Lunch Report 5-29-- Guitar Rescue

I was just going to post some technical things and may as well do a lunch report. I had Pork Steaks on the grill this evening with a Oriental Salad Ginny made, very good!

I have spent the last couple of days rescuing guitars that needed some love. The first is a G&L Asat tribute that needed a new nut. I had shimmed it previously but Steve decided that he would like an LSR nut. This is a Fender product and the tribute neck is a 9 inch radius so the LSR is a perfect option in my opinion. For those who may be interested, the Fender string spacing is a bit wider at the nut than G&L so if you have larger fingers, this works very well. It requires widening the nut groove and I used a file to do this. I am extremely happy with the results and here are some before and after pictures. I have not put the screws in yet, but the drills will arrive tomorrow. This thing really plays sweet and I do notice the difference in the string spacing. What G&L projects have you done recently?

Before


After


Now for a non G&L rescue. Our drummer bought a Fender 62 reissue Strat from a pawn shop cheap thinking it was worth quite a bit of money. It was for his son. He brought it to me and it was virtually unplayable. The low E string would not stay on the neck higher up and it had buckets of harmonics coming off it and a tuner could not pick up the fundamental frequency. It had what looks like graphtech saddles on it and the string alignment was way off. This is one where you have to start from scratch and he told me the original saddles were in the case. The screws were all rusted so they were unusable. I ordered new saddles for it.

String alignment


And saddles


I installed the new saddles on Monday and the low E still had harmonics but the string alignment was good. The saddles hat to be too low and the neck needed a shim. I removed the neck and the neck pocket area was all chipped for neck removal and tightening back up. There is evidence that this neck has been overtightened as there is a bit of ski slope on the low E side where the neck is bolted. I decided to continue and shimmed the neck. I now adjusted the saddles again the the low E worked fine. I set everything and this guitar actually plays quite nice. The slight ski slope could be fixed with a fret level. I am not going to do that as it now plays quite well. I suspect that this guitar has never been right for many years as it had been worked on so much. I suspect the lower frets have been relaced by someone who did it right as the frets look new. The bridgeplate has holes in it where the two different saddles from the past have been sitting. Would you waste you time on something like this as it is a true relic and would you buy it??? This one was a tough one to straighten out. Have a great day everyone and I have rescued enough guitars for this week.-- Darwin

Here is the after photo.

those graphtech saddles are for a different spacing bridge.

I have three rescues in the works. The first was an '81/'82 L-1000 that had been stripped, spray painted, and put back together wet. I have the body about 75% sanded at this point, but will need to plug and re-drill a couple of control plate screw holes which the previous owner had stripped out with oversized screws.

The second is a mid-90s MIM Duo Sonic, which was completely trashed by a previous owner. There is no way it could be fixed without taking a loss on resale value, but this will be my son's first guitar and hopefully will stick around for a very long time. I've stripped the body, and right now my son is playing it without the electronics. I will need to buy a new pickguard, seal and finish the body, and solder everything up. In it's current state it seems like a decent player, and I'm sure it will get even better as the project goes along.

The third will be a mid-60s Duo Sonic. The neck and body are from two different guitars that had been parted out, and everything else will be aftermarket. On the bright side, I've realize that the seller was wrong when he claimed the body had been repainted. It has a thin coat of blue over a standard white finish, which I've learned happened quite a bit when orders came in for colors that weren't on hand.

Ken

I need to learn how to do basic set ups before I take on any rescue projects. I have an old Yamaha acoustic that needs some fixing. Any advice on which basic tools to buy and a good book for set ups? Not sure what lunch will be today, some sort of noodles or dumplings ( might need a break from Asian food soon) lots of guitar stores near the Hutong we are staying in . Of f to the forbidden city in a few minutes... Bonus points , where am I ?

I'm going to rescue a Comanche of the CL ..... its calling my name

I need to learn how to do basic set ups before I take on any rescue projects. I have an old Yamaha acoustic that needs some fixing. Any advice on which basic tools to buy and a good book for set ups? Not sure what lunch will be today, some sort of noodles or dumplings ( might need a break from Asian food soon) lots of guitar stores near the Hutong we are staying in . Of f to the forbidden city in a few minutes... Bonus points , where am I ?

Enjoy your visit to Beijing. I understand most of the Hutongs are gone now. I don't remember seeing any guitar stores there. We visited in 2005 just in time for the Lunar New Year's celebrations. I read that they made a concerted effort to correct much of the unintentionally hilarious "Chinglish" signage prior to the Olympics. Are you going to see any other cities on your tour?

I need to learn how to do basic set ups before I take on any rescue projects. I have an old Yamaha acoustic that needs some fixing. Any advice on which basic tools to buy and a good book for set ups? Not sure what lunch will be today, some sort of noodles or dumplings ( might need a break from Asian food soon) lots of guitar stores near the Hutong we are staying in . Of f to the forbidden city in a few minutes... Bonus points , where am I ?

you are in peking.

I am indeed in Beijing . We will be going home on Monday/Tuesday on a late flight. We started off in Shanghai, ( crazy city ) , relaxed for two days in Yangshang lake , did a few day trips and then took the high speed train to Beijing arriving yesterday. The Hutong we are in is about 600 years old and is one the protected list. The whole area we are in has protected Hutongs, but sadly you are correct, most of them have been torn down. The whole country is one giant construction site. I've been taking photos of "chinglish " anywhere I encounter it , there still appears to be some fine examples. I counted about eight or nine guitar stores within about g
Five minutes of the hotel, I'll pop in to some to see if there are any G&L's.....

those graphtech saddles are for a different spacing bridge.

I agree with Louis. It seems like the two E strings are at the very edge of the fingerboard. Cool guitar though.

Will

Louis and Will are correct. The saddles are the wrong size. The screws caused them to be at different angles with a lot of space between them. It is actually a nice playing guitar with a neck date of 10-7-86. Thanks for your responses and project reports.-- Darwin