I picked this up a week or so ago.  It’s not something I would even consider but a good friend of mine bought it on e-bay and it wasn’t exactly what he expected so I’ve taken it off his hands and I’m going to see what I can do with it.

The first thing I did was to pull it apart., actually it mostly fell apart,  Including the fretboard.  Since that’s off I’m going to try and do something special with the fret markers.  I drilled out the old ones…

and sanded down some new ones to make them nice and thin…

I bought some LEDs which I hoped would shine through the new markers.

Unfortunately that didn’t work, not bright enough…. 

Next I tried some smaller LEDs and mounted then in the markers themselves and wired them up in 2 sets..

and then glued the fretboard back on the neck..

The frets are very worn and the fretboard very grubby so out with the old frets..

Clean up and level the fretboard, the fret markers and LEDs.Looking better, coming along…Ensure the slots are deep enough for the new frets, the steel rule makes sure they don’t end up too deep.Gently bend the new fret-wire…and tap into place…and roughly cut to length.With the new frets in place tidy up the fret ends…and put a 45 degree bevel on each end.With the frets roughly finished each one need to be finished off by hand..Of course it’s impossible to fit frets 100% evenly so they’ll need a dress to level the tops.With the tops even, re-crown each one…and re-polish…So that’s the neck done.  It’ll need a new nut and 6 new machine heads but I’ll do that when I put it all back together.I’ve decided what I’m going to do with the body but that’ll have to wait ’til after Christmas.  I’ve also no idea if the pickups even work but that’s a long way off yet.

Keep watching to see how it turns out!