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Probably the only person that is not going to think I am nuts for nailing this one is Xman who has also been around this block a few times. An eBurnt BIN at $183 total with the hope I come out ahead on this one.

This thing must have been drug through a tractor-trailer garage then dragged down 10 miles of rocky road. I suspect this thing has seen at least a few bar brawls in it's day, which was close to being over.







The neck was split in multilple places. I wasn't sure if the truss was still intact but after checking, fortunately it was. Now, whether I could get the hide glue in there evenly enough to get a good bond without gluing the truss in place was the question.






The wood had split partway into the headstock, and every side of the headstock had some kindof of ding.




The guts are on their way to an Electra nut in Canada now, and hopefully will be used in an upcoming project. I have no plans for the cavity as of yet, but am thinking of a small ME unit with headphone outs for road trips.


I managed to use a syringe to slowly inject small amounts of glue into the crack being careful not to load it up next to the truss. Once I had a good moderate coverage on went the clamps and the excess cleaned off.






A good 24 hours later the clamps came off and I had a good, tight, well compressed bond. Exactly what I was hoping for. Only hairlines were visible where the wood was split which means only enough glue to glue to form a lasting bond. Too much is brittle and could come undone. I have had that happen on a guitar someone else did and it left ugly bruises on my left hand where the headstock swung around and nailed me from the string tension. After roughing out the cracks I would be ready for fill and smooth.








It is in the spray booth now, with as many dings addressed as possible. There were over 50 that had to be filled. The sealer coat is curing now, and I'm going to try to mask the damage with a dark teardrop burst on the front. We'll see. I'm a goof-up, and if there's a way to bung it, I will. luckily this only happens to mine. For some reason when it is for someone else, it always turns out. More as it progresses.

Nice clamps too.

wow, impressive! another one comes back to life!

Thanks guys. We'll see where it goes. My CC is maxed after this and the Hondo, so I am going to have to make do with what I have here.

The nitro I have is rattle can and thinner than the better stuff that comes in quart cans. What few bucks come my way will have to go to pots and the CC. I'm going to have to risk it and use some furniture lacquer for the edges.

I'm drooling over some of the stuff at Guitar Re-Ranch but some of that stuff will have to wait until I tear into the Hondo. If they just had a deep red and deep purple metalflake I'd be in heaven!

Which clamps? The cute little bar clamps or the zip ties? Builders have been using zip ties for FB clamping for quite some time now. StewMac even has re-useable ones! I used the zip ties to make sure the outside edges of the breaks curled out as little as possible. The longer open grain is exposed to the environment the more it distorts and it was already starting to lip at the thin edges of the break.

Now it's off to wet-sand. My hands will be pruned up for a week.

Well, the pseudo-burst edging is done. Now a day's wait before I tinker with it. No reactions so far. The can did spit a bit though since it was nearly empty and it looks a little lopsided to my eye on the front near the controls. I may have to run into town and pick up another can of black furniture lacquer. Oh well. The main idea was to mask the battle scars so I guess I've accomplished that. Maybe when better days are here I will tear it down again, strip it to wood, and give it expensive finish.

wow again, very nice!

reranch has started carrying metallic purple, it's apparently a match for the old Dodge Plum Crazy color.

I saw that plum, and their Lake Placid Blue Metalflake looks good too.

The burst is a no-go it looks like. The rattle can mist is just too coarse and since that and the clear are different I can't risk a reaction between the different solvents if both are wet. The edge color did not melt into the clear as I had hoped. I may just have to wait until I can get some of the Re-Ranch nitro. Maybe not for now. Who knows.

Well, for now I am just going to get a solid color on there and clear coated. As long as the wood is protected from contaminants and humidity I should be okay until I can put another $50 or so in it. Clear is not much of an issue. I did Doc's Cort LP with it, and the repairs on the PE-450 with it. I had no problem masking with those two. Now, the PE-R80 Wutz sent me is a different story.

It's one solid color now, pretty close to the Lake Placid Blue Metalflake of Re-Ranch's. First of two coats of clear is on. Since rattle can clear is so thin I may not worry about orange peel for now. At least it won't look like a peg-legged one armed civil war vet any more.

Despite a near catastrophe (didn't I say if there was a way to bung it up it would happen?), the winter finish is done. The reason I say winter finish is if I'm not happy with it the way it is I'll take it down and re-do it with the expensive Re-Ranch finish.

I had just finished the last coat of clear and left it in the booth to cure. I came back an hour later and to my horror it had dislodged from the hook at the butt end and was laying in the bottom of the booth, bouncing! Fortunately the motor I use has a clutch and will slip if it cannot turn what is attached and the damage was confined to one edge and the tip of the headstock. I managed to touch up the damage but if you look closely you can see the metalflake lies at a slightly different angle there. You'll have to find it.

The polishing is done. I don't know what happened to the original finish on the headstock, but if you look at the original shots above you'll see that it was milked up in a number of places. I found out that went all the way down to the black base coat! I masked off the logo best I could, hit it with a light coat of black, then feathered it a bit and shot clear over it. at the right angle or close inspection you can see the masking, but I'd rather have that than all that white stuff.

EDIT----
These pics that were here were just rough shots. I will better ones outside that I've added below (indoor lighting sucks for good pictures).

Not the best, but at different angles the "halo" changes color and almost has a purple tinge to it.

Hopefully the vintage purists are not angry with me for changing the color scheme of the guitar. To restore it to original would have left many battle scars plainly visible without a great deal of detailed work, and even then still noticeable. For my I guess the important thing is it will play again, and not be lost to the chipper. Hopefully you guys don't hang me for finishing it in a solid color.

I'd never change a pristine or clean example of anything. I think you've seen me auction off ALL of mine that were in collector or example condition. If I fear playing a guitar, it's worth nothing more than how many hot dogs it would cook in the fire pit, and is a waste of electricity. Every one of my keepers have some kind of cosmetic issues. The cleanest is probably the Pro Endorser, but even that shows clear signs of having been played over the years.

Those pics are pretty bad. It really does look better than that. All in all I am thinking it will turn out okay for having roughly $250 in it.

I don't know enough to speak to the restoration issues, but I certainly have an opinion on playing the guitars versus buying them as investments and protecting them from being played. I say, play them. That's what they were meant for, that's the unique gift that a musical instrument provides us, to make music. I've been to the Contry Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and each time I came away with this feeling that they really needed to offer "playing stations" for the visitors to play guitars! I mean, you see all these historic guitars in glass cases, assembled in displays to honor this person or that...I kept imagining the need for an axe mounted on a wall with a sign saying: "In Case of an Emergency Need To Play Guitar, Break Display Glass"

I think that color looks really good on it.....

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Is this the same guitar that was all busted up in the pics above?

Unbelievable.

Those bar clamps are cool but the zip ties are super clever.

I caught a brief moment of sunlight and these should better depict the color and subtle random sparkles seen by the naked eye.









The hardware cleaned up pretty well. There are still some imperfections, mostly from the fall in the booth. If you look closely at the headstock you'll see where I feebly attempted to mask off the logo, and how the original finish was milked up a bit for some reason.

The next update will hopefully be the final, and it will be up and rocking by then. I'll toy with ideas for the MPC cavity later.

It will be good enough for now. All the parts are in save for pickups which XMan is trading a pair of older DiMarzios for the SuperMagnaflux that were in it. SMs are good pickups, but the DiMarzios are a little more my speed.