gottalovethe80s
New member
These past weeks I've been looking for a nice strat body as I have a spare fender neck laying around. Yesterday I in a trading group on facebook I saw this guy post some crappy pictures of a what seems to be a butterscotch blonde strat that he's asking like 35 bucks for. The pictures were badly taken with little lighting so it was impossible to make out what was printed on the headstock, yet anyone can see that the guitar's been mistreated with alot of wear and tear. I gave the guy a message and he said it was "some kind of ibanez guitar". I've been interested in lawsuit MIJ guitars, and the price he offered was really low so I went to his house the morning after. The guitar turned out to be a yamaha super rock n roller 400s made in 1976 with a 3-piece ash body. It was in really bad shape but nothing a little time and effort can't fix so I bought it!
There was alot of work to be done. The guitar was dusty and rusty, the neck's gloss finish had scratches and dents in them and felt really icky to the touch, the action and intonation was all over the place and the strings were at least a year old...
The logo on the headstock was half erased and looked disgusting, so I sanded it off for the moment, I'll probably make my own logo and add it on there when I have more free time. The bone nut is cracked near the e string and was cut really low on the g and d string, but it's still functional, so I left it as is for now. I'll replace it when I take it to a tech next week.
Removing the pickguard revealed how much the colour has tarnished over the course of 39 years. Makes me want to get a clear pickguard.
The electronics work perfectly. The switch is a 3 way so I'm going to replace it with a 5 way for versatility. It also has a nice trem with a big steel block.
The neck felt really gross so I cleaned the fretboard and sanded the back of the neck a little to give it that satin feel. I really like the stripes of the fretboard, and there was some nice checking on the back of the neck too. Frets were worn but I can live with that.
After an afternoon of work, the guitar now plays fairly well and sounds awesome for a guitar twice my age. I must say I'm really happy with this little project and this is definitely the best 35 bucks I've spent in a long long while
There was alot of work to be done. The guitar was dusty and rusty, the neck's gloss finish had scratches and dents in them and felt really icky to the touch, the action and intonation was all over the place and the strings were at least a year old...
The logo on the headstock was half erased and looked disgusting, so I sanded it off for the moment, I'll probably make my own logo and add it on there when I have more free time. The bone nut is cracked near the e string and was cut really low on the g and d string, but it's still functional, so I left it as is for now. I'll replace it when I take it to a tech next week.
Removing the pickguard revealed how much the colour has tarnished over the course of 39 years. Makes me want to get a clear pickguard.
The electronics work perfectly. The switch is a 3 way so I'm going to replace it with a 5 way for versatility. It also has a nice trem with a big steel block.
The neck felt really gross so I cleaned the fretboard and sanded the back of the neck a little to give it that satin feel. I really like the stripes of the fretboard, and there was some nice checking on the back of the neck too. Frets were worn but I can live with that.
After an afternoon of work, the guitar now plays fairly well and sounds awesome for a guitar twice my age. I must say I'm really happy with this little project and this is definitely the best 35 bucks I've spent in a long long while
