Complete and deep restoration of an old vintage electric guitar (stratocaster-style). I know very little about the history of this guitar. I do know that it was made in the USSR (most likely in Soviet Belarus) and that it is from around the 1970s. During the restoration of this electric guitar, I replaced almost everything in it except the wood itself.
For fans of authentic restorations, I'll tell you right away - don't worry, most of the parts in this guitar were already non-original. For example, a pickup that lay on pieces of linoleum for the floor; or a bridge that was made from a piece of wood with two rust screws to adjust the height of the bridge (by screwing in and out these screws). So, I installed a new fixed tune-o-matic bridge. And as the "new" pickups, I decided to use vintage top mount pickups (I originally wanted to install a set of regular humbuckers, but the body of this guitar is so thin that it would be almost impossible to do so).
I wanted to save and restore the original tuning pegs, which in this guitar is presented as a single-joint system. But one of the pegs was broken off, so I had to replace them all. I chose vintage-looking tuning machines (kinda classic Telecaster) as a replacement.
I removed all the old varnish and black paint (from the body and neck). In some places the paint came off easily, but in most places it took a lot of effort.
There is one controversial point in this restoration. I decided to leave the old frets on this guitar. They were in very poor visual condition, but under the layer of oxidation they turned out to be good. I manually cleaned every fret. Then I worked with a fret end beveling file (90 Degree Luthier File Tool), because when I removed the varnish and paint, the radius of the neck decreased slightly. I leveled the height of all the frets, and then returned them to their correct shape using a fret crowning file. And of course I polished them. So, instead of replacing them, I did a fret restoration.
There were a lot of holes in the body of this guitar. Most of them were left by a lot of screws that I think held the old pickguard in place. But there were also two large holes. It looks like the previous luthier made these holes for pickups, or maybe these holes were made from the beginning in the guitar factory. I filled the small holes with toothpicks dipped in glue. And with large holes it was more difficult to work. I filled them with chopped wooden stir sticks and added glue.
I chose red as the new body color, and natural wood as the new neck color. After all, I think Stratocaster-like guitars look great in this color combination. And only a white pickguard, which I cut out of a piece of plastic, could complete this classic look. I applied the varnish in a non-standard way - with a roller. In total, about 4 layers of paint and about 8 layers of varnish were applied. The surface of the guitar became a very interesting, uniform (homogeneous) and with a pleasant texture with a slightly metallic sheen.
I treated all the old metal parts (tremolo system, string tree, and neck plate) with rust-removing liquid. I use a rust converter for cars!
In order to install a new jack instead of the old 5-pin Soviet connector, I had to enlarge the hole almost twice. This guitar didn't have a grounding wire from the beginning (like most Soviet guitars I've seen). But I fixed that and made a grounding wire under the bridge.
After a complete restoration, I ended up with a pretty nice, comfortable, small vintage retro electric guitar. I won't judge the sound of this guitar (do it yourself, after watching the demonstration at the end of the video). But I do like its sound when it's clean or slightly overdriven.
00:00 Intro
00:29 Removing dust and dirt from guitar body
01:55 Removing guitar parts (strap buttons, pickguard, bridge, pickup, pegs, vibrato system, neck)
07:05 Removal of old finish (varnish and paint) from guitar body.
10:18 Removing nut and bushings from the neck
11:12 Removal of old finish from guitar neck. Sanding
11:47 Determining the correct location and drilling holes for a new bridge
13:32 Filling holes in the body with toothpicks, wooden stir sticks and putty
17:09 Expanding the hole for a new jack connector
17:42 Adjusting the holes for attaching the neck
18:12 Guitar neck restoration (frets restoration and fretboard cleaning)
20:41 Making and installing a new nut
21:56 Drilling a hole for grounding a guitar
22:03 New finish - painting and varnishing the guitar body and neck
24:35 New tuning pegs installation
25:55 Creating and installing a new truss rod cover
26:50 Removing rust from neck plate, string tree and screws
27:47 String tree installation
28:12 Creating a new pickguard
30:52 Removing rust from tremolo system. Tremolo system installation
32:09 Installing a new pickguard, new pickups, new electronics, new bridge
35:22 Installing a new strap buttons, strings, volume and tone knobs and tremolo arm
36:35 Before and after and sound demonstration
Runtime 00:37:50
Guitar restoration, restoration, guitar repair, restoration videos, guitar makeover, guitar renovation, electric guitar restoration, vintage guitar restoration, frets restoration,
