I've got a fair few backdated projects to put on, so I'll be pretty regular with updates to start with, until I've caught up to the latest ones.
First off, we have a battered old 70's MIJ unbranded one. This was done for a friend as a favour.
It came to me with a story, it was rescued from the stage after a punk gig in the late 70's after being smashed to pieces, it was given a plexiglass pickguard sometime after and the neck was put back together with car body filler.
I should have taken a shot of the back too, the neck was in a real state, electronics shot and bridge missing.
The brief was to put it back together using the punk ethic, using found items and true DIY methods.
The first step was to grind out the loose filler, and replace with epoxy, a quick bit of sanding and job done. Was pretty uncomfortable to play though, so the neck got a coat of paint, not any old paint though, road marking paint left on an abandoned building site and rescued many years ago. Some masking tape, a craft knife, and a bit of scraping of edges and the new logo to match the body was complete.
As the idea was to not touch the body too much, that was pretty much left alone, however one pickup was dead, and the other two, not connected to much, were pretty weak, so I built a small veroboard booster and battery, dressed the wires to look cool under the pickguard and cut a piece of old copper pipe from the airing cupboard to serve as a bridge.
Sadly I have mislaid the photo's of the final finished piece, but you get the idea. The copper pipe bridge was a bit of a bugger to intonate but with a hammer and chisel it was shaped to be pretty close and had a really weird sound to it, but that's what punk is all about.
More soon
CM
