Mod station go

Winny_Pooh

I've finally sorted some space in the shed amd managed to get to some overdue jobs after sorting my Gretsch.

New compensated saddle cut from bone which polished up pretty nicely. You can see the warped up edges of the gummed on old gaurd which is to be replaced below.



This acoustic had a gaurd retrofitted by a nutter before I had it who managed to scratch the shit out of the top on the edges. This is all the glue that came out from under it. Removal done with a hairdryer and sharpened spatula.

 I had to use a blank and cut a slightly oversize gaurd to cover the previous scratches. After much swearing I managed to clean up the glue, sand from 800 through 4000 grit, micromesh and polish.

Shaping of the blank was done with rounded blocks whilst attached to the previous gaurd with double sided tape. I left at least 1.5mm extra on all the edges(but went too far in on the outside curve) and a small radius given with a sharp knife and a fair bit of scraping. You can see the finished product and where the previous arse scratched the edges to get the stock gaurd off.



And finally done after tucking in edges of the self adhesive film

Winny_Pooh

Next is a Sterling Ray 35 from basschat whereupon I received a neck with a worn through finish that was not described. Bit of a rip off and the seller had a go on the forum because I told him the strings on there were disgusting too.  





As I had to keep it I decided to sort it out. 
Its also bit neck heavy so i decided on replacing the tuners with lighter Hipshot equivalents too.

Front of the headstock kept as is and the whole rest of the neck was sanded back (including the made in Indonesia bit) from 200ish grit and the area between the frets scraped with a blade all the way up. This took ages. 

Here is after at least two tru oil coats, you can see how much nicer the grain pops compared to a typical satin finish.



A week more tru oil and sanding back (too much on one occasion, crap!) And then the task of fretwork. Two frets in particular were a fair bit off. Not sure if this was the heat in the shed shifting/stabilising the neck whilst hanging or if they'd come to me like that.



Upon finishing the frets I strung up and realised that I had too little relief on the bass side, buzz on the Low D at fret 1 and some mild buzz on the 15th fret for the high A#. Phark! 

So back on the table and sanded more relief into frets 2-12 under the two low strings and reflatted under the highest with even more fallaway on the 21st & 22nd to be safe. What a pain. 

Sorted and playing beautifully! Here it is with neck waxed and tuners installed.




The tuning is effectively a 4 string one step down with an extra high string. 

Winny_Pooh

Most recent mod was on Sunday to do a new saddle for my GS mini. The stock one has the bass side angled far too close to the nut and uses a softish plastic material so out come the files. This took longer than standard as I had to thin it down from a much thicker blank to get the overhang needed for proper intonation. Decided to keep it matt sanded to fit the rest of the guitar. 

Here it is with fresh strings, the bone has definitely improved the tone, sharper attack (has it's pros n cons on a smaller guitar w elixirs) and a crisp long ring.