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Looks good!
Nice clay dot look, and the tinting looks good...
As does the charango...

tonewoods wrote:Looks good!
Nice clay dot look, and the tinting looks good...
As does the charango...

Thanks! The dots still seem a little dark to me though.

Good eye! I love my charango. This whole neck colour thing was just my way of fishing for compliments on my hairy little guitar.
Do you play charango?

Connor wrote:

tonewoods wrote:Looks good!
Nice clay dot look, and the tinting looks good...
As does the charango...

Thanks! The dots still seem a little dark to me though.

Good eye! I love my charango. This whole neck colour thing was just my way of fishing for compliments on my hairy little guitar.
Do you play charango?

I've seen dots that dark....
Are they indeed clay??

Here's a tune I used my charango on:

http://bruceharvie.bandcamp.com/track/daze

99% done! Here's how she looks at this stage:


I tried to go for a light relic look- the dents are courtesy of my inherent clumsiness and the checking courtesy of a late freeze a few months ago here in Ottawa. The yellowing of the clear coat is from a very diluted solution of alcohol dissolved Vintage Amber aniline dye that I rubbed on with a towel. It was kind of a tricky process to get to look even but you can always erase any screw ups with non dyed alcohol. It's still a little blotchy but then again I've seen Olympic white age unevenly.



There's a Lollar P90 hiding in the bridge position until the original gets back from a rewind by Peter at The Pickup Wizard.



Dots were done with timbermate white wood filler and stained with the same aniline solution I stained the neck and body with.

bravo! nice work!

tonewoods wrote:
Here's a tune I used my charango on:

http://bruceharvie.bandcamp.com/track/daze

Fabulous! The recording really captures the mini wall of sound that the charango puts out. Sounds nice and epic when the slide guitar comes in. Well played too.

Just got a message from Peter at The Pickup Wizard that my rewind is complete! Should be here Monday. Not bad considering I shipped it out to him Tuesday!

Because I'm bored and because the "Vintage Restorations" forum has been a bit of a ghost town for the past few weeks I'd figured it would be helpful to post practices and products that did and didn't work for me on this refin. I'm no expert but for the most part I'm proud of how this turned out. Thanks to all the citizens of OSG for the knowledge, inspiration and the balls to attempt this!

Also, I live in Canada and certain products are more readily available to me here so I hope this will be useful to those living north of the 49th.

PRODUCTS THAT WORKED

Circa 1850 Heavy Body Paint & Varnish Remover The Circa 1850 line of products seemed to be the most common in paint and hardware stores in my area. It's paint remover and it did just that in about three thick applications. Nasty stuff too.

Timbermate Wood Filler I read about this on OSG and on the Stew mac website, it was also highly recommended by my local paint shop. Cut with some water I rubbed it on with my fingers and wiped the excess off with a credit card. On a previous project I tried the Stew Mac method which has the product heavily diluted and brushed on but found it difficult to get on evenly. Timbermate being a water based product also has a tendency to raise the grain of the wood so you have to make sure to get enough solids on there. I found it much easier to use a half and half mixture of wood filler and water and work it in evenly with my fingers. It took more sanding when it dried (it's pretty hard stuff) but gave a nice even surface and filled a few dings in the same step. Non toxic but smells awful. Strangely awful.

Mohawk Lacquers (Tone Finish Clear Lacquer Sanding Sealer, Tone Finish Gloss White, Clear Gloss Lacquer)
Mohawk is pretty much the only full line of lacquer that is available to me and that suits me just fine. I used an entire can of sanding sealer which I applied pretty wet and was dry by the next morning. Both the colour and clear coats went on nicely and the ReRanch instructions applied to the letter. I found that it dried to the touch much faster than Watco products I have used in the past but seemed to take longer to dry thoroughly. I eventually gave the body about a month before the final sand and buff. Shined up nice.

Various Polishes You can find reams of info about which compounds to use but the following worked well for me in the following order: Turtle Wax Polishing Compound, Meguiar's Ultimate Compound and Scratch X 2.0. I applied this with a small automotive foam buffer ball http://www.motherspowerball.com which was great at getting into the contours. I made sure to wash the buffer with soap and water after each stage to get rid of the the previous, coarser compound.

PRODUCTS THAT DIDN'T WORK (FOR ME AT LEAST)

Circa 1850 Soft Strip Admittedly I'm not quite sure what kind of paint was on the body when it came into my possession but I'm pretty sure it was an outdoor grade oil based paint. Maybe it would work on a lacquer based finish, I don't know. What I do know is that a, it smells awful, kind of like boiling vinegar (anybody who makes their own BBQ sauces will know what I'm talking about) and b,it really gets into any nail or screw holes and hides there, waiting to pounce at any stage of the finishing process. I swear, I tried my darndest to get the neck mounting holes cleaned out with Q Tips but about a week after I applied the final clear coat the lacquer streaked below the screw holes. Thank God I let the body sit for a week until the stink wore off because it probably would have lifted the finish in a few places. I'm sure somebody around here knows how to neutralize the stuff, please feel free to chime in.

It's bedtime so I'll continue this tomorrow...

ANGRY! Too the day off work to receive and install my rewound pickup and Canada Post left a note telling me to pick it up in two days at the post office. They didn't ring my door bell even though the notice says they did! Argh. What pisses me off is that I paid for expedited service to get it here quicker, I could have paid regular postage if I chose to wait another two days. I understand this is a problem with other parcel carriers as well.

HULK SMASH!

Anybody got any experience with '59 necks? I've tried one about a year ago and remember it being a little on the small side but I assume that they're not all the same. I LOVE the Musikraft neck I have on it (I got the V-C profile) but the prospect of reuniting the body with its proper neck is too tempting not to explore. Thanks!

That white finish with the small amounts of checking is stunning!

Well done!!!

beautiful! Very nice work. I had a '64 just like that for a moment... no checking though.

Connor wrote:ANGRY! Too the day off work to receive and install my rewound pickup and Canada Post left a note telling me to pick it up in two days at the post office. They didn't ring my door bell even though the notice says they did! Argh. What pisses me off is that I paid for expedited service to get it here quicker, I could have paid regular postage if I chose to wait another two days. I understand this is a problem with other parcel carriers as well.

HULK SMASH!

they do this every single time to me; I swear they never even bother ringing first.

The guitar looks great man... I just ordered a Musikraft neck for my '62 project, glad to hear you really liked yours.

I have a '59 blonde Jazzmaster with gold pick guard
It was my grandfathers and my grandmother gave it to me
20 years ago. I took lessons on it and my guitar teacher
was the first to show me the date by removing the
neck. he then tried to trade me a Gibson SG for it but
I said no because of the sentimental value. it is 100% original
and in complete working order with the original case. Any
ideas what something like this would be worth? I played it
in bands throughout college and never really considered it may be
rare. any help would be appreciated.