Not something I’ve come across before, but what a great looking guitar!

I just needs a little work so that it plays as good as it looks. The biggest problem are the frets, they’re quite uneven so need levelling before it will play well.  First job then, neck off and levelled.

Tape up the fretboard to protect it, and start grinding down the frets ’til I get to the lowest common level.  This is about half way through the process, you can see where some frets have not yet been touched.

With the neck off some other problems came to light.  Sometime in the past it’s been off and someone has torn all the thread from the screw holes. Rather than just pack the holes with match sticks I’ve made some wooden plugs and used some wood filler in the ragged holes.

Before…

After…..

While that’s drying I tidied up the frets, re-crowning the tops to round them off….and then 4 grades of micromesh to polish them back up again….The wood also needs a good clean…after which I oiled it with lemon-oil.

With the neck done I need to re-fit it to the body.  The fit in the neck pocket is very slack so I must make sure the new holes are in exactly the right place.  I clamped the neck firmly in place using thick thread as a guide.

There, neck tightly back in place and in line.With the strings back on the next most obvious fault is the tremolo.  I don’t really like Floyd Rose Trems but this one is sitting way too low…I just need to slacken off the screws a little…That’s about right…Next the set in the neck.  As it’s got a locking nut I can’t get the straight edge on the fretboard so I’ll use the strings themselves, now that I know the frets are even.Next the action at the 12th fret.  A little high…so drop down each side of the bridge.With the action right, double check the intonation.Lastly check the pickup heights, although that’s rather subjective, you’ve got to hear it.

There we go, better than ever.

A word or two from the owner:

“I just wanted to say what a great job you did sorting out my Sambora guitar. It now plays and looks fantastic, so much so I have hardly put it down since I got it back from you (hence the delay in commenting) Cracking job, well done.”