Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

[J Moose]

Now before ya’ll freak out, I would NEVER attempt to refinish a guitar that was in great shape. This poor instrument however, was “refinished” by some previous idjit with what appears to be sandpaper & spray-paint. Why? Who knows…but I found it for next to nothing and it was so abused that I had to give it a new & loving home. Thankfully the previous owner only screwed up the body, the finish on the neck & headstock is intact. The original Tune-O-Matic was lost along the way and replaced with some pot-metal junk and it’s missing a tuner, no biggie there. It still has the pat # pickup (chrome bucker!) and the serial number is 81526537…any ideas on how & where I could date it and come up with a year?

I started taking the old finish off this afternoon with a palm sander and 40 grit paper and the back cleaned up really nicely with a few hours of work, it’s a one piece body that just sings when I tap on it! I’ll start the top tomorrow and then work it up to 300-400 grit before I apply a new finish.

I’m totally stuck on how to deal with the sides? I thought about leaving them black for a pseudo binding effect but as you can see in the pics there’s a couple of big dents and other sins. There was the passing thought of sanding the finish off the sides but I don’t want to destroy the contours and radius that’s there and that would be REAL easy to do with a sander so I could use some ideas. Paint stripper is probably out of the question since half the body is now bare wood and I’m not exactly sure what the chemical makeup of the paint is, probably some combination of nitro & spray paint and then there’s patches of this silvery blue stuff that’s a little scary…

FWIW I’m attempting to upload pictures but so far I've had no success. When I click on "manage attachements" I get to 'browse' and select what I want from the computer, then click "upload" and it says 'Uploading files' and then I get "Cannot Find Server, the page cannot be found"

What gives??? I'm not exactly new to the forum thing so I doubt it's user error but I wouldn't rule it out!

:yell:

 

[kmcguitars]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

For any contour edge and sanding sponge works good. I hope ya get them pics up. I'd love to see it.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

Ok.

It's totally NOT freakin' working.

For whatever reasons I can't upload pictures. I've ruled out network & user error because it'll take a bitmap...but I can't get them to be 100kb or less so they're rejected.

Likewise...I got it to take a jpeg but the files are outside of the 640x480 limit. So I resized them, no problem right?

Wrong!!!

That's when I get the "Page cannot be found" error.

So after a few hours of muckin' around with it, I'm pretty much giving up on trying to post pictures. Is there some kind of 'trick' to it? Or, if some kind soul who actually knows how to interface with this forum can either fill me in or would be willing to accept an email & post them for me that would be great 'cause I'm getting ready to toss this thing through the wall!!!

It's a half dozen pics total of under 1.5mb...What GIVES????????

:yell:

 

[shredaholic]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

try posting them on mooseaudio.net and linking to them with the

tags for now

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

....and the serial number is 81526537…any ideas on how & where I could date it and come up with a year? ...:

It was built on the 152nd day of 1986, and was the 37th guitar completed in the Nashville plant on that day.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

try posting them on mooseaudio.net and linking to them with the

tags for now

That's not an option really...I don't host the domain or have access to the design & content of those pages. It's all done by MMedia, so if I ask them to upload pictures it's $75 an hour and really, that's just not worth it LOL

I tried from two different computers, different file types, sizes & whatever else I could think of and none of it's working so I'm going to admit defeat.

Maybe it's time I put together a myspace page or something...

Ok, I'm off to Home Depot for more sandpaper so I can finish the top. It's in much worse shape then I thought it was.

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

www.photobucket.com

Free!

As far as stripping the finish, I usually just go at it by hand with 40 gritt sandpaper and then work my way up. It takes a long time, but it's very safe. Hope your arm is in good shape!

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

I always use a Heat gun to take finish off. Just make sure to Keep it away from the neck (on set neck guitars) and The fret board. Cause it will loosen the glue there too.

I know this seems risky, And it is. But The trick is to keep the gun about 10 inches away from the body, and watch the paint Really closely. ANd as Soon as it starts to bubble Turn the gun off, and Use a scrapper of some sort (I Use a Super sharp wood chisel) and Take off small amounts at a time. Work in tiny area's and get off as much paint as you can in the area with the chisel and heat gun. Be careful not to accidentally peal the wood though (its easy to do with a chisel so ya might wanna just use a paint spatula instead).

As far as the area around the Neck and fret board. Your gonna have to do that with a sanding sponge. ITs really the only way to do it without ****ing sumthing up.

Good luck
-edward

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

I didn't know Gibson made Melody Makers after 1978 or so until recently. It would never have come with a humbucker stock. The Custom Shop has only been in operation since 89 at the earliest. I'd imagine it's one of those 77 or so reissues- cool little guitars.

 

[proxy]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

I'm currently spraying my guitar.

Read the ReRanch 101, that thing is the bible of guitar refinishing. The paint is also good as well. The forum is also extremely knowledgable and friendly. www.reranch.com

 

[J Moose]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

Thanks for the suggestion of Photobucket!!! That was super easy.

Easy like Sunday morning!

Hey, it is Sunday morning so there 'ya go!!!

Here are the before pictures...poor thing...

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

Cool.

When you sand off the paint on the edge, pay careful attention to which direction the grain is actually going in. It's tempting to just sand all the way around following the curves, but when you round a corner you really have to go up and down instead of side to side.

Did that make any sort of sense?

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

Looks like an early 90s Custom Shop job. Whoever did the hubucker rout did a nice job. It also looks like it's got a hefty chunk of neck on it!

 

[SpeedDemon]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

Maybe I missed this, but what color are you repainting it?

 

[J Moose]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

When you sand off the paint on the edge, pay careful attention to which direction the grain is actually going in. It's tempting to just sand all the way around following the curves, but when you round a corner you really have to go up and down instead of side to side.

Did that make any sort of sense?

Yah, I think so! lol

I have a background in cabinet making so while the process isn't all that new to me it's been a long time since I've done any finish work AND it's the first time I'm taking on a guitar. Well...really the second time, years ago I attempted to take the lacquer off a maple Chandler neck and that didn't really work out... :blackeye:

Anyway I realize there's a lot of hand sanding here, but being the creative & lazy type I wanted to get as much of the old finish as I could off with power tools. I was digging through the chest when an old automotive trick hit me, using a wire wheel on a drill...but in this case I'm using a Dremel. So far I've removed about 1/2 the finish off the sides and I need to get a couple three more wheels to finish it off. It's basically melting the finish and then turning into dust so it there's a lovely toxic black mist around but it's highly effective and WAY quicker then sanding it off by hand.

I haven't decided on a color yet. Originally I was thinking of trans cherry or TV Yellow like an old junior but I might do the tung oil & bees wax thing. I really dig the look of the trans-brown LP with black hardware that Jerry Cantrell played in the video for “Would?” so I might finish this off to look like that paddle, it’ll depend on what I decide to do with the hardware...that pot metal bridge needs to be replaced! There’s still a lot of sanding to do before I’m at that stage, probably two or three weeks.

There was the passing thought of taking it to a bike shop & having them spray the body as a gold top but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I don't want that. Part of the reason is that the neck & headstock have some vibey dings in the original finish and since I'm not touching that I want the body to match astatically so it doesn’t look odd. Plus there are a bunch of dents & marks in the body that I won’t be able to steam or sand out without removing LOTS of wood so a perfect paint job on the body would be a little like painting a beat-up car. The ultimate goal is to make it look totally stock rather then a restoration.

The neck isn’t that beefy, it’s the 60’s profile and I find them to be on the slim side. I really prefer the 50’s style with more meat to it since I choke my thumb up on the neck. I’m not sure if the ‘bucker route was stock or not…it IS cut well but it’s not perfect, the left tab is a bit lopsided when compared to the one on the right. It did come with a pat# humbucker which makes me think that yes, maybe it DID come with a 'bucker from the factory? But I doubt I’ll ever be sure unless I call Gibson and have them research the serial number. I got this poor abused plank for $240 with the absolute funkiest smelling case I’ve ever encountered and I’ve run into some pretty foul cases over the years. Some of the red fuzz from the inside of the case was sticking to the guitar, it smelled like it went through a flood and then a pack of wild dogs used it for a bathroom. Ugh. I couldn’t get it in the trash fast enough!

When I played the guitar at the store I realized that it’s a great piece of wood and even with the beat setup & strings it was trying to sing. The neck was straight and the headstock showed no signs of repair so I plunked down the cash. It’s actually been kicking around for about 7 or 8 months but I was in the process of moving and didn’t have time to start it. I’ll try to put more pictures up soon, once I get the rest of the finish off…but if anyone has ideas for colors or something that would be neat-O. In the meantime I'll read the ReRanch 101 thing.

 

[mnbaseball91]

Re: Refinishing a Custom Shop Melody Maker

Sounds like that thing's got some serious mojo! Good luck with it. I think heritage cherry would be cool, as would an amber/black vintage burst.