Here we have a 1987 Ovation Legend that belonged to my late brother-in-law Mark. This guitar was purchased for him brand new by his girlfriend/future wife at Steve's Music in Toronto and was his pride and joy for many years. That was until it was virtually destroyed in a "bizarre gardening accident" about 10 years ago and has been sitting in it's case ever since. When I first said I would try and put it back together I still had not seen the destruction in person. When I opened the case, I couldn't believe what I had gotten myself into.
The goal with this guitar was not to restore it to pristine condition, but to put it back together leaving it's character in tact, make it playable, and give it back to Mark's son.
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The first thing I had to do was remove several layers of aluminum and duct tape that was holding everything together. Then I disassembled the guitar completely to see the full extent of damage I was dealing with.
The top was broken into two pieces. The larger portion had several cracks which I addressed first by bracing them with splints from underneath.
Next I glued the smaller portion of the top back to the larger piece and braced them with splints from underneath as well. However there was still a small piece of the top that was completely missing.
The lower bout on the bass side of the guitar is the area I call "Ground Zero" and took the most damage. I glued in a piece of veneer to strengthen a large crack, and also make the top thicker so I could plane the jagged edge straight and graft in a piece of spruce I borrowed from an old Cuban cigar box.
With the missing piece of spruce grafted in, all I had to do was fabricate a couple of small sections of purfling and kerfing, reattach the cream binding, and the top was done.
Next I had to deal with the rounded back of the guitar which is made from a single piece of thin glass resin that is shaped into a bowl. It had a large crack in the area of "Ground Zero" that I repaired with CA glue and held tight with finger pressure until it dried.
When the fragile top and back pieces are glued together the body itself becomes surprisingly strong - like an egg. Getting the two pieces glued back together was a tricky time sensitive maneuver that required a custom made jig and an assistant.
I used 5 Minute epoxy to glue the body together because I needed something that was going to bond with resin, glass-fibre and wood. My wife applied the glue to the inside edge of the bowl while I did the top. Then we quickly put the two parts together and clamped them down in the jig for the next 24 hours.
Now that the body was back together I had to reattach the neck, which is bolted to the bowl from the inside; then glue the end of the fret board back to the top. The neck also required a few minor repairs to the binding which I took care of first.
I strung the guitar up and everything held tight. The neck had a slight back bow at the 15th fret so I left it alone for a few months under extra string tension and it has come back nicely. The guitar actually sounds quite amazing after everything it's been through and it has definitely retained its character. All that it needed now was a slight touch up to the black top with the old "Steinway Repair Kit", a little bit of buffing and it was ready to go back to Mark's son.
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| Mark Bailey 1964-2017 |
I've known this 1977 Fender Stratocaster for a long time. My good friend Joe bought this one about 30 years ago in the current state it's in below. It had the typical vintage 80's makeover with a set of Bill Lawrence L-220 pickups, single volume and tone controls, Schaller tuners and lots of brass(bridge, knobs & jack plate) - the nut was miraculously spared.
This was Joe's main guitar for over twenty years until he picked up a '58 Les Paul reissue a few years back and the Strat ended up becoming a wall hanger. The main issue being that there was almost no tonal variation with the current setup. My advice was to turn it back into a vintage sounding Strat again, and the best place to start was with a new set of pickups. So I opened it up to see what I was dealing with and found out that everything needed to be replaced. The fourth position on the switch didn't work at all and the pots were horrible.
I picked up a set of Fender Custom Shop Texas Special Pickups, three CTS 250K audio taper pots, an 022mf 250V tone cap, 5-way switch, three Fender knobs and got to work wiring it up vintage style.
Next I cleaned up the frets and rosewood fingerboard with some lemon oil and #0000 steel wool, put on a new set of Ernie Ball Super Slinky strings, and set the intonation and action.
I adjusted the truss rod and tightened the neck plate screws, removed two of the tension springs from the back of the vibrato assembly as three are enough to do the job, and also added a spare plastic back plate that I had lying around.
And here it is a Stratocaster again. The ash body has a nice grain pattern and the guitar now looks and sounds amazing. The only other things I would still suggest are a reissue bridge, chrome jack plate and three layer pickguard.
Joe is quite happy with the results and says the new setup sounds great.
Recently my friend SL, guitarist with local Toronto band Waveline, asked if I could help him out with his main stage guitar, a very pointy 2008 Jackson Randy Rhoads model in metallic pink. He tunes this one all the way down to Drop B (B-F#-B-E-G#-C#) and was having issues with the intonation, tuning stability, and wanted the pickups switched out. He was told by a couple of local shops it would be a four week turnaround time. I was able to get it back to him within a week and just in time for an upcoming show.
The guitar was currently set up with a Seymour Duncan Distortion (SH6N) neck pickup, and a Duncan Nazgul bridge pickup. SL was looking for a warmer sound and wanted the original Alnico equipped Duncan JB/Jazz pickups (Seymour's favourite combo) installed back in.
Pickups installed and ready for a setup with a new pack of Ernie Ball Slinky Cobalt strings in 11 to 54 guage.
First off I started by leveling the bridge to the body. It was leaning forward and was very unstable when palm muting the bridge. So I brought it back down by tightening the tremolo springs on the back of the guitar.
Leveling the bridge also resulted in lower action.
Then I set the intonation.
SL doesn't use the Floyd Rose on this guitar because the floppy strings were causing issues with tuning stability. So I suggested blocking off the Floyd since he doesn't use it anyway and he agreed to give it a try.
The end result was better sustain and perfect tuning stability because it essentially turns the guitar into a hard tail. The maple blocks are only wedged in place and can be easily removed if he ever wants do some dive bombs with the Floyd Rose again.
SL was very pleased with the results and says all the tuning issues were resolved and the guitar sounds amazing now.
