusual and no they are not humbuckers.
Far from it. they measure a feeble 2.3k output! They do however have a very unique sound. nice and honest on a clean setting. softly fuzzy with gain turned up. When I took them apart they where packed out with what looked like bits of brown paper envelope!. I replaced this with some foam sheet.
The neck looks typical teisco kay etc but I'm not sure about the body I can't find one similar. It may be a homemade affair as the paintjob wasn't particularly good. If anyone knows then feel welcome to enlighten me.
I made a replacement body out of an Oak bed headboard. I used the original one as a template. It has had a couple of coats of woodstain. There are a couple of filled areas where the router decided to give me trouble.
The neck was in a bad way. lots of dents and the fretwork wasn't the best. I played with the idea of re-fretting but for the money I will get for this It woudn't be worth my while so I gave it a fret dress and filed the edges down filled all the dents in the back gave it some old squier machine heads as the original ones where useless. I haven't repainted it as the sanding only went down to the sealer and again it's not financially in my interest. There is a truss rod but It is missing a nut and I dont have one that fits and enables me to adjust it. It is reasonably straight anyway and quite chunky and if it ahsn't moved much in 40 years I can be reasonably confident in saying that it's going to be ok for a few more years.
I also made a replacement scratchplate with a gold and silver scratch effect. This is screwed on with small aluminium spacers to make it float above the body. I made the control cavity a little too big so the bridge extends over it and under the pick guard. It doesn't affect the tuning.
I also made a new saddle out of Aluminium to fit in the original bridge.
I replaced the pots with new ones and put a 3 way switch instead of the slider switches. The knobs are little aluminium ones from an amplifier these where on the guitar when I got it and I quite like them.
It has the tailpiece that was on the original guitar.
So I've put it all back together and it's not an unatractive guitar.
Playing is very light and easy as it has a 24.5" scale a zero fret and the string spacing is very close (8mm at the bridge). It has a suprisingly low action ok there is a bit of fret buzz here and there but hey! I'm not a miracle worker! It is liveable with.
I really like the body shape so I'm keeping the original to use as a template.
It was just about playable but the faults where the plywood body had a big split along right through the middle layers. The scratchplate was cracked and broken and the pots had had it. It also had selector switches which didn't work very well. I'm not sure about the original make and model of this. The pickups look like Guyatone ones and on dismantling are quite unusual and no they are not humbuckers.
The neck looks typical teisco kay etc but I'm not sure about the body I can't find one similar. It may be a homemade affair as the paintjob wasn't particularly good. If anyone knows then feel welcome to enlighten me.I made a replacement body out of an Oak bed headboard. I used the original one as a template. It has had a couple of coats of woodstain. There are a couple of filled areas where the router decided to give me trouble.
The neck was in a bad way. lots of dents and the fretwork wasn't the best. I played with the idea of re-fretting but for the money I will get for this It woudn't be worth my while so I gave it a fret dress and filed the edges down filled all the dents in the back gave it some old squier machine heads as the original ones where useless. I haven't repainted it as the sanding only went down to the sealer and again it's not financially in my interest. There is a truss rod but It is missing a nut and I dont have one that fits and enables me to adjust it. It is reasonably straight anyway and quite chunky and if it ahsn't moved much in 40 years I can be reasonably confident in saying that it's going to be ok for a few more years.
I also made a replacement scratchplate with a gold and silver scratch effect. This is screwed on with small aluminium spacers to make it float above the body. I made the control cavity a little too big so the bridge extends over it and under the pick guard. It doesn't affect the tuning.I also made a new saddle out of Aluminium to fit in the original bridge.
I replaced the pots with new ones and put a 3 way switch instead of the slider switches. The knobs are little aluminium ones from an amplifier these where on the guitar when I got it and I quite like them.
It has the tailpiece that was on the original guitar.
So I've put it all back together and it's not an unatractive guitar.
Playing is very light and easy as it has a 24.5" scale a zero fret and the string spacing is very close (8mm at the bridge). It has a suprisingly low action ok there is a bit of fret buzz here and there but hey! I'm not a miracle worker! It is liveable with.
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