The Electra Forums

Tis a tricky bit to get pics posted correctly. I usually just upload the pics then paste the link. If you need help then send them to me at mortarman120gang@yahoo.com and I will get them posted here. Looks nice so far from those pics.

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

I finally figured it out. I'm not an idiot afterall.

This guitar had no frets and no binding on the neck or the top of the peghead when I got it 3 years ago. It was also painted black. I stripped the black paint and found the standard nice flamed maple veneer on top. Unfortunately I melted the binding on the body with the paint remover. At the time I didn't know paint stripper melted plastic. I also messed up and sanded through the maple veneer. So I decided to put a walnut veneer on it. It was my first veneering job. You can see the seam on the front. I also didn't have a big enough piece for the back to have the seam going the same direction and the seam is very noticable on the back. Oh well. I put new binding on the body and neck and the very top of the peghead. The only original binding left on the guitar is on the sides of the peghead.

I finally did my pro set up on it. The neck still has a very slight back-bow...very slight. The guitar is very playable. The action is only a little above average everyday action. When I filed the slots for the bone nut, I didn't file them as deep as I would normally to compensate a bit for that back-bow. I get a little string buzz on the first 3 or 4 frets mostly on the bass strings but the buzz is not audible through the amp.

I do have one problem that maybe someone can offer a suggestion for. One of the blue recepticles for the effects module seems to be slightely messed up. I get a crackling noise sometimes and the effect works intermittenly. It's not the module itselft because when I switched the modules it was still module space #1 that has the problem. Any ideas what it could be?

You may want to clean the contacts inside the connector. May be a little dirt or oxodation in there. Looks great to me. Always glad to see an Electra brought back from the dead.

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

Nice work! Glad to see you have resurrected the guitar. I agree with mortarman on the contact cleaning - usually thats it. If not, you need to trace all the wires and re-solder as necessary. I'm a sucker for the walnut tops and yours is looking good!

Thanks guys! I do appreciate it. Just 5 short years ago, I would have never dreamed of tackling a project like this. I knew very little about setting-up and working on guitars. Now I just love it. I even built an electric guitar body out of Lego blocks a couple of years ago.

I will have to try cleaning the contacts. I just got through playing the guitar for about 30 to 40 minutes. And it worked fine, no intermittent effect. But I know it is not fixed, I still gotta go over it, at the very least clean those contacts.

Well, it isn't an Electra but since I mentioned it above, I figure I had to post pics. I used the neck and hardware, including; tuners, pickups, bridge and knobs of a Peavey T-60 guitar. The shape of the Lego body is also modeled after a T-60. The question I get asked the most is what does it sound like? It sounds like an electric guitar...of course. I'm not a big believer in tone wood when it comes electric guitars. Acoustic guitar, YES tone wood is a big part of the sound. But on electrics it's the pickups that determine the majority of your sound. The wood may play a small part but I would bet most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my Lego T-60 and a stock wooden body T-60 in an A/B test, all other things being equal. I hope I didn't just open a can of worms on this forum. I know I've been on other forums and gotten into a huge battle with the two schools of thought when it comes to tone wood on an electric guitar.

The ugly dude holding the guitar is me. This was taken a few years ago right after I plugged it in for the first time. I was proud of myself.

ROFLMAO! I love that! I also pretty much agree with your tonewood comment. With lousy pickups, anything will sound lousy. With good pickups just about anything will sound OK - I think that's the Jack Black school of thought.