idsnowdog
Imperator of Indignation
When I saw this guitar this morning on Craigslist I was thinking it was a Kramer or possibly a Carvin. When I went to look at it realized that it more than likely wasn't a production guitar, but instead was a kit guitar that was poorly finished and in need of repair and setup. The woman I bought it from runs a Luthier co-op which specializes in acoustics and she said it needed work. She was selling it because someone left it at her shop and she didn't work on solidbodies. She mentioned the headstock and the scarf joint below the nut. I didn't see anything wrong with the scarf joint other than it was sloppily glued. However the headstock is more concerning looking but appears stable.
The good:
Light and comfortable dinky sized guitar.
The neck/body joint looks solid
Schaller tuners
Schaller Floyd Rose copy
Zero fret wear
Gibson humbucker which I removed and replaced with a JB hybrid.
The bad:
Missing binding on the headstock
Sloppy finish
Sloppy fretboard stain
Possible weak joint on the headstock
Missing screws for the tuners
Tremolo needs to be replaced due to broken saddle and stripped screws
I spent the entire afternoon scrapping stain off the frets and dressing the edges. When I tried to string it up I realized the tremolo needed to be replaced. I will also need to strip and refinish the body and replace the binding on the headstock. The headstock joint appears solid enough and the body could use some pore filler.
While working on it I was left with the impression that whoever built this guitar must have been some sad sack POS who was intimidated by the project and decided to just do a slop job so he had something he could put in the corner and look at rather than play. So how much did this winter project cost? $50.
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