Strip down begins

Couldn't resist having a bit of a grub over lunchtime!

First off, I took the pickguard off with the help of a hairdryer to see what horrors lurk behind. Curiously, it had a pick embedded behind it. Initially I thought it was a crude attempt at reinforcing a crack but seems in the wrong place for that. Maybe it's an original Eric Clapton pick in a secret hiding place?

 Next I pulled the strings off, with ominous creaking from the bracing as I released the tension! But now that the tension is off, the detached brace is sitting back nice and flush against the soundboard, so should glue up okay.

With the strings off, you can see that the headstock is looking nice, but needs a good clean.

Moving in to see the damage, you can see where it's been hit. The detached brace runs across from just below the soundhole to the edge of the guitar where you can see the chip of missing lacquer. If that's the only one that needs glueing up, then I'm in luck because I won't need to buy / make any long reach clamps :-)

Shame about the damage to the rosette. Maybe I can carefully touch it in?

 Now, after cleaning all the adhesive off with white spirit, a close up of the impact damage and also damaged lacquer where they have roughed up the surface to apply the lino!

In a curious time warp across to my motorcycle renovation, I thought I'd try some auto technology to get some of that deep scratching out and pulled out the chrome cleaner! 5 minutes elbow grease and some shine is starting to come back!

Next I removed the pre-amp to gain a bit of space inside the body and work out how the battery should attach. Just a case of releasing 2 connectors for the bridge pick-up and jack cables, then undoing the rings round the volume, bass and treble knobs. The velcro was already there to attach the battery - just hadn't been used properly.

I could see inside better now - the back looks fine. Need to get hold of a mirror to assess the top properly though.

In another curious time warp, the builder finished repairing the crack in my gable this morning. My life is turning into a series of connected coincidences! Maybe he can look at the guitar next?

Moving on to the bridge, you can see in this photo where the saddle is actually in 4 pieces! Helpfully, a small piece of tape had been used to hold them all back together ....

The bridge itself looks in good shape though.

What I hadn't noticed was that the fingerboard is quite worn down (compressed?) on the first 3 fret positions. Heavy handed previous owner? 5 minutes research on the interweb suggests it's not an issue as far as playability is concerned. There's a possible fix of applying steam or laying a damp cloth on it for a day to see if the fibres spring back. Not too hung up about this though - I didn't even notice it when playing it.

So there we have it - all in all probably good news I think and certainly should be able to make a presentable, nicely playable guitar out of this I think.