What a great old guitar! Despite it’s age (dialling the serial number into the web came out with 1960) it’s not seen a great deal of wear, it’s just had a little damp getting to it lately. Luckily I think we’ve got it just in time!
The frets are a little worn around the usual treble side, at the top of the neck. To take out the wear, and even out a couple of high spots, I’m going to dress the lot. They all need a good polish anyway.
You can see here where the damp has started to corrode the bridge and pickup poles. Not too far gone, so hopefully recoverable.
With the nut removed and the neck levelled the first thing was to dress the frets.
You can see the los spots as I started grinding.
Even the pointers for the volume and tone controls were rusted up. I took each one out and polished it up. The ones on the right are before and the ones on the left after.
The pots seemed to move OK and didn’t sound too bad, but I gave them all a good clean anyway.
Likewise the selector switch. A little corroded so I gave the top a good clean and polished the contacts.
The owner did report that it was cutting out now and then. I couldn’t find anything definitely wrong, but the jack socket was rather rusted inside. They’re rather difficult to clean properly so I replaced it with a new one. Hopefully, along with cleaning the switch and pots, that should do it.
All the other bits and bobs, strap buttons, machine heads etc. were also rather rusty so they all had a good cleanup.
Before…
After…
Likewise the bridge and pickups….
With all that done all that’s needed now is a standard 5 point setup..
The neck set…
A little high so tighten the truss-rod a little…
Next the action at the 12th fret. Again a little high…
so drop the bridge a shade.
Then the action at the first fret. About the only thing I didn’t need to touch, it was spot on!
With the playing action feeling right, next adjust the Intonation so that it sounds right all the way up the neck.
Lastly the pickup heights. I use the feeler gauges as a starting point, but you have to plug it in and listen to it.
And there we have it. Ready for another 50 years (if it that old, I’m not exactly sure).
