The Electra Forums

WOW!!!

That looks gorgeous. It's pretty much exactly Plum Crazy, isn't it? Really nice work.

That color looks great in the sunlight, APii, and the random sparkle is a pleasing effect.

The milking on the headstock goes clear down to the black basecoat. I checked elsewhere on the headstock where I knew I was going to have to re-coat it with black. The headstock has already seen 1500 grit twice and compound three times. If you look at the original pics you can see where someone sanded down past the black basecoat and the wood was beginning to show through.

I am wondering if it had not been re-sprayed at some time in it's history.

I can't see any milking and nobody else will notice it either.

What they will see is a new guitar.

What they won't belive is that it looked like firewood a week ago.

You get a "star" for that one.

I agree.

Good job; please post a pic of the finished product.

RCSBlues

nice work apii... another one to be proud of... and as you said... another one rescued from the landfill.... what's that saying they have at the end of every episode of 'american muscle car'?.... don't crush 'em... restore 'em i guess it applys to guitars as well

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It is alive! But, I have mixed feelings about this one. It plays well, but feels more like a clunky american guitar. I'm not too sure about the pickups either. I still have a little work to do on them. One of the two some previous owner forced oversize screws into the mounting tabs, and I had only one that would fit well, the other is slipping so I guess I'll have to hit the hardware store or solder a nut on the back of the tab.

Other than this it worked out quite well. I will get some pics today if time and weather permit.

There's no evidence the neck had exploded, and no humps yet (but I will be watching). The coil cut works well, and having the variable coil cut there allows for just a little bite, more bite, or face-slicing samurai strat bridge treble.

Once the last few problems are ironed out I will give it a month, and if it doesn't warm up to me I guess I'll find a new home for it. Only time will tell so we'll see.

Okay, pickup problem solved. So He-Man ran railroad spikes into the pickup mounting tabs, I've got his work fixed now.



It's not the first time I've had to do this. To the contrary, it seems this is quite common on hacks and derilicts. Luckily I had a few tiny nuts that just fit the Duncan screws I had laying around. They're slotted, and the ones on the other pickup are phillips, but I doubt anyone will notice right away.

Now the next problem on the list. Fix the cavity covers. I had wet-sanded the major scratches out of them, took them outside, and just as I was about to apply a protective coat of semi-matte, a thousand tiny angry hairs came out of the woodwork and attacked the mist on it's way to the surface of the control cavity covers. I love all my critters, but sometimes they can be a pain.

I hope it's OK to ask this question is this thread. I've been following your progress on this restoration, and have tremendously enjoyed the transformation. But I'm still a newbie to a lot of the history of some of these guitars. Is there something special about the Electra X120 Leslie West that made it more worthwhile to put this much effort into restoring, or is it more or less like any other Uncle Matt made guitar that you felt the need to restore? Is part of it the way that heel-less neck joins the swooping curve of the bod, which makes me think of the PE line that I think I've read you say you like so much?

Hmmmm....


Because it was there? Will that work?

Actually it's a combination of many of the reasons you mentioned. It's not a matter of worthwhile, as any Uncle Matt IMHO is worthwhile. It didn't matter whether I would like it or not, just that I felt I could bring it back to life rather than it ending up as spare parts or a horrible hack. I've seen some pretty rude looking "eBay professional" repairs, and I was going to make sure this was not one.

There are no guarantees with any neck repair, but there are ways to minimize a future problem.

It's not really a matter of effort for me. If I am going to do something I prefer to cover all the bases. No, it's not a pro job, but it is cleaned up from end to end, and I left nothing out.

The Leslie West was somewhat of a flop and never really became popular like say the Outlaw or X3XX series so I guess in that respect it is special. It seems Leslie ended up playing other MPC guitars. There's a shot of him holding a Vulcan on the Electra History Page.

The final shots are not the best but should suffice. I don't think I ended up too bad off at roughly $225 in cash invested and about 20-30 hours work.








Now, the question is, will it be my guitar or someone else's. That is, if anyone else can tolerate how I've bastardized it anyway.

Lovely job AP, it looks amazing.

wow, great solution with the stripped holes!

it's a worthy hotrod, true to its vintage roots with a streak of modern flash. looks great, plays great, sounds great, what's not to like?

i'd hate to start an argument whether your hotrod custom might not be worth MORE than an original...

Bottom line is, you did justice to great guitar, more than did justice to it! Great Job!

I think it looks great!

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I'd have no idea what it would be worth in comparison to something stock. I'm just guessing I have $257 in it not including time. I'm adding guitar, four pots (I had two), set of tuners, shipping on two sets of pickups, can of clear and can of color, knobs, jack, and strings. I don't think anyone is going to think it is worth that.

Then again it's a rattle can job and not what a good sprayer and good automotive paint could do. It did also have a broken neck (someone described it as brutal) and that has to be taken into account.

The variable coil cuts and dual stage tones work very well, and those ancient DiMarzios have that distinctive 70's tone to them. Nothing like the screamers of the late 1980s and later. Bright but quite vintage.

I am going to give it a week or so. It is such a departure from my Pro Endorser, the Pro Endorser is more like the Aria Pro IIs. It's been a while since I've played an Outlaw so I don't know if it's the same, but it feels more like an LP than an X935 or PE. It has a little beefier neck. I'm not sure if I will get used to it or not.

I'm thinking the coil cuts might do a little better with linear taper instead of audio. I'm not going to fool with that though. The do just fine with audio taper, and do beat a simple switch.

BTW, the whitish blobs you see in the finish and cavity covers are reflections of things on the ground.

wow, variable coil cut. that's one thing i haven't tried yet- it's high on my list though!