1987 Gibson SG special.
I like projects. Boy, I sure do. When I first laid my eyes on this beast, I knew something was special about it. ha ha. I should have known that something was up when the dude told me that Def Leppard had signed it. I ended up paying $400 for this baby. Unfortunately, that safety orange paint had to come off. Those signatures, they had to come off too. There are many awesome attributes about this instrument...Indeed, it is a 3 knobber! It also has a maple neck underneath that beautiful white finish, capped with what looks to be an ebony or ebonized fingerboard. As it is, some genius has stripped the front and drawn a lovely piece of art on it using (in no particular order) permanent marker, white out and BIC pen. The permanent marker sank deep into the mahagony body.
Update time:
Hello friends, I've noticed that there hasn't been an update for some time. I've included a few 'before' shots so we can remember where we started. As it turned out, that Gretsch had suffered a previous neck break (and had some places filled in with silicon epoxy!!) so splines were the only option to bolster it's strength and integrity. The second pic shows the Gretsch with the Epiphone SG with their splines being glued in place. Well! Let's take a look at the finished Gretsch headstock! You might notice that there is a very nice 3 ply (handmade!) truss rod cover on the face of the headstock to cover the cosmetic damage!
a loose G string:
is not something to take lightly, especially on a guitar. This is a MIJ Fender Jazzmaster®, with a serial number beginning with a "U" and followed by 6 numbers, which gives it a birthdate between 1995 and 1996. The issue with the G string was that the gears were actually slipping, and this instrument had about zero tuning stability...so I suggested that we try some GOTOH vintage oval tuners with a gold finish! As it turned out, there were a few other 'tone-killers' affecting this instrument:
1. the vibrato plate had slipped off it's stopper
2. re-adjustment of truss rod to lessen buzzing on E, A and D strings
3. rhythm volume and tone roller knobs were scratchy and rough
The tremolo is not a big deal, but a lot of people have never seen this type of tremolo before. After re-positioning it, the guitar will resonate waaaaaaaaay better, because that giant spring is the only thing in a very deeply routed channel that acts like a sound hole! As for checking the action of the strings, I also intonated and adjusted the bridge. I also cleaned the pots on the rhythm channel and now this instrument sings like a true champ!
'GOIN' FOR GOLD!"
ps
if you order gold tuners, you HAVE to remember to order a gold string tree, too!!
1. the vibrato plate had slipped off it's stopper
2. re-adjustment of truss rod to lessen buzzing on E, A and D strings
3. rhythm volume and tone roller knobs were scratchy and rough
The tremolo is not a big deal, but a lot of people have never seen this type of tremolo before. After re-positioning it, the guitar will resonate waaaaaaaaay better, because that giant spring is the only thing in a very deeply routed channel that acts like a sound hole! As for checking the action of the strings, I also intonated and adjusted the bridge. I also cleaned the pots on the rhythm channel and now this instrument sings like a true champ!
'GOIN' FOR GOLD!"
ps
if you order gold tuners, you HAVE to remember to order a gold string tree, too!!
Upright bass setup, and inspection
This bass came in with EXTREMELY high action: over 1 inch high across the 4 strings. This is unacceptable, even for Superman. The owner also complained about a buzz that rang out while the E string was played...more on that, later. The nut needed to be corrected as well, because all of the strings touched the fingerboard before reaching the terminus at the nut. Look at the pics below and notice that the .015 feeler gauge doesn't even fit! After discussion with the owner, I only shimmed the nut (you can see in a picture that the nut had been shimmed before too!) with a veneer of walnut to give it the extra rise it needed. I fit and finished the bridge, to make the action more playable: the G string measures in a 6 mm and the E string is at 8mm. Besides cleaning all sorts of gunk and rosin and such from the fingerboard, I also checked the position of the sound post, and made sure that the saddle and endpin were working properly. Now...to the source of the mysterious buzz!
Quite simply, the fingerboard is coming off from the neck. It will need to be re-glued asap, but the owner needed it for a gig and the bass is due back in the near future. A new nut is also necessary - the current one isn't even flush with the fingerboard!
Quite simply, the fingerboard is coming off from the neck. It will need to be re-glued asap, but the owner needed it for a gig and the bass is due back in the near future. A new nut is also necessary - the current one isn't even flush with the fingerboard!
Gretch Electromatic-broken neck
Similar to the fate of the Epiphone SG that Nancy and I fixed in June, this series of pictures show the condition of the guitar before the fix. Notice the deep channels? I will be inserting two mahogany splines into those channels, which will make the neck even stronger than before!
Epiphone SG-broken neck Part I (JUN2010)
This is after the glue up. The break was at the scarf joint...a particularly weak point in the tilted back headstock design.
