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The guitar was described in good and playable condition and the seller told me the frets were in good condition after I asked him but what I received was a guitar in pretty bad shape: all the metal parts were covered in rust, there was a big gap between the neck heel and neck pocket but worst of all, the frets were damaged with big dents in them.
I made a claim on Paypal and we finally agree with the seller on a partial refund so I decided to keep the guitar.
Another important thing that helped me take the decision of keeping the guitar is our fellow offsetter Ben, better known under the name of theworkoffire, offered me to do the fretjob and helped me with wise advices for the other issues.
I actually wouldn't have been able (and wouldn't have wanted to either) to pay a pro guitar tech to do it.
So what will follow is a thread about an international restoration of the guitar.
Let's list the problem to fix:
1 - Gap between the neck heel and neck pocket.
2 - Rust on the neck plate, neck screw, tremolo bar and tremolo unit
3 - The high E saddle screw has been replaced with a bigger and odd screw:
4 - The damaged and used frets:
Work done yet:
1 - Gap between the neck heel and neck pocket. Fixed
It was not a real problem actually. The screw were just unscrewed and were not changed for some longer ones.
2 - Rust on the neck plate, neck screw, tremolo bar and tremolo unit
The whole trem unit + screws are in spa since a week now: alternating between bath of Coke, showers of WD40 and ernergic friction with toothpaste.
The trem unit is pretty much clean now but it still have markes and traces; I'll try another cleaning with toothpaste and another bath in Coke if necessary.
The neckplate and trem bar won't clean so easily: the dust is incrusted in the chrome. I think the only way is to sand it with the dremel. I'm not looking for them to be as new but i want to make them clean in the "safe for health" kind of way.
I also roughly cleaned the bridge and removed most of the rust and then included in the package with the neck which has arrived in Ben's home today.
I'll let Ben post about 3 and 4.
