The Electra Forums

so I snagged this one off eBay for a good deal some time back...

missing TRC and nut.
tailpiece was bent up badly and the wiring was in a shambles.

TRC provided by Ozark, and I had to replace 1 pot, and replaced pup selector and then totally rewired.
new nut from ebay.
I had a tail piece and knobs already in my parts stash.

tuning pegs are kinda rough, but it tuned up nicely.

the poly is really thick and cracked up, but still looks pretty decent...

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My Electra Pages
I have too many projects!

Way to bring back another one Mick. Man that has quite the crackle in that finish.

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"This is the way that pop ends, Not with a BANG but with a box set whose fourth disc you never get around to playing” - Simon Reynolds

"My guitar wants to kill your Mama" - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention

And yet another Great Electra is brought back to enjoy by the master or should we just call you Dr Electra now. Great job as always.

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Always give thanks for everyday, It may be your last so Rock On Semper Fi!!

Nice! That was one bad break! You are giving me hope on the X120 Leslie West model that I just bought. I am having my luthier guy glue it up as we speak (and i get to fix his amp). It was a nasty break too but it appears to not be completely broken (break does only will open on one side). So the big problem is working the glue in the crack. Mine won't ever look right perfect, but it will still be a good player. I can't wait to get it back.

You can hide those repairs on the fingerboard with a brown marker (close to the color of the board) or by using a bit a super glue and gently scrape the rosewood in there with a flat razor blade. The rosewood scrapings will fill in those cracks and the glue will make it stick. You don't want to be too aggressive on the scraping, just lightly is fine. You don't want to take any significant amount off, just enough to dust the superglue in the cracks and fill in. Thank Dan Erlewine from stewart macdonalds for that tip in his guitar player repair book (a MUST HAVE book if there ever was one). If you don't have it, you should get it. Best guitar repair book out there.

Don't glue your fingers (don't ask me how I know). If you do (glue your fingers) then you can use fingernail polish remover to remove from your fingers. Just don't EVER get any fingernail polish remover near plastic or any part of your guitar. It will almost certainly ruin the finish (again, don't ask me how I know.

I have repaired a LOT of fingerboards on electra guitars, usually because there were big old grooves worn into the board (common on the MPCs that were played a LOT).

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Thorny

this one was not that extensive. the fingerboard issues are just a poly chipping away from the frets. I did nothing there to try and preserve it or refill what's left already. since there's so many poly cracks already on the finish, it didn't make sense to even try.
I have done the rosewood scraping bit on another in the past though...

the cracks from the neck pocket are just poly finish cracks. no wood damage at all. looking at the pics, I don't have a good closeup that shows that the crack isn't through the wood... will need to get a pic of that.

this one was really mostly the wiring in a mess and the broken/missing parts needing replaced.

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My Electra Pages
I have too many projects!

Good job on the restoration. It is always nice to see one alive again. All that checking in the finish gives it real character. Looks like a good 70s bass guitar should.

You are right! I'm mistaken. I'm used to rosewood boards with no finish on them. Seeing the visible cracks on the fingerboard made me think they were actually in the board. So I thought maybe the fingerboard took a hit and a chunk came out and was reglued with a seam in it. I am totally off base here. So please ignore what I said. I wasn't looking at it correctly. And as far as the break, seeing the gap at the body where the neck is bolted in and the angle with the cracks, I thought maybe you had a repair there. That would be a difficult area to have a repair because of how thin the body is and how much strength is required at that neck pocket. That is where the X120 I just bought is damaged and getting repaired (the neck pocket area).

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Thorny