Maintenance Weekend....

[duhvoodooman]

I did manage to slip in one "enhancement", but concentrated mostly on some overdue guitar maintenance & string changing this weekend. I restrung 5 of my guitars, including three of them with rosewood necks, Those also got a good fretboard cleaning and conditioning with the cleaner & conditioner in the Dunlop 65 maintenance kit (http://www.jimdunlop.com/index.php?page=products/pip&id=231&pmh=products/maintenance) I picked up a while back. I also thoroughly wiped down each guitar but stopped short of doing a wax job on each. Maybe next time.

I'm amazed how much better each guitar sounds. I probably should have done this a couple of months ago on a couple of the guitars--and about 6 months ago on one or two! Yikes--you forget how good new strings sound when you're a casual player and only change them occasionally. Nice and crisp, ringing tone with much better bottom definition. I gotta be more diligent about this stuff!! :thwap:

The one new thing I installed was a set of vintage-style Grover tuners on my Epi '56 Goldtop. I never liked the stock ones and got these upgrades on eBay a few months ago, but figured I'd hold off on installing them until the next time I changed the strings. So last night, I put 'em on. It's a little traumatic to take a drill to a guitar, but I took my time and had no problems. I like the look--adds to the vintage vibe of the '56 GT. And they operate more smoothly and the guitar is easier to tune accurately now--not as much "flat'n'sharp" hunting around, which I found myself doing with the stock tuners.

Here's a couple of pics. They don't look as light as the close-up makes them appear, nor as dark as the full guitar shot. They're that hard-to-describe olive-cream-light gray color and go well with the gold finish:


http://duhvoodooman.com/miscimages/musical/56GT_new_tuners_closeup.jpg http://duhvoodooman.com/miscimages/musical/56GT_new_tuners_full.jpg

[warren0728]

man that looks great! :bravo: :beer:

ww

[ShortBuSX]

With 5 guitars(or more even)...have you ever considered "FastFret"?
Keeps me from having to change strings so often and keeps em fresh feelin.
But nothing really beats new strings...but you might consider it if you havent.
I dont know how I dismissed this product for so long.

Those tuners do look sweet!

[Spudman]

Tuners = proper. :AOK: Those look perfect on that guitar. A fresh guitar does sound and play nicely. Wanna do mine?

[Tone2TheBone]

Looks great Bob. Do a photo of the back side. The vintage tuner backs are nice looking too and I want to see if there were any holes showing. ;)

[luvmyshiner]

Looks great DVM. Unfortunately your post also reminds me that I have about a half a dozen guitars that need a string change and good cleaning. So many guitars, so little time.

[duhvoodooman]

So many guitars, so little time.
As the young'uns say (or used to say?)....."Word, bro'!" :dude:

[ShortBuSX]

As the young'uns say (or used to say?)....."Word, bro'!" :dude:

Atleast you got hands on quality time with all of your babies...did you plug any of them in?

[rkwrenn]

Wow, looks like we may have been on the same task page!!! Starting last Monday...

Relaced the volume and tone pots on my EPI LP II with CTS pots. I normally tune this guitar to D and Drop-C. Trying new strings on it - Ernie Ball 'Not Even Slinky' 12 - 56.

Replaced the TBX tone control on my Am Std Tele with a normal CTS pot. New strings - D'Addario 10 - 46.

I reversed the wiring on my MIJ 57 RI Strat bridge pickup (SD Hot Rails). I had it backwards so it was out of phase with the middle pickup. New Strings - D'Addario 10 - 46.

New strings (D'Addario 10 - 46) for my MIM Strat and conditioned the R/W fretboard with Dunlop 02 fingerboard mojo juice.

New strings (D'Addario 10 - 46) for my MIK Strat. Adjusted neck relief and two point trem. Still got some more tweaking to do to it.

Today I started on my '76 Strat. It's getting a new graphtech nut cut from a blank. The pre-cut ones don't have the correct string spacing. I am also going to remove the SD Cool Rails (bridge) and will replace it with an SD Alnico II.

Fun Stuff!!!

Cheers,

Bob

[Spudman]

I should have all mine finished by Christmas.:o

[Algonquin]

I should have all mine finished by Christmas.:o
You didn't say which year... :D

EDIT: GoldTop looks great with the new tuners DVM :AOK:

[bigoldron]

Looks really good DVM! Those tuners really set off that Epi!

[peachhead]

Man, that is one sweeeeeeeeet lookin' guitar. :AOK:

[duhvoodooman]

Do a photo of the back side. The vintage tuner backs are nice looking too and I want to see if there were any holes showing.
Only for you, Tone, only for you:

http://duhvoodooman.com/miscimages/musical/56GT_new_tuners_rear.jpg

If you look really close, you can just barely make out the bottom bevel of the old screw hole peekin' out under that little crescent cutaway at the bottom of the tuner bodies. But you'd never notice them unless you were specifically looking for 'em.

[ShortBuSX]

Thank you! :AOK:
You just made me feel a whole lot better bout my factory second LP...and for some reason I havent taken the stickers off the back yet either.

[duhvoodooman]

Yeah, my '56 GT is indeed a factory second. While fully functional, it has a couple of minor finish defects, the most noticeable of which is hidden under the pickguard!

The interesting part of the story is that, when I bought it on eBay, the seller represented it as "first quality" goods, and the stickers on the back of the headstock had been intentionally repositioned to hide both the "2ND" stamp and the scratched out last two digits of the S/N. When I confronted him with this (politely--"I'd like to be able to leave positive feedback for you, but...."), he claimed he bought it that way from a local music store. Sounded like BS to me, but I just countered with the fact that, as the seller, HE was responsible for knowing the condition of the instrument and representing it accurately. So we bargained a bit, and agreed that he'd refund 20% of the bid price. So the guitar ended up costing me a mere $245 plus shipping, including a brand new HSC! Not bad for a $500 guitar that plays & sounds great!

[Robert]

Nice work Vood. Those tuners look great.

You know how to strike deal too, don'tcha!

[Tone2TheBone]

Thanks for the pics Voo I appreciate that. Those tuners sure do look sweet and you can hardly notice those other hole dimples. I bet in real life they look even cooler. :)

[Kazz]

I love those Gibby style tuners....I have to get me a set of those for my Greg Bennett Les Paul....they look so much better than the chrome Grovers.

[F_BSurfer]

Looks good DVM ,I am going to have to set aside some time for a maintenance clean up and string change way over due here

[mainestratman]

I know I'm resurrecting yet another ancient thread...

DVM.. do you still have that guitar? How are those Grovers holding up? I'm contemplating putting some on my LP...

I had a nice set of Grovers (the chrome ones) that I'd put on an old POS LP copy.. while the guitar sounded like crap, it NEVER went out of tune... lol

I found out my Oscar Schmidt "Fat Girl" has Grovers on it. Those cost only slightly less than what I paid for the guitar.. lol

[duhvoodooman]

Nope, sold it. But I loved those tuners--very smooth and held tune extremely well.

[mainestratman]

Rawkin' dude. I'll more seriously consider some.

Thanks!