Beautiful feet, ugly guitar (Starfire IV)

[Default]

Pulled out another guitar I rescued a while back. I'll be going back to work on Monday, so I figured I should get another project underway.
Lots of sloppy Titebond on the neck joint which had to be scraped off. No neck binding when I bought it, but clumps of glue in the channel that had to be scraped out, plus glue from the neck joint.
The repair seems to be solid, so I'll finish scraping the wood glue off and rebind the neck.

 

[Default]

Both mo and jo. Someone played the crap out of this. Single coil Rio Grand Basted and Fat Basted at the bridge. Not sure if I'll keep them or go with the reissue HB-1s.

 

[AcornHouse]

Interesting strap pin location. What year?

 

[Default]

74. Kind of a train wreck on a few ways, but I got it cheaply enough. I'll use it to practice binding and finish repair. I have a couple reissue HB-1s that Chris's Seeger gave me, and there's s more than enough of the original wiring left for an easy installation. Do I want to try refretting it while I'm working on it? I did buy some cauls. I could rebind it with medium jumbos, and go right over the binding. It would make the playing surface a little wider.

 

[AcornHouse]

Refretting will require special pliers to get the old ones out. You’ll also need a fret hammer and files to level and even up the ends. But the major expense is crowning files and some means of getting the tang off where it goes over the binding. There are special tang nippers, but they are pricey. You can do the job, albeit a lot slower, with a file, filing the tang off. The fretboard will need to be leveled before putting in the new frets.

 

[AcornHouse]

Also, some tool to clean out the fret slots after sanding.

 

[Default]

Yes, the easiest course by far, is just to bind it in white and just practice finish touchup. All that other stuff can wait til later.

 

[Opsimath]

Another repair/resurrection thread! This will be fun!

 

[jp]

Do I want to try refretting it while I'm working on it?

Personally, I would go for the refret before the binding because they look pretty low, but if you think there's enough meat on them for it to be playable, it can wait.

Like Chris said, you'd have to gear up depending on what your tool box looks like. Nipping pliers put to a grinding wheel can get you decent fret pullers, but leveling tools and decent files are necessary. Oh yeah, and lots of extra time and patience.

 

[Default]

I have a very small set of end nippers that were used infrequently for electronics and a razor saw. I bought a set of fret cauls a bit back. I could either set up the drill press or see if the arbor press would work. I could press the frets in, but I would need to get crowning files and a sanding caul. My garage isn't set up for making them yet.

 

[Default]

Hans corrected me, it's a 72 Starfire 4.

 

[Default]

Here's a little example I've noticed before that shows why Guilds were less expensive than comparable Gibsons.
Avoiding chores this morning by trying out my binding scraper.

 

[Okko]

guitar probably on horseback….

 

[Default]

guitar probably on horseback….

Why are you standing next to my girlfriend? No oats for her tonight!!!

 

[Default]

So, ended up scraping the binding on the back of the guitar. This thing has seen some living. The binding is loose in several places. not sure if that was due to shrinkage, or being banged around frequently. In any case, it has a pending date with the CA glue.

The Rio Grande pickups are not staying. They are going to be replaced by HB-1s from another guitar that has some more significant issues than the Starfire does. Fortunately, all I have to do is clip the wires on the Rio Grandes, and solder the factory wiring to the HB-1 terminals. Yay! The stock pickup rings have been drilled, of course. I've come up with an easy (to me, anyway) repair, so not a big deal.

The fretboard has the ski jump on the fingerboard extention issue. I'm going to think about this a bit. It might end up being my first neck reset. The cap on the neck heel is missing, so I could force steam in there, and, depending on the glue, it should pop right off. In any event, I'm pulling all the frets and sanding the fretboard. The divots are not objectionable, but there are lateral cuts all over the fingerboard, and those have to go. I'm going to go with jumbos on this. I like the feel of the frets on the T-250 I got from acornhouse, and there ya go. The fake Grover tuners on this work pleasantly well, so I'm not going to worry to much about them yet.

Finish touchup is going to be fun, but I'm just going to work on the buckle rash and neck, with some little here and there work. Not worried about that, in my youth and young adulthood, I painted a LOT of 1/72 scale model planes and dozens of lead D&D figures, so that should be fun.

I figure to pull the frets tomorrow and then take a bit of a break. I have some other projects I need to circle back to.

 

[Default]

Got out my radius gauges, and this thing has an 18" radius on the fingerboard. I'm surprised, but who knows how many times this was refretted. Between that and running the frets over the binding (instead of ending the at the binding), it should make the neck feel wider than stock.