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You'll be able to clean the chrome up somewhat with a bit of autosol... and if it's pitted badly you can also buff that out too after some fine wet and dry... the metal would deteriate faster though due to this but as long as you didn't leave it outside or have really sweaty paws, and gave it a spring clean now and again it would stay fresh. Or the other way is to give it a quick coat of clear lacquer after the work has been done. It's certainly do-able if it bothers you.

Anyways, nice guitar.... is this the one hurb posted a few weeks back ?

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So got myself some heavy gauge strings, best i could get was a top heavy set from Ernie Ball that goes from a 54 to a 11 on the E to e. Good enough for me! So off with the old strings and out with the screwdriver, lets get this slut's top off.



Hello... That doesn't look like alder to me...



Closer up, anyone hazard a guess to this body wood? The grain gives me wood anyway. Ha Ha.



Pretty tidy, out come the pickups!



Not too shabby, metal covers, i kinda expected plastic, oh well.



Neck! Truss rod adjustment at the heel, truss looks ok so I'll not touch and fuck anything up.



Was going to take the bridge off for a look, but some tool stripped the heads off two of the screws. Shit, it'll do for now, pretty low anyway.



Strung like a pro. I hope. It actually holds it's tuning now, the bar wont shift with arm strength alone. Stuck a strat whammy in for fun, managed to shift every string down a semitone, oops.

Oh and i taped up the posts on the bridge, that sucka aint going anywhere.

fun stuff! I want a different coloured scratchplate though, and one that fits properly would be nice, this is a bit wonky at the control plate/bridge. Any good suppliers?

Same as mine - mahogany.

yeah, I was gonna say, that looks like mahogany. I would have tested the old pickups with the new strings, oh well. what are those pickups you have in there now?

Right now it's a strat p90 in the bridge and a gfs fatbody tele neck pickup under the old cover. The neck doesn't work right now though, oddly. And things are still quiet. I bypassed the volume and tone controls and everything still needs to be cranked to hear sounds through the amp. It's getting a total rewire and new pickups soon anyway, the switches aren't wired the same as the wiring diagrams i've seen online, and the switches feel gunky. New scratchplate and switches are in order i think.

...stop taping bridges.

ALWAYS stop taping bridges.

Though I guess it doesn't matter if the trem doesn't work. Or were you saying it didn't?

Anyway, it's still one of the coolest axes on here, I love counterfeit things. And things from the 70s.

And yeah, it's grainy enough to be mahogany, probably. Are the switches 3 ways?

Sorry the bridge was wobbling and i don't plan to use the tremolo anyway, tuning stability for the win. The switches are 3-ways, but very touchy, not got a lot of travel in either direction. I've never played an actual mustang, so can't tell if they should be easier to move. Like i said, as soon as i can find a mustang guard i'm replacing the lot with some new, reliable switches.

NICE ONE!!!

Looks nice. When I have the skills I'm either going to paint my Mustang that colour or fiesta red. Sick yellow only sometimes look good

markleton wrote:Right now it's a strat p90 in the bridge and a gfs fatbody tele neck pickup under the old cover. The neck doesn't work right now though, oddly. And things are still quiet. I bypassed the volume and tone controls and everything still needs to be cranked to hear sounds through the amp. It's getting a total rewire and new pickups soon anyway, the switches aren't wired the same as the wiring diagrams i've seen online, and the switches feel gunky. New scratchplate and switches are in order i think.

see, given this I would assume that the pickups are not the problem. I would guess that either, A: it's some kind of wiring issue, or B: the guitar is just quiet. It could also be a sustain issue. make sure the neck is bolted real tight and inspect the integrity of every point where the strings touch the guitar.

also, I totally recommend using the original pickups as they are way more unique and cool than any other pickup you will find.

Cracked it open again today, with the view to rewire the switches, and they look odd. The mustang wiring diagrams i have show 4 tags on each side of the switch, mine only has 3. Someone also said they look smaller than normal switches, they measure 28/29mm from screw to screw inside the pickguard. Anyone know if this is standard? And if not, where can i get myself a replacement scratchplate with the 'proper' switches?

Sorry to keep harping on about my Cimar, but one of my pickups died, and the switch was pretty flaky. What I reckon has happened here is that someone has replaced the original (and frankly pretty pony in mine) for some new, nice GFS ones (same as me again, funnily enough) that you should keep in there, and you'll have some cack switch or connection somewhere fucking things up. Wiggle things and spray some switch cleaner about.

So it's been a long week, the stock pickups are back in, the jack has been replaced and it's now a respectable volume. Oh and the switches packed in and needed a shot of switch cleaner. Still waiting on the replacement knobs, the strat ones make me sad.

Oh and i made a video. Nowhere near the usual Shortscale quality, but fuck it, i'm tired. Recorded with my laptop's built in camera and mic. Actually sounds pretty close to the sound in my big ass room, sorry if youtube assrapes the quality.

The switches work backwards for some reason, hence my puzzled expression. both switches to the left or right is out of phase, not in phase as i'd expect. I'll do a proper one if anyone cares. It sounds pretty fucking good to me, i likes this guitar.

[youtube][/youtube]

Oh and i has a problem, the g string is massively out of tune in the first few frets. Like i can get the open string in tune fine, the 12th fret is in tune, but the 2nd to the 5th fret is noticeably sharp. anyone encountered this before? Dodgy nut or frets?

t3h pumpkinz!

Sounds good

i think that sounds quite nice. be good if you could get the switches operating the right way round, they're always pretty noisy in my experience, 'specially if they're old.

I'm not that fussed by the switches, it's surprisingly hum free, even when recording in front of my laptop. This G string is pissing me off, it's extra hard to fret and miles out of tune at the 1st, 2nd and 3rd frets. Intonation is fine at the 12th, could i just need to sort the nut out?