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Thread: NGD - Even more vintage Australian guitar action!

  1. #20
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Down Under
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    Good call on the oiled finish Muddy, I've rubbed two coats into it now using a scotchbrite with a good days drying time in between. I knocked the finish back last night with a light rub with a clean scotchbrite and it's good to go. Actually that undersells it quite a lot. It feels incredible. It has the silky smooth feel of a de-glossed painted neck, but mixed with the feeling of playing fresh sanded wood. Of course this type of finish, especially when applied so lightly, doesn't protect the neck from bumps and scratches as well as a nice thick poly finish does, but it does seal it against the elements and totally keeps the vintage mojo vibe.

    At some point the guitar has either had a neck reset (pretty typical on old archtops as the "arch" flattens down) or the neck has been bashed partially, or all the way off. All I know for sure is, it had a very ugly glue job around the outside of the neck joint. I couldn't deal with looking at it, so I've stripped back all the glue around the joint. This unfortunately means there's a little less nitro than before and it's pretty obvious, as around the neck joint is the darkest part of the burst, but I'm working on a few ideas for re-relicing the joint. It looks FAR better than a crappy glue job though, and as the glue was "glued" to flakey nitro (and under the neck it's actually eaten into the nitro) the external mess wasn't adding anything structural.

    I'm experimenting with oiling the rest of the exposed wood (where the nitro has flaked off around the edges) to stabilize the wood. I think naked wood, especially around where the top joins the sides, is recipe for eventual disaster. So far, a little oil and a little steel wool seems to work well to smooth the sharp edges of the chipped nitro (making it less prone to flaking) without changing the appearance.

    I've got a few days till my next StewMac care pack arrives, which contains the new tuners for this and my other project, as well as a sample pack of nitro safe polishing/buffing compounds and some new CTS pots.

    The plan is to tackle everything I can (fairly) confidently do myself, then hand it to a pro for a new nut, maybe a refret (the frets have been replaced before, and whilst they don't have a huge amount of wear, at least one of them has a nasty slot where something has hit the G string into the fret with something hard.) and a proper setup.

    When the tuners arrive though I can also make a nut for, and glue my freshly re-shaped neck on, my acoustic too! I'm loving this guitar tinkering business

  2. #21
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    DixieFried in BAMA!!!!
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    2,496
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    I think someone has caught the mod bug!!!!

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