It was (at one point) an olympic white MIM telecaster. It had an extended career with a guitarist in a popular local band, and had obviously been beat to hell. Teles are pretty stout to begin with, they're solid blocks of alder with the neck bolted on in 4 places with no tremolo routes or other weak spots. They're tanks. This specific tele looked as if it had been smashed on-stage multiple times and then repaired and played again, then smashed again. There were (and are) huge cracks and gouges out of the sides and corners of the thick Poly finish, from swinging it by the neck into amps, cabs, or the ground. Weather checking along the forearm rest from constant temperature changes. The control cavity shorted out if you pressed too hard. A control knob was missing. The guitar "hummed" loudly through amps when not even being played. The strings were ancient.
My friend had acquired this guitar and wanted to see if it could be fixed or if it was junk. A good once-over was all it took to see that not only could I probably fix it - It could probably be a seriously nice guitar. It was once, it could be again.
Here's the guitar in its "day". Its the white guitar being used for lead electric, in the frame for most of the clip:
So I totally disassembled it, clipped all the electronics apart, and cleaned it as best as I could. The neck in particular was a very nice neck, lightly flamed maple and a dark rosewood fretboard that cleaned up and got even darker with some lemon & bore oil. I shielded the body cavity and pickguard with conductive copper tape and re-soldered all the pickups, pots, and switch and re-assembled it. I got to play it for about 20 mins before I had to take it back. It sounded fantastic - no shorting out, no hum... A solid guitar. Its still got the beat up look to it and will for the rest of its life, but it plays smooth, sounds great, and looks cool. Here's a few pictures I mangaged to snap.
*click for bigger photos*
3 comments:
It's cool that you showed the video of it in action. This guitar has a cool story so far... with a lot more life ahead of it. I can't wait to see it in action. It fits Matt's style... not a fancy shiny new "look at me" guitar.. a bit used, beat up, dried blood stain.. but sounds great guitar is exactly him.
The best part is:
YOU gave it life again.
Gross, that was blood? I didn't know. Its gone now, I cleaned that off. The red on the pickguard is melted plastic from matts' red pick.
oh... minus the blood stain then... that was another guitar.
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