RockWithMark
New member
Hey guys,
A while ago, I started restoring an old USA Peavey Predator (1991 script logo model) which I got in a trade for free.
Now, it is fully restored, so I wanted to share the result here on the forum.
First of all, this was the shape of the guitar when I just acquired it. As you can see, it was pretty beat up ("relic'ed" according to the previous owner)
So what I did next, was disassembling the whole guitar and see what needed to be done. Turns out there was quite a bit of work to it.
When I took off the pickguard, I was quite shocked to see that some idiot had been drilling the neck pickup cavity to **** (probably wanted to make a humbucker route)
Then I looked at the pickguard, which wasn't any better, the wiring was rubbish and the pickguard itself was incredibly cheap/flimsy, so that needed to be redone/replaced as well.
Here are the pics of the neck pickup cavity and pickguard.
I then further inspected the body, well, what can I say? It definitely needed the neck pickup cavity repaired, a refinish and a new tremolo bridge. (the stock bridge wasn't great at all)
And thus, I started to prepare the body for its new paintjob. After I was done sanding the whole body down to 600 grit, filling up the neck pickup cavity, and a few dents and scratches, the body was ready to be painted.
I took it to a professional painter and I decided that I wanted a deep blue sparkle finish, so he painted the guitar exactly as I wanted it to be, it came out really nice!
In the meantime, while the body was at the painter, I ordered some nice new parts, I ordered a Wilkinson WV6SB Gold tremolo bridge, some nice Grover tuners, which I got incredibly cheap, and a new pickguard and tremolo cover.
It was also pretty cool to see how much difference there was between both bridges in terms of tremolo block mass.
After I received the finished guitar body, I made a mock-up of the parts, to see how it would look. (As you can see in the mock-up pic, the pickguard wasn't wired at all, but I got it wired later on ofcourse.)
Again some pics attached:
At this point, most of the bodywork had been done, except for one thing, which was my own mistake; I forgot to tell the painter to NOT spray the neck cavity.
So, I had to scrape out and sand off excess paint, which was a pain in the ass to do, since it needed to be done gently and with precision. But, I finally managed to get the job done.
After that, I testfitted the neck, and it fitted nice and snug, but not too snug!
I also removed the micro-tilt system, since I much prefer wooden shims for slight neck corrections. (micro-tilt still visible here)
Moving on to the neck, which yet again, was relic'ed just like the body. I decided not to repair any lacquer damage, since it's too complicated for me to fix, and too expensive to let it be fixed.
I just cleaned it up the best I could and replaced the old tuners for the Grover ones. Not much to be mentioned here.
After that it was simply assembling the guitar, putting on new strings, adjust the trussrod/action, and intonate it properly. (Action and intonation done by a local guitar tech/friend of mine)
All I can say is, that it was a pretty fun and sometimes challenging project, and that I've definitely learned a lot from it. I highly encourage others to fix up a nice cheap guitar!
Hope you enjoyed reading this!
NOTE: Pics of the finished guitar are in the post below! Since the forum allows only up to 10 images per post to be attached.
A while ago, I started restoring an old USA Peavey Predator (1991 script logo model) which I got in a trade for free.
Now, it is fully restored, so I wanted to share the result here on the forum.
First of all, this was the shape of the guitar when I just acquired it. As you can see, it was pretty beat up ("relic'ed" according to the previous owner)
So what I did next, was disassembling the whole guitar and see what needed to be done. Turns out there was quite a bit of work to it.
When I took off the pickguard, I was quite shocked to see that some idiot had been drilling the neck pickup cavity to **** (probably wanted to make a humbucker route)
Then I looked at the pickguard, which wasn't any better, the wiring was rubbish and the pickguard itself was incredibly cheap/flimsy, so that needed to be redone/replaced as well.
Here are the pics of the neck pickup cavity and pickguard.
I then further inspected the body, well, what can I say? It definitely needed the neck pickup cavity repaired, a refinish and a new tremolo bridge. (the stock bridge wasn't great at all)
And thus, I started to prepare the body for its new paintjob. After I was done sanding the whole body down to 600 grit, filling up the neck pickup cavity, and a few dents and scratches, the body was ready to be painted.
I took it to a professional painter and I decided that I wanted a deep blue sparkle finish, so he painted the guitar exactly as I wanted it to be, it came out really nice!
In the meantime, while the body was at the painter, I ordered some nice new parts, I ordered a Wilkinson WV6SB Gold tremolo bridge, some nice Grover tuners, which I got incredibly cheap, and a new pickguard and tremolo cover.
It was also pretty cool to see how much difference there was between both bridges in terms of tremolo block mass.
After I received the finished guitar body, I made a mock-up of the parts, to see how it would look. (As you can see in the mock-up pic, the pickguard wasn't wired at all, but I got it wired later on ofcourse.)
Again some pics attached:
At this point, most of the bodywork had been done, except for one thing, which was my own mistake; I forgot to tell the painter to NOT spray the neck cavity.
So, I had to scrape out and sand off excess paint, which was a pain in the ass to do, since it needed to be done gently and with precision. But, I finally managed to get the job done.
After that, I testfitted the neck, and it fitted nice and snug, but not too snug!
I also removed the micro-tilt system, since I much prefer wooden shims for slight neck corrections. (micro-tilt still visible here)
Moving on to the neck, which yet again, was relic'ed just like the body. I decided not to repair any lacquer damage, since it's too complicated for me to fix, and too expensive to let it be fixed.
I just cleaned it up the best I could and replaced the old tuners for the Grover ones. Not much to be mentioned here.
After that it was simply assembling the guitar, putting on new strings, adjust the trussrod/action, and intonate it properly. (Action and intonation done by a local guitar tech/friend of mine)
All I can say is, that it was a pretty fun and sometimes challenging project, and that I've definitely learned a lot from it. I highly encourage others to fix up a nice cheap guitar!
Hope you enjoyed reading this!
NOTE: Pics of the finished guitar are in the post below! Since the forum allows only up to 10 images per post to be attached.
Thanks again!
