DIY Guitar Kits (or Refurbishing Old Beaters?)

I've had a little bit of time to begin works on The Beast (as it shall now be known) with mixed results.

Scraping away the scorch marks and sanding down the finish on the neck appears to be producing something resembling a usable component.

Unfortunately, after only removing half of the guitar top finish, I can see it has been subject to some horrific abuse.

Finished the finish removing.....erm...yep.

it was a stinky, messy, nasty business. Even with gloves, face mask and protective spectacles, I still found e process foul and my eyes were streaming.
even so, it's done, albeit the guitar now looks like it has (barely) survived the apocalypse.

a layer of ply/veneer has chipped off randomly during the process, leaving it more uneven than a Scottish team playing in the Champions League.

this will require some serious sanding. I may even have to resort to acquiring an orbital thingmy.

But it keeps you out of the shops at this perilous time of year, Martin

Martin,

You are going to find it hard to sand everything out level and if you are going to be painting the body with a coloured finish the easiest way is to use a filler that you can sand out level. I'm not an expert on this but if you using car paint then the fillers used on cars for repairs may be the way to go.

www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-2-part-wood-filler-natural-500g/1631H
This should fit the bill it goes off pretty fast and being a two pack you can tweak the cure time by adding a little more or a little less catalyst. Best used in a well ventilated area

After acquiring a random orbital sander and a cheap work-mate style bench, I spent a fruitful hour on Saturday removing the veneer layer.

It's not all done - I've still to remove material from the sides and the curvy sections, as well as smoothing out the bumps from my less than stellar sanding technique, but it has resulted in almost all of the veneer now off, the gouges now smoothed out and the wood beneath actually starting to resemble something akin to presentable.

I'm now rethinking my plan for painting a new finish on, and will instead consider the oil finish I first planned.

The scratch plate and other plastic bits and bobs I left to soak, which has removed all of the nasty stickers and gluey residue, but it's still a bit tatty looking.
Nevertheless, I don't want to spend any more money on this guitar just now, so the junk electronics will go back on. If they sound truly terrible once reconected, I might look into a cheap Squier harness/plate set.

Photos to follow at some indistinct point in the future...


PS: oh, and due to my almost complete practical ineptitude, I somehow managed to cut through my glove and index finger with the side of the rotary sandpaper BEFORE I'd even managed to try it on the guitar

With all the cold weather and stuff, I haven't managed to progress with this much, but I plan to rectify this soonish.

In the meantime, I have now acquired an old acoustic guitar that I can similarly experiment with.

I saw an old Lorenzo acoustic for sale down with road with a Ritter bag for a tenner. So I bought it.
It's a bit bruised here and there and the strings are fossilised but it's in reasonable nick. Apart from the string height, which is about 4mm at low E, 12th fret.

The saddle has had it, so it will need.......a neck reset!

Should be fun