| This was where I started to learn a bit more. Filler? Well
OK, but it's not the answer in a lot of cases...not if it's going to be
seen. Obvious, you might think... |
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| Old headstock laminate removed. Headstock split
was eased apart with scalpel blades, glue run in, then clamped up.
Seemed to work fine. Various holes filled, along with the gouge on the
top. |
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| New laminate made out of 1mm black/white plastic and glued
in place. So far so good - very pleased. |
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| Filler no good - Case 1. Tried to colour it, but soon
realised it would never be good enough. Removed some thin pieces of maple
from area under scratch plate where the grain matched. Trimmed and sanded
to shape, then glued in, clamped up, then sanded smooth. |
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| Filler no good - Case 2. Various smaller dents and scratches
on the body likewise were never going to be good enough. More filler
removal and enter "drop filling" with lacquer (in this case
sanding sealer - a high body content lacquer). Drop it on, let it dry and
shrink, drop more on etc, the sand it smooth. Wonderful technique!
Pictures show the body after a couple of coats of sanding sealer.
|
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| Now is probably the time to mention another two
essential sources of information.
The first is the guitar refinisher's bible - the Guitar
ReRanch website. Want to know how to mix dyes? How to prepare wood?
How to do a sunburst? It's all here - this is essential reading. It's a US
site, so if you're elsewhere (like here in the UK), you'll need to source
materials locally. Airlines don't like to carry nitro...
The second is the Guitar
Refinishing and Restoration Forum. This is hosted by the ReRanch
people above, and if someone's done it or had problems with it then fixed
it, it'll be here. Being new at this, I contributed very little, but read
a lot. Try to search for answers first, before posting a question...
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| Re-fret went fine - surprisingly. I wasn't
looking forward to doing it, but I had a few things in my favour. The neck
didn't have a binding (which makes things simpler) and it's got a truss
rod, so if the fretting altered the relief, it would have been more easy
to fix.
Limited the amount of fret dressing at this stage until I could see
where the neck ended up after it was re-strung. |
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| Hardware cleaned up quite well. One of the brass
spring caps had to be replaced with a new one turned out of brass.
No joy on finding an original tremelo arm - the only missing piece.
Eventually found what may well have been the last set of unused tuners for
Hofners of this type and era. Thanks to Norbert Schnepel of Musikkellar,
Dorsten in Germany for finding these. A good source of vintage guitars and
bits. |
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| Wiring was a mess, but the pots and switches were OK,
despite being almost 50 years old. Steve Russell (see Home page)
found me an original Hofner wiring diagram, so it's back the way it was.
Pickup magnets were terminal and rewinding would have achieved little.
Andy Blake of Wizard
Pickups fitted new single coil innards inside the toaster shell. OK,
it's not original, but I wanted something playable. |
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| New scratch plate made up from 2.2mm black/white/black
plastic. In the picture it's still to get its white painted edge trim .
Original switch plate cleaned up well, but writing a bit faded...honest
wear.
"New" tea cup knobs and tremelo cover from Music
Ground in Leeds. |
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