subanots
New member
I found one of these at a really sketchy 2nd hand store. It wasn't a pawn shop, and it was not quite a thrift store.
Gross, is the best way to describe it. Not many useful, or from what I could tell, working/functional items.
Everything in there seemed like it was pulled out of the trash.
I was on my way out when I spotted this in the corner by the door. With doubt, i inspected it for structural damage or something else that would scare me away.
I couldn't believe it was in such good condition. I looked inside and it was built in 1970 in Leningrad. I took it home and strung it up. Sounded good. Needed WORK.
I replaced the popsicle stick lookin bridge with an ebony one.
I stripped the neck and smoothed out the back of the neck, re-radiused the fretboard and refretted the neck.
The stock tuners were toast, so I installed a backstrap (Koa) and headstock overlay (Walnut) and relocated the tuner holes.
The old nut was some kind of plastic nonsense. Tossed a bone one in there.
There isn't any reinforcement on the body to protect it from the strings digging in, so i made the cap thing out of ebony and glued it in place.
I lightly stained the neck, trying to get as close as I could to the stock finish on the body. (I liked the sloppy flower painting on the front and decided the body was good enough.)
Refinished with about 100 coats of tung oil.
Here are the before and after pics.
These things are really fun. I suggest grabbing one if you find a cheap one. 3 strings tuned EEA. Kind of sounds like a mandolin, banjo, and a ukulele had a baby together.
I really want to install a pickup, but I don't want to put any more holes in this thing. I have an extra lipstick tube laying around and it would look so cool in there...
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Gross, is the best way to describe it. Not many useful, or from what I could tell, working/functional items.
Everything in there seemed like it was pulled out of the trash.
I was on my way out when I spotted this in the corner by the door. With doubt, i inspected it for structural damage or something else that would scare me away.
I couldn't believe it was in such good condition. I looked inside and it was built in 1970 in Leningrad. I took it home and strung it up. Sounded good. Needed WORK.
I replaced the popsicle stick lookin bridge with an ebony one.
I stripped the neck and smoothed out the back of the neck, re-radiused the fretboard and refretted the neck.
The stock tuners were toast, so I installed a backstrap (Koa) and headstock overlay (Walnut) and relocated the tuner holes.
The old nut was some kind of plastic nonsense. Tossed a bone one in there.
There isn't any reinforcement on the body to protect it from the strings digging in, so i made the cap thing out of ebony and glued it in place.
I lightly stained the neck, trying to get as close as I could to the stock finish on the body. (I liked the sloppy flower painting on the front and decided the body was good enough.)
Refinished with about 100 coats of tung oil.
Here are the before and after pics.
These things are really fun. I suggest grabbing one if you find a cheap one. 3 strings tuned EEA. Kind of sounds like a mandolin, banjo, and a ukulele had a baby together.
I really want to install a pickup, but I don't want to put any more holes in this thing. I have an extra lipstick tube laying around and it would look so cool in there...
View attachment 73591
View attachment 73592
View attachment 73593
View attachment 73594
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View attachment 73588
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