musicmaster project
Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 5:34 pm
this 1978 musicmaster is something i've been working on intermittently since i got it about 2 years ago(!). where to begin? someone somewhere is responsible for making this body fit for the bin, and i thought it might be nice to bring it back from the brink. the body had been routed (terribly) for a second pickup and a toggle switch, neither of which were installed when i took posession. the pickup had however been moved to the bridge position, and replaced with some plastic piece of rubbish. a strat-style vibrato had been added which also meant another large section of the guitar had been removed. when i first plugged it in you could hear the reverberation from the springs coming through the pickup. not nice! i wanted to use it for a gig so took the strat bridge out and put in a reissue musicmaster/duosonic one. this worked because there was a hole in the body i could feed the strings through-
when it came to actually attempting to repair the damage, i first of all stripped the body right back and filled the cavities with a 2 part epoxy filler. hardly ideal, but short of fixing in new pieces of wood there wasn't much else i could do. the routing, as i said above, was shocking- it looked like stevie wonder had had a go at it. the epoxy filler is pretty dense, and i know it's often used in antique restoration so i went with it. you can see in the pics all the areas that had to be filled.
once that had cured i filled the grain with, surprisingly enough, grain filler and it's since had about 6 coats of sand and seal and been rubbed down until smooth. i think it's now ready for the first primer coat. as far as hardware goes i've replaced everything except the pots with vintage parts, but the older style (mustang/duosonic-esque) ones. i'm not a fan of that bronco style scratchplate. there's a pic below of what it looks like partially assembled, i'll post more as i get more done. i think the final colour will be white again. i think, considering the damage that was done to it, it'll be quite a nice little guitar when it's finished. i hope!
p.s. i've just this minute noticed that there are holes i've filled which correspond exactly to the screw holes in the mustang style scratchplate- which means it must have had one of those fitted at some point and been replaced with a later 70's type which had been cut to allow for the pickup in the bridge position. very odd.
when it came to actually attempting to repair the damage, i first of all stripped the body right back and filled the cavities with a 2 part epoxy filler. hardly ideal, but short of fixing in new pieces of wood there wasn't much else i could do. the routing, as i said above, was shocking- it looked like stevie wonder had had a go at it. the epoxy filler is pretty dense, and i know it's often used in antique restoration so i went with it. you can see in the pics all the areas that had to be filled.
once that had cured i filled the grain with, surprisingly enough, grain filler and it's since had about 6 coats of sand and seal and been rubbed down until smooth. i think it's now ready for the first primer coat. as far as hardware goes i've replaced everything except the pots with vintage parts, but the older style (mustang/duosonic-esque) ones. i'm not a fan of that bronco style scratchplate. there's a pic below of what it looks like partially assembled, i'll post more as i get more done. i think the final colour will be white again. i think, considering the damage that was done to it, it'll be quite a nice little guitar when it's finished. i hope!
p.s. i've just this minute noticed that there are holes i've filled which correspond exactly to the screw holes in the mustang style scratchplate- which means it must have had one of those fitted at some point and been replaced with a later 70's type which had been cut to allow for the pickup in the bridge position. very odd.
