Project - Pain in the neck!

This morning I had a decent look at the Grant semi especially around the neck area as I knew that I had a problem with it for some reason. Bleeding obvious now!! lol

Seems I have a slight neck alignment problem, a little more than just a simple truss rod adjustment! Anyway I did a bit of Googling and came across an idea called 'shims', which are basically splints (usually strips of credit cards, best use for them!)  which prop up the neck. From what I gather they're predominately placed underneath the neck either at the front or the back to adjust the height of the strings (well the height of the neck in correspondence to the strings really) not at the sides to push the neck in one certain direction.

After many, many, many failed attempts I got to this stage:

The irony here is that there are no shims in place here! At this point I decided to remove the plate at the back for some reason and lo and behold we have my most successful attempt.

Unfortunately I didn't stop there. I tried to replace the plate thinking there must be a way that I could have both a correctly aligned neck and be able to keep my plate in place. Didn't have much success and I also bust my 1st string in the process so now I can't even tell how both E strings line up on the neck.

I think at this stage I'm either going to have to remove the plate once again and then see how it copes with 6 strings worth of tension or I take it to someone that actually knows what they're doing.

If I do go down the repair route I think it will be a few weeks as I can't afford to have it professionally repaired just yet (plus there may be no worth in it). In the meantime I've put back the bridge tone and volume controls (which was a lengthy and awkward experience in the end using string to form a noose!), jack (as best I can seeing as it's bent out of shape) and pickup switch. I've also for now put back the crappy knobs which I'll eventually replace.

For now I've hit a point in the project where I'm going to have to spend money (which of course leads to which decisions do I make). Do I remove the plate, restring it and hope for the best? I would probably get my new humbucker sorted first too so I don't have to mess around removing strings then adding them again. 

Or do I just call it quits now and take it to a professional. This of course means spending a decent amount of money (I'm guessing at least £30 as that's the cost of a setup) but if I did this I'd prob want the guitar to not have wires hanging out which of course means replacing the humbucker now or sticking with what I have and putting the controls back in place (also purchasing a new tone knob too as I had to cut the last one out!). 

As I said earlier because there's now money involved any progress on this project is now going to be slow.

New project!!

After spending a few days restoring the abandoned Squier Tele I kinda got the bug for it. So much so that I found myself looking on Ebay for guitars in need of repair (wasn't much worth looking at to be honest, no surprise there as Ebay sellers have a habit of just forgetting to mention things that may need repairing and just sell the item as in working condition!) and even thought about going down the build your own guitar effect pedal route via clone pedal kits.

Before I spend any of my own actual money (which I lack in!) I thought I'd check out my own old abandoned guitar.

This is an old Grant semi acoustic which I purchased from Crime Converters around ten years ago. For some reason I never took to it, think it was something to do with the neck being wrong and despite a little tinkering with the pickups several years ago (replacing the bridge pickup) I've pretty much left it to rot in the garage for years.

So I brought it in from the cold, dust it off a little and went at it with a screwdriver to see what I had.

At this point I found that the screw/bolt on the bridge tone controls was threaded and I couldn't remove it. Also had trouble removing the jack input plate too.

But with a bit of brute force, a screwdriver, hammer and a hacksaw I did manage to get in.

Removed jack

The guilty culprit (tone control)

After that (well actually between removing the jack and going at the tone knob with a hacksaw) I tried it out and was pleasantly surprised.

The neck does need adjusting (not that much of a job really after my foray into truss rod adjustment with the Scrapocaster) but all the electrics (with the exception of the bridge tone) work perfectly.

Also the neck isn't too bad to play and is much nicer than the Squier neck. I'm thinking that new this might have actually been worth more than the Squier as it is much nicer to play.

The bridge humbucker which I fitted a few years ago is awesome (well in comparison to the neck humbucker at least!) and is a complete contrast to the neck one which now sounds pretty cheap so it looks like I'm going to rip that out and replace it.

Other adjustments I fancy making at this point are:

• A Bigsby bridge if possible
• Addition of a scratchplate (screw holes are there so one must've existed at some point)
• All new tone and volume knobs (this is also kind of necessary as I only have one of each at the mo instead of 2)

I would also need to purchase a new tone pot and jack plate.

This is definitely a custom project and although in reality it may just be a simple restore and add a new neck humbucker it will end up being one of my own personal guitars as the sound it produces already is amazing and unlike anything I actually own (including the humbuckers on the Jim Reed PRS copy).

Also as Grant isn't an easily recognisable guitar manufacturing brand I can't see there being much re-sale value in it so wouldn't even be worth fixing up and selling never mind fitting a half decent pickup to the neck.

Can't wait to get started on this next project although with there being more cost involved (ie that replacement humbucker) and it not being as simple as a clean up, sand down and replace parts job I can see this being more of a longer project maybe taking several weeks or even months to complete.

Be worth it in the end though. Especially as I get to rescue a long forgotten guitar that I originally purchased for myself. :)

Scrapocaster update

So last Mon eve after shopping around the guitar shops (and seeing an identical model for £170 brand new) I decided that there was probably no worth in spending time and money customising this guitar as it would still be nowhere near as nice as my Baja tele to play (there is a reason why the Fender Baja is three times the price after all!) therefore it would prob be best to restore it to it's original specs (or near at least) and sell it on, what my old marketing boss would call 'an easy win'.

With this in mind I mentioned it on my Facebook status and got some interest almost instantaneously! After a few messages I set a price (a seriously low one but the buyer is a friend, there's no hassle in ebay/paypal or postage fees etc and there was some serious bumps and cracks to the paintwork that I couldn't (and wouldn't be doing so anyway) fix - besides it adds to that cool beat up look!

With this in mind I finished up cleaning the guitar:

Purchased a new jack input plate, tone knob, saddle and nut:

Jack

Tone

Finished bridge including new saddle on the right

Nut (after filing down)

And here's the finished product:

The Scrapocaster - The project begins!

After finding a perfectly fixable Squier Telecaster last night I could hardly wait to begin working on it, despite the fact that it was late and the shops were shut (it being Sunday as well as evening!) I managed to contain my excitement til this morning (even managing a lie in til 11am to boot). After giving the whole thing a proper scrub down using just a steam cleaner and a scouring sponge I got to see the true feat of what awaited me.

Looks quite good without that horrible white scratchplate and those tacky stickers!

On closer inspection though:

Can't really see it here but there's some serious damage to the wood as well as the obvious missing input socket and plate!

Also:

Nice little crack just above the neck pickup which was covered by that shitty scratchplate.

Various scratches such as this:

Was originally thinking of a vintage bridge like the one on my Baja but it seems I would have to drill into the body as they have 4 screw at the bottom unlike this one which only has 3.

What I'm thinking initially is to replace all the fittings (ie bridge, controls and tuners) with gold ones and fit a black scratchplate to it. Should look nice.

In the meantime I went into town to show it to the local guitar shops. My favourite one is shut for the week due to it being a small family business and they need time off. Didn't have much luck acquiring a scratchplate or anything else really but I did purchase a new socket which I fitted and am happy to report that all controls and pickups are intact (just a shame I'm going to rip them out and replace them!!

Finally I took the sander to it and got rid of (or at least tidied up) those big nasty scratches.

Guessing the next thing to do now is go shopping online and purchase the parts I want to upgrade it. After installing those it's a matter of choosing which pickups I want in it then having the guitar professionally setup. Will keep you all informed on the progress.

One drunk's trash is another man's cool new guitar customisation project!

So I went to throw out an old bottle of water left in my car boot for a few weeks after a warning from my Mum about drinking bottled water left in the car (Wouldn't have drunk it anyway as it'd be warm and nasty but thought it's a good time to get rid whilst I remember) and I see a guitar head poking out from a wheelie bin (it's bin collection day tomorrow). Decided to pull it out, see what' it is exactly. Thought it might just be a cheap guitar with it's neck in two but what I found was pleasantly surprising. A Fender Squire Telecaster in half decent nick, totally salvagable and best of all the parts that need replacing are all relatively cheap to do so. As I'm getting a new guitar for nothing (or virtually nothing with the cost of replacement parts) I think I'm going to customise it big time, thinking either a Jeff Buckley tribute tele or something with kick ass pickups (poss a humbucker at the neck), a different style bridge and a nice scratchplate (probably a chrome one).

Here's a list of things that I need on initial inspection:

• Input jack w/ plate
• Nut
• x1 Saddle (6 saddle type bridge)

List of possible replacements/problems once I plug it in (once the jack is fixed):

• Neck pickup
• Bridge pickup
• Tuners

Parts I think I'm going to replace anyway whether necessary or not:

• Neck pickup (poss a humbucker)
• Bridge pickup
• Scratchplate
• Input jack w/ plate
• Nut
• Saddle (most likely the whole bridge)
• PU selector knob (prob get one like the one on my Baja Tele)
• Tuners

Will track my progress on here along with pics but for now he's a glimpse of it in it's original state.