Post by captainron on Dec 15, 2007 17:34:58 GMT -5
I wanted to share this intresting project with the others here who get in deep too. I bought this from a local ebay seller. It came from a small cafe in Uraguay while a traveling player was poking around in town, he saw this in te corner. His idea was to get it up and working again but after sitting for years he decided to turn the project over to someone else. $300 later it was my turn.
When I got it, it had a jazz style pickup in the bridge postion, the original bridge pickup in the neck position and another covered route where at one time it had a jazz pickup mounted in between the two. A toggle switch was installed in the pickguard, the input jack was moved to the lower tone hole. One tuner was stripped out and most of the screws were gone, held in by rusty NAILS! The neck was straight, no repairs (rare) and besides a gouge every half inch or so and a melted section of binding, it was actually pretty playable. The bridge had 2 home made saddles and was corroded with a few cracks in it. I stripped it down to the basic wood section and started my rebuild.
I took the beat up tuners, bridge and pickgaurd and sold them on Ebay to get $150 back. I guess everything is worth something there! Next I bought an old used Ripper pick up, a BadAss bridge, new pots, a toggles switch, a piece of pick guard material, Sperzel tuners and went to work.
I made my own brass nut out of some stock I had around the garage. I needed to shim the headstock holes with aluminum stock to fit the Sperzels, and made custom washers to fit the nuts. I reinstalled the original bridge pup back to its location and put the Ripper pup in the neck position. The most time consuming job was to make the pickguard. After a little internet training I made a paper pattern then a wood template. Then went to Home Depot and got a beveled router bit to do the cutting. It is a bit odd shaped but that is what it took to cover the routes that were there. The Badass saddles were very high so I notched them very deep instead of recessing the body and then plugged the stock mount holes with stainless steel threaded rod using the contact to the bridge to continue the ground circut. After a SG style toggle and wiring the pots I got to plug and play.
It sounds awesome. Super booming on the neck pickup and nice bright tone on the bridge. I am still working on phase issues in the both position but I stay away from that while playing live. It gives great variation of sound and the narrow neck makes fast fingering a breeze. It is not much of a collectable but it has lots of character and plays and sounds great. I get lots of attention when I break it out. It felt good bringing it back from the dead and all said and done, I probably have $350 into it.
I have a few cool amp/cab projects I will post soon.
When I got it, it had a jazz style pickup in the bridge postion, the original bridge pickup in the neck position and another covered route where at one time it had a jazz pickup mounted in between the two. A toggle switch was installed in the pickguard, the input jack was moved to the lower tone hole. One tuner was stripped out and most of the screws were gone, held in by rusty NAILS! The neck was straight, no repairs (rare) and besides a gouge every half inch or so and a melted section of binding, it was actually pretty playable. The bridge had 2 home made saddles and was corroded with a few cracks in it. I stripped it down to the basic wood section and started my rebuild.
I took the beat up tuners, bridge and pickgaurd and sold them on Ebay to get $150 back. I guess everything is worth something there! Next I bought an old used Ripper pick up, a BadAss bridge, new pots, a toggles switch, a piece of pick guard material, Sperzel tuners and went to work.
I made my own brass nut out of some stock I had around the garage. I needed to shim the headstock holes with aluminum stock to fit the Sperzels, and made custom washers to fit the nuts. I reinstalled the original bridge pup back to its location and put the Ripper pup in the neck position. The most time consuming job was to make the pickguard. After a little internet training I made a paper pattern then a wood template. Then went to Home Depot and got a beveled router bit to do the cutting. It is a bit odd shaped but that is what it took to cover the routes that were there. The Badass saddles were very high so I notched them very deep instead of recessing the body and then plugged the stock mount holes with stainless steel threaded rod using the contact to the bridge to continue the ground circut. After a SG style toggle and wiring the pots I got to plug and play.
It sounds awesome. Super booming on the neck pickup and nice bright tone on the bridge. I am still working on phase issues in the both position but I stay away from that while playing live. It gives great variation of sound and the narrow neck makes fast fingering a breeze. It is not much of a collectable but it has lots of character and plays and sounds great. I get lots of attention when I break it out. It felt good bringing it back from the dead and all said and done, I probably have $350 into it.
I have a few cool amp/cab projects I will post soon.
