Revisiting my mustang! DONE

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:03 am

Since I have not had any luck selling the mustang and I got the money I needed now for vacation, I decided I am going to turn that burgundy mustang in to a nicer, more vintage, and stock guitar.
Soooo... Since the body is a 1965 body, (well 3/4 of it anyway lol) I decided to take that 1965 B neck I had and spiff it up. It has had a very light refinish over the years that was done very professionally so I didn't bother refinishing the whole thing. I just took an extra 65 stang logo I had and threw it on there. I sprayed 2 coats of triple clear gloss on it then hit it with 2,000 grit sand paper. Sanded it all out smooth until there was no more orange peel and then buffed it with turtle wax and then polished it. It came out absolutely fantastic. I really surprised myself on this one. It came out near perfect. Really glossy and smooth. No orange peel. It's only the second one I have ever done. I didn't worry about the logo sticking out a bit because I only wanted a few clear coats on it to keep it more vintage correct since they put the logos on after the clear coats but I didn't want the waterslide to rub off. I kept the tuners that were on it because of the tuning stability with them is great, plus I would need to find larger bushings for the vintage style. I do have the vintage style tuners if anyone has larger bushings they wanna give up

Pics of the neck:

ORIGINAL

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

WATER SLIDE ON AND TAPED UP

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

SHOT WITH CLEAR COAT AND BEFORE SANDING OR BUFFING

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

AFTER SANDING AND BUFFING = ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL SHINE

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

BUFFED THE BACK A BIT (has some gorgeous wear)

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

HEEL STAMP

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Decided on taking it back to a stock configuration. It's funny how I asked cooterfinger to add the phase switch route just in case but forgot to tell him to make the bridge pickup route universal... So I had to go route that out. I just traced the neck route and flipped it in the bridge area. Came out good. If there is one thing I can do it.. it is routing. Lol.

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Then i decided to undo the way I locked the tremolo and flip the tube back over to its regular position. I didn't have enough of a break angle on this guitar and the low E kept popping out. I put the two small bolts I had under the plate above it and screwed the poles back in to allow them to wrap around for better break. I kept the bridge the same (locked with electrical tape)

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Took a few shots for fun. And one with the new (old) neck. More meant to be.. haha

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Now I am going to have cooterfinger make me a stock pearloid guard and then keep an eye out for vintage parts. I think I am going to use a set of RI pickups I have for the time being. A lot of people seem to like them. Give me some suggestions for pickups. I am going to make this my jewel vintage players guitar

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:14 am

How I did have it.

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Joey · Post by **Joey** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:19 am

What kind of buffer set up you using?

Looks great by the way... either way.

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 12:36 am

Joey wrote:What kind of buffer set up you using?

Looks great by the way... either way.

Hands! lol. I just took the 2,000 grit sandpaper and sanded in circles until all the orange peel was out and just took the microfiber cloth with a bunch of turtle wax and rubbed it in circles all by hand until it shined. then wiped all the excess turtle wax off and sprayed it with guitar polish and repeated the same thing. I have over 3hrs in the sanding and buffing alone. Clear coating took me 15 minutes and it was dry enough to start sanding 10 minutes after spraying. It took 3 hrs for the waterslide to completely dry out to spray the clear coat. I got the buffing trick from HNB.

robert(original) · Post by **robert(original)** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:12 am

the finish looks great! Tho i hate the decal placement, fender looks too big and close to the end of tne headstock and tbe mustang bit is all wonky, but alas, its not my guitar.

Chris Fleming · Post by **Chris Fleming** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 9:33 am

Really liking the red on red look. Saw a tele body like that the other day. Kinda looks like a blood clot or something.... always though blood clots looked nice colour wise. Anyhoooo

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 10:20 am

robert(original) wrote:the finish looks great! Tho i hate the decal placement, fender looks too big and close to the end of tne headstock and tbe mustang bit is all wonky, but alas, its not my guitar.

Yeah, if you try a decal and it looks way off don't use it. A vintage neck always looks better with the decal missing than with a dodgy one on it. It makes your legit neck look like a knock-off.

You should keep a look out for good vintage deals. It seems like you've gone the long way round to make this guitar. It must have cost quite a bit compared to a good vintage deal and with the repaired body/re-decal'd neck you've wrecked most of the resell value (compared to what you've put in to it). Buying parts to build guitars is great fun, but if you're gonna be selling them in the future you've got to think about what you're putting into it against what you want to get for it in the future. You've put together some really nice stuff so it's a pity to see you struggling to shift it.

I really liked it the way you ad it before. It was a great combo.

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:37 am

How am I making the resell value worse? The decal is vintage correct. Some of them were big. Look it up. And it's a decal with a bit of clear coat. Easily removable. Plus I am taking it back to a stock configuration. I don't see how I am making it worse...if anything I upped the value removing the reissue neck and adding the vintage neck.

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:42 am

Plus I didn't plan for it to happen like this. The vintage neck I just picked up randomly and I was going to use for my musicmaster. Redecaling it isn't a big deal. And the neck I picked up for $100 anyway... And the body was $40 lol and then the work that cooter did and the paint. The paint was the most money. The body with the work was still more than half cheaper them buying a vintage stock body.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 2:22 pm

Punkacc9 wrote:How am I making the resell value worse?

I meant the more alterations you do to vintage gear the less it's worth. Routing, repainting, that decal. I wasn't comparing the value now to the value of the guitar when it had the reissue neck. Any mods you do to vintage gear detracts from its value as a piece of vintage gear. There's nothing wrong with the mods at all, I really like some of them. All I'm saying is that as a "vintage" guitar" it loses value.

Judging by your sales threads you seem to think that any alterations/mods you do to a guitar adds to the value because you spent extra money doing them when in actual fact it's exactly the opposite. Unless you're lucky enough to get a buyer that just happens to be looking for a guitar with all the exact same mods.

For example, if you start off with a standard second hand Japanese Mustang worth Â£350. Spend Â£100 getting it repainted, route for humbuckers, have a custom guard made and spend Â£30 on new tuners. Total cost coud be about Â£500. Problem is the guitar is now worth less than you actually paid for it in the first place. All I'm saying is that guitars can be a total money pit if you're not careful.

Punkacc9 wrote:The decal is vintage correct.

No, it's not. It's way oversized compared to a vintage decal (and probably compared to any modern one. Not a biggie, you can always change it.

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:19 pm

I've seen a few larger ones. The one 66 mustang I saw at a guitar center was the same way. And if you look up logos they are all over the place in size and placement. There was no guidelines or size back then. So it is still a vintage correct logo. As for modifying it. Like I said I sprayed clear coat only on the headstock over the existing finish. It can easily be taken off and it didn't take value away from the neck. As for the body. The body was a complete mutilated mess when I bought it. It doesn't matter what is done to it now. It just has a cool story to it. What makes it worth anything is how it is completely redone and the paint job. I've seen only one other burgundy mist mustang. I'm not going for the vintage value. If so I would buy a completely stock vintage guitar. I'm going for the feel and somewhat look. And ohhh I know they are a money pit.

HNB · Post by **HNB** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:28 pm

I think this pic shows what he means about size. My 1969's decal is a lot smaller than my newer Japanese one.

IMG_3591 by Hentai No Baka, on Flickr

The "Mustang" part hardly goes past the "B" tuner. To me it looks like they took the modern decal size and added the vintage information which is what seems to be making it look so big. If the text under Fender and Mustang wasn't there, you would be able to angle it to match the headstock a bit better.

I think it looks fine, but that might be what he is talking about.

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 3:38 pm

Yeah I guess but I have seen a few vintage ones like this. It doesn't matter though. I like it anyway.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:24 pm

That's all that really matters

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:11 am

Richard finished the guard.

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 1:30 pm

All done. Just needs strings. It is really hard to photograph this color. It shows up pinkish on my iPhones camera. So I took it outside and tried to get some pictures to show the actual color a bit more.

Untitled by punkacc9, on Flickr

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 3:27 pm

I totally love it. The color is awesome. I wish they would offer that color from Fender.

What kind of pickguard do you have? Is it Japan or US? I really want a pearloid guard to replace the white on my Mullet-stang and need a US one.

My bridge pickup switch doesn't want to work in the back position and I think it's because the slot is a little too small and won't let the switch slide all the way back.

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:48 pm

My guard you could say is US made. Cooterfinger made it for me lol

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 5:55 pm

Yep - icing on the cake. I loved the tort but this actually perfects it methinks

serfx · Post by **serfx** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:00 pm

Absolutly beautiful

right down to the fit and finish..

if i wasn't on morphine i probably woulda need to change my pants..