NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

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Sauerkraut
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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by Sauerkraut » Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:03 am

Bummer. I wonder how it ended up with such a strange combination of parts. It’s not all bad though. Shouldn’t be too difficult to turn it into a nice guitar.

Also: Taos turquoise(!)

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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by gishuk » Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:41 am

Sucks that this turned out to be not quite what you expected, but I think its gonna turn out to be a cool project and should end up being a pretty sweet guitar.

Props to the seller for being a good guy about it all too

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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by JSett » Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:03 pm

gishuk wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:41 am
Sucks that this turned out to be not quite what you expected, but I think its gonna turn out to be a cool project and should end up being a pretty sweet guitar.

Props to the seller for being a good guy about it all too
Yeah, I'm firmly in the 'fuck it' camp now. I was fuming this morning but I've chilled as the days gone on. Also, after speaking to the dude and him being humble enough to admit he'd goofed as well (and put his money where his mouth is), I was over it. Onwards and upwards.

I've had some crazy luck this year with gear so it was about time I got bent over and unexpectedly shafted on something 😂
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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by Embenny » Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:22 pm

johnnysomersett wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:03 pm
Yeah, I'm firmly in the 'fuck it' camp now. I was fuming this morning but I've chilled as the days gone on. Also, after speaking to the dude and him being humble enough to admit he'd goofed as well (and put his money where his mouth is), I was over it. Onwards and upwards.

I've had some crazy luck this year with gear so it was about time I got bent over and unexpectedly shafted on something 😂
I'm so sorry if I was the harbinger of your bad mood!

I wrote a whole giant reply answering detailed questions about things like the stamping of the tuners, but then my @#$%ing phone "blipped" and reloaded the page, erasing my whole reply and I rage-quit because spending another 30 minutes compiling photos and discussing nitty-gritty details is not in the cards for me today.

Let me say some positive things though:

1) Your follow-up photos proved that the roundover was vintage-correct, so my visual impression was wrong. It was clearly a refin, but your stripped photos revealed that it's a totally vintage-correct body with tan lines from a previous natural finish, so my conclusion is that you've got yourself a vintage body. That's good! Vintage refin body plus vintage refin neck = a vintage refin Mustang by anyone's standards. I know nothing of UK prices, but with the cash thrown back your way, it sounds like you're not in nearly as bad a spot as whoever bought that guitar from Reverb thinking it was original.

2) The headstock cracks you uncovered are all easily reparable and won't be at risk of causing structural failure, especially if you glue them properly.

3) Refin "player grade" Mustangs are incredible blank slates for mods, so you can get this guitar looking and sounding however you like.

So, you've got yourself a vintage body, neck, and vibrato. Guitars have been resurrected with less!

I have some unmolested vintage pickups and a vintage bridge that I wasn't particularly planning on selling, but if you were into the idea of restoring the guitar, I'd be open to supporting the cause of an OSG restoration, so feel free to PM me. Nobody particularly cares about vintage pots on a refin, ditto for tuners, and pickguards can be found if you're so inclined (I have a spare one but it had a toggle switch hole drilled into it by someone else). That would put you back into average vintage refin territory, value-wise, after investing in the parts, of course.

Just wanted to put a positive spin on it by pointing out that you can now choose to take it in the totally customized player direction, or the vintage restoration direction. The bones are all there and they're solid.
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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by JSett » Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:42 pm

mbene085 wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:22 pm
johnnysomersett wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 12:03 pm
Yeah, I'm firmly in the 'fuck it' camp now. I was fuming this morning but I've chilled as the days gone on. Also, after speaking to the dude and him being humble enough to admit he'd goofed as well (and put his money where his mouth is), I was over it. Onwards and upwards.

I've had some crazy luck this year with gear so it was about time I got bent over and unexpectedly shafted on something 😂
I'm so sorry if I was the harbinger of your bad mood!

I wrote a whole giant reply answering detailed questions about things like the stamping of the tuners, but then my @#$%ing phone "blipped" and reloaded the page, erasing my whole reply and I rage-quit because spending another 30 minutes compiling photos and discussing nitty-gritty details is not in the cards for me today.

Let me say some positive things though:

1) Your follow-up photos proved that the roundover was vintage-correct, so my visual impression was wrong. It was clearly a refin, but your stripped photos revealed that it's a totally vintage-correct body with tan lines from a previous natural finish, so my conclusion is that you've got yourself a vintage body. That's good! Vintage refin body plus vintage refin neck = a vintage refin Mustang by anyone's standards. I know nothing of UK prices, but with the cash thrown back your way, it sounds like you're not in nearly as bad a spot as whoever bought that guitar from Reverb thinking it was original.

2) The headstock cracks you uncovered are all easily reparable and won't be at risk of causing structural failure, especially if you glue them properly.

3) Refin "player grade" Mustangs are incredible blank slates for mods, so you can get this guitar looking and sounding however you like.

So, you've got yourself a vintage body, neck, and vibrato. Guitars have been resurrected with less!

I have some unmolested vintage pickups and a vintage bridge that I wasn't particularly planning on selling, but if you were into the idea of restoring the guitar, I'd be open to supporting the cause of an OSG restoration, so feel free to PM me. Nobody particularly cares about vintage pots on a refin, ditto for tuners, and pickguards can be found if you're so inclined (I have a spare one but it had a toggle switch hole drilled into it by someone else). That would put you back into average vintage refin territory, value-wise, after investing in the parts, of course.

Just wanted to put a positive spin on it by pointing out that you can now choose to take it in the totally customized player direction, or the vintage restoration direction. The bones are all there and they're solid.
Ahhh, it wasn't your fault. The more I dug into it I could tell things were going south. You just confirmed a few things and pointed out some I had overlooked! I wouldn't sweat it - your analysis was a massive help.

I've decided against a restoration of sorts and am going for the 'mildly hotrodded' angle of mods. I've ordered some slightly overwound pickups from Jaime over at Creamery and some repro Kluson butterbeans. I'll put modern CTS pots and some cloth wire in and basically just use it as a nice middle-of-the-road thrasher. I was going to just feed some thin CA glue down into those cracks but Rexter (who I was discussing it all with on IG) suggested some epoxy. I am yet undecided as to which method to use, but not stressed about it.

Thank you for the kind offer of the vintage parts though, if it was just one or two little things to bring it back to 'vintage correct' then i'd probably snap your hand off. I fear they would be wasted on this though as there would still be some major compromises marring the overall result.
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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by Embenny » Thu Jul 01, 2021 1:40 pm

As long as you get to a place where you're happy with the guitar, that's all that really matters.

CA is very commonly used for this type of crack repair because it's thin and therefore easy to wick into the crack. The main reason crack repairs fail is because good contact was never established, like by using a thick glue across the top vs a thin glue that actually penetrated.
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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by MechaBulletBill » Fri Jul 02, 2021 4:23 am

old neck, body and vibrato is a recipe for a sweet as fuck stang, whatever else you do to it.

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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by JSett » Fri Jul 02, 2021 8:24 am

mbene085 wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 1:40 pm
As long as you get to a place where you're happy with the guitar, that's all that really matters.

CA is very commonly used for this type of crack repair because it's thin and therefore easy to wick into the crack. The main reason crack repairs fail is because good contact was never established, like by using a thick glue across the top vs a thin glue that actually penetrated.
I've used it a few times to seal up a small crack in wood. I think I'll wind a slightly wider screw in just a turn or two to open them up a nanometer, feed some in then quickly unwind the screw so the tension with the wood memory pulls it together.

Now I'm getting into ordering the parts and paint for this I'm actually kind of excited to do it all - it's been a hot minute since I took on a project and I've missed it!
Silly Rabbit, don't you know scooped mids are for kids?

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Re: NGD: '64 Mustang - well, this is proving to be a damn mess

Post by Wucan » Mon Jul 05, 2021 9:39 am

Sauerkraut wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:03 am
Bummer. I wonder how it ended up with such a strange combination of parts. It’s not all bad though. Shouldn’t be too difficult to turn it into a nice guitar.

Also: Taos turquoise(!)
Mustangs have only become prized collectibles recently. Even <2 years ago you could get a pristine Competition for less than $2K. The pandemic really pushed up the floor for "entry level" vintages.

Up until then, people beat them up like any other guitars - heck, pre-Cobain they were pawn shop material. No doubt countless Mustangs were experimented with, like any other "modding platform".

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