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I'm probably going to make a start on resuscitating my dying Danelectro some time soon. I have a list of all the parts I plan to stick on it, the paint colour (Ford Coral Beige, I think it's called. It looks nice) and all that blather. Now I just need some help.

My plan is to strip pretty much everything off the guitar and replace it, as well as refinishing the body. I have in mind a gold Les Paul-style bridge as well as an archtop style tailpiece, which will probably be the most radical change to the guitar. What I'm wondering is just how to get all this stuff on straight. Should I use bog-standard woodfiller to plaster over the old holes left by the original hardware?

I would suggest using wood dowels or toothpicks and titebond wood glue to fill any smaller holes. Then sand them flush once the glue has dried.

Cool. What about installing a tunomatic after that, then? One with bushings and all that stuff? Easy/simple?

What model of Dano are you talking about? Is it a hollow body? If so you may need to add some internal support.

Good point. Here's a pic of a double cutaway Dano body. There's just a block glued in under the bridge area.

cooterfinger wrote:Here's a pic of a Dano body. There's just a block glued in under the bridge area.

A-ha! That's brilliant, just what I wanted. Mine is a U2 model, so it looks like there would be a nice block of wood in both the end of the guitar and at the upper bout for me to screw in some decent strap buttons instead of the small crappy plastic ones on it now.

I'm having second thoughts about the gold hardware. It would be nice, but unnecessary and a little too much work. But I'm still going for a tunomatic and trapeze style tailpiece.

I think this picture is of some old Dano stock that Subway Guitars bought up. I'm not sure if the newer Dano's are constructed the same way. As long as your bridge bushings landed in solid wood I think you would be fine. I'm not too sure how the tunomatic bridge height would work on a Dano though. You would need to check that first.
I would measure the height of the existing bridge and make sure that the new bridge will adjust down that low once it is installed.

The late-90s U2 is hollow from the bridge to the butt. There's a solid block down the middle from the neck to the bridge. Everything else is hollow.

Will wrote:The late-90s U2 is hollow from the bridge to the butt. There's a solid block down the middle from the neck to the bridge. Everything else is hollow.

Hmm. Shit.

How stable would you expect newly drilled strap buttons to be, then? Would it be a bad idea to go for the sort of trapeze tailpiece that is secured at the base of the guitar?

I've just taken the little backplate off my Dano, and it feels alot like the pic posted above. The bridge is on a solid block, but the space between that and the pickups is bare. There's also a flattened block at the butt of the guitar, so it looks like it will take a tailpiece no problem. No idea about the top "horn" though. Might just add another strap pin onto the back of the guitar, inbetween some of the neck mounting screws, just to be on the safe side.

In other news, I just found these awesome things:

http://www.axesrus.com/PickupCovers/Pic ... pRings.jpg

So I can add regular-sized singlecoils without having to fuck around screwing them into the body or whatever. Things are looking good.