50 Years In The Attic - Abandoned Monster Electric Guitar Restoration And Repair

This vintage custom electric guitar was abandoned in a damp, dirty attic for about 50 years. So restoring and repairing it was a real challenge. Briefly about the restoration work I did on this guitar: Refinishing / Painting Tuning pegs restoration Electronics repair Replacing a fretboard Frets replacement Bridge replacement Removing rust from pickups I know very little about this guitar: it is at least 50 years old, it was made by a luthier (this guitar is custom, after all), and this guitar was abandoned and kept in a bad conditions for many, many years. The body shape of this guitar is a bit like a superstrat, but in a kind of punk style. With its "irregular" shape, it looks like a Univox Hi-Flier or Mosrite Gospel Mark IV. And its sharp horns reminds of Aria Pro II CS-350. But still, it has its own unique custom shape. It was dirty and rusty. The varnish and paint were peeling off. The electronics were somehow cut. So, I had to remove the old finish from the guitar, paint it (I used stain), and varnish it. I had to fill some holes with wood putty. In the process, I found something strange - there was an old 35mm photo slide in the battery compartment. Maybe someone put it there for good luck, so after the restoration I put it back. I was very surprised (in a bad way) to find several large bolts on the fingerboard - this is how the neck is attached to the body. These bolts were hidden under a velvet sticker (most likely, this guitar has already been restored at some point.). Since there was no way to remove them, I decided to add a wooden overlay (top) to the fretboard. Then I cut fret slots and installed new frets. This guitar has some very strange active pickups (more precisely, it's one big pickup). I was thinking of changing them to modern ones, but since I was able to fix the old ones, I decided to keep them. Also I removed the rust from the decorative chrome pickup covers. Due to the lack of a bridge, I installed a new Strat-style bridge, but at the same time I left the old tailpiece (after removing the rust). I covered the old, yellowed pegs with white (or rather ivory) acrylic varnish. Overall, I tried to keep as much of its original appearance as possible. Last time I did a guitar restoration - Vintage Electric Guitar Restoration - 1976... - I received a lot of negative feedback because I replaced most of the old parts with new ones and changed the finish color. So, this time I tried to restore the ORIGINAL – weird shaped, vintage, punk-style, controversial electronics. 00:00 Intro 00:18 Removing dust and dirt from guitar body 00:54 Checking the condition of the guitar electronics 02:06 Removing guitar parts (pickguard, pickups, pegs, tailpiece, old frets) 06:03 Removal of old finish (varnish and paint) 07:45 Sanding a guitar 09:01 Filling holes in the body and neck with putty 09:46 New finish - painting and varnishing the guitar 11:30 New fretboard topper and new fret installation 12:19 Repair and installation of electronics (pickups) 15:15 Removing rust from pickup covers, tailpiece, screws 16:49 Cleaning, restoration and installation of the pickguard 18:33 Tuning pegs restoration and installation 19:34 Guitar bridge installation 20:15 Tailpiece installation 20:37 Installing new strings 21:02 Installing strap buttons and new volume and tone knobs 21:32 Before and after and sound demonstration