What's on your workbench right now?

[Shadoweclipse13]

Very tidy job! Nice one Johnny!!

[JSett]

Very tidy job! Nice one Johnny!!

Thank you! It was very much a 'measure 30 times, cut once' situation. I don't like the little wobble in the top line of the hole but it fit nice and snugly like that so just left it (and my hand was sore from filing by that point )

[GilmourD]

Very tidy job! Nice one Johnny!!

Thank you! It was very much a 'measure 30 times, cut once' situation. I don't like the little wobble in the top line of the hole but it fit nice and snugly like that so just left it (and my hand was sore from filing by that point )

That's better than most factory work I've seen. LOL

[thephza]

Here's another update. I couldn't get the blower switch wiring to play nicely with the blender knob, so I turned them into capacitor bypass switches... I think. I tried five different wirings to and settled on this. We'll see how it comes together when my tuners arrive from China.

Oh, the neckplate features Rick of Rick and Morty. The Chinese text translates to Rickenbacker. And I may swap out that giant blender knob for something tiny instead.

[Shadoweclipse13]

Very tidy job! Nice one Johnny!!

Thank you! It was very much a 'measure 30 times, cut once' situation. I don't like the little wobble in the top line of the hole but it fit nice and snugly like that so just left it (and my hand was sore from filing by that point )

That's better than most factory work I've seen. LOL

Seriously! I honestly thought it *was* factory work at first glance!!

[JSett]

On the bench for its 846262837489502271th pickup swap was my old JM66BB. This time I did the unthinkable and put a P90 in it. From UK-based Gemini Pickups, arrived to me in less than a week (made to order!) and sounds great. I was struggling to get a thickness to the sound with other options but this seems to have done the trick. It came with a very clean looking new cover so I dug out a slightly screwed one so it didn't look too weird on the guitar...







"THeY'Re NOT p90S in A JaZZmasTEr brO"
Actually, yes it is

[eilrahc]

Currently on my "workbench" (the table in the kitchen) is a candy apple red (gold basecoat) Parts-guar. It's been an on-off project for...absolutely ages, I'm probably sort of a toxic perfectionist so I've found myself doing and redoing parts of it again and again to get them right. I've spent more money on it than I ever intended to, have made fuck ups that I could never have imagined I would make, put it away, got it out again, it's been a rollercoaster, but I've learnt a lot. I've got some Pure Vintage '65 (I think, I bought them so long ago) pickups to go in it. It's not anything really exciting and innovative, I just wanted to see if I could do a candy apple red finish.

This is how far I got before I had to sand back and redo the gold base coat on the body, because reasons. It actually looks pretty cool in shoreline gold, but I've already bought the red lacquer:

[ThePearDream]

Doing a fret level, new bone nut, and setup, on an all gold Squier J5 Tele for my friend Annie, in exchange for a painting. Just need to fine tune the nut now, and it'll be ready to rawk.

[GotA]

Doing a pickup swap and rewire of my vintera tele deluxe.

[seenoevil II]

Sheesh, a little imposter syndrome posting in here, you're all doing such cool stuff! Nonetheless, I thought I'd share a little project that's been providing a fun distraction this past week.


Found for $25 at Goodwill (had to reality check that it was 2024 and that was a decent price). Unbranded parlor guitar, though it screams 1950's Kay or Harmony. No markings that I can spot.


Note the lifting bridge. The body is all 1/8" birch plywood. There was a tone of delamination that needed gluing up, and a couple nastier wounds like this one here.


It laid back down with a ton of clamping, so I filled the space with "plastic wood"


Some acrylic paint to replace the likely lead paint binding that was missing. Then some amber shellac. Not the tidiest work, I admit, but I think it will do for this application.


The opposite corner had this little wound with a missing piece.


I cleaned up the break then found a suitable wood to splice in.


Lots of thickness sanding and refining later I had this piece made up.


Glued in place with some more shellac. It's not the best color match, but it's real mahogany when the old phony finish was pretending to be mahogany, so I'm going to let it slide. I did knock back the shine with steel wool however.


You can see the level of care and attention the factory paid to this Brazilian rosewood bridge.


Cleaned up the surfaces. Sanded the bridge flat on the bottom as years of being lifted put a warp in the wood. I thought of removing the glued in through saddle, but made a clamping caul to avoid it instead.


Finally, the ply wood bridge plate, while holding fast to the top, was delaminating a little. So, after much iteration, I devised this specialized turn buckle clamp. The back has zero bracing, so imagine my horror when I tightened this clamp until resistance, then saw the back bulging out by a quarter inch at least.

Anyway, I believe the body is in sound structural shape now. I was contemplating a neck reset (my first). But the neck geometry isn't bad for a 70 year guitar with only two ladder braces to speak of. Plus, I really just want to play the thing! So, I have a cheapo transducer pickup coming that I'll install.

[antisymmetric]

^^Cool little project, good fun/stress ratio.

[MattK]

Why I do this to myself I'll never know. This is a 1986 Ibanez RB630 Roadstar II that I've owned for 30 years, which I bought refinished in black, but looking quite crappy. Decided to take it back to the original burgundy finish. It has no great value but gee it's nice to play.
Black lacquer over some chalky green paint, fortunately the stripper doesn't bother the original finish. But I think it was sanded before refinishing and there's some sandthrough on the edges, fingers crossed it doesn't look like an awful home relic when it's cleaned up.

[mynameisjonas]

Attempting my first refret. The old frets came out without much trouble. I had a few small chips but I think most of them will be hidden under the new frets, which will be considerably wider and taller. I'm going full jumbo on this one, to make the neck feel a bit bigger and more at home with my Gibson and Epiphones.

[SuperAxe]

Why I do this to myself I'll never know. This is a 1986 Ibanez RB630 Roadstar II that I've owned for 30 years, which I bought refinished in black, but looking quite crappy. Decided to take it back to the original burgundy finish. It has no great value but gee it's nice to play.
Black lacquer over some chalky green paint, fortunately the stripper doesn't bother the original finish. But I think it was sanded before refinishing and there's some sandthrough on the edges, fingers crossed it doesn't look like an awful home relic when it's cleaned up.

Leave it like that. Looks really cool

[GilmourD]

Attempting my first refret. The old frets came out without much trouble. I had a few small chips but I think most of them will be hidden under the new frets, which will be considerably wider and taller. I'm going full jumbo on this one, to make the neck feel a bit bigger and more at home with my Gibson and Epiphones.

I'm contemplating doing a refret myself, soon, since the neck in question has vintage-height frets that were already marginally below my preference as it is so a level would probably drop that height too low for me. I got this neck for $50 so it's not a big deal for me. LOL I just need to get the tools and give it a whirl. Will probably practice on an older junk neck I have, too, before this one.