Hello from Orlando: Help identifying this guitar

[ala02c]

Hello all my name is Tony, nice to join the forum! I am actually working on fixing a guitar that I am pretty sure is based off a mosrite and was looking for some help/suggestions.

So my girlfriend does mosaic artwork on guitars. Check the link at the end, badass stuff, especially the Harley one!

As a result we always have lots of cheap guitars laying around to be used as blank canvas. I spotted this one awhile ago and have decided to get it up and running.




As far as I can tell its a Mosritish copy of some sort. No serial or model name to be seen so I don't know much about it other than its a total mess! Covered with stickers and dirt.



How do I clean up all the crap on the guitar/hardware? Any suggestions?

Also, it has a zero fret.




Anyone know what the heck kind of bridge/tremolo is on this?

The wiring is ridiculous. The tone pot was actually held in place by a used cigarette butt!!!







Any suggestions of how to clean the heck out of this thing, remove stickiness, redo shine, etc would be appreciated!!!

Also, any advice on the wiring of this crazy thing would help. I assume its two on/off switches (one for each volume) and a master tone and volume. Weird things are the pots say 50k ohms on one and 100k ohms on the other. I haven't measured yet but that seems really low even for single coils. Each pickup has THREE wires coming out-black, red, green.

Thanks!

Here's the link for the guitar artwork my girlfriend does.

http://instrumentalart.blogspot.com/

[Sarah93003]

Welcome to the forum. Wonderful artwork!!

[Mr. Bill]

Your guitar is a Kingston brand guitar made in Japan by Kawai. I guess that it is sorta Mosrite influenced. Each pickup is wired to one of the switches. Then the output from the switch goes to the volume and tone controls, kinda like a Fender Jaguar.

Yes, the pot values are low by modern standards, but they are the original values. If you want you could change them for 250K pots. Two of the three wires from the pickups are connected to the two ends of the coil and the third connects to the metal case as a shield.

The vibrato tailpiece is missing the arm and the mounting shaft. The guitar should clean up nicely a will be a decent player. Most of these have pretty chunky necks.

[ala02c]

Wow. Spot on! All the kingston pics I looked up look just like it. Any idea what year this is? And thanks for the wiring advice I will most likely use the 250K's. Do the shield wires just follow ground or is there a different rule for that? I guess I will have to find a vibrato arm somewhere or make one!

[Mr. Bill]

I'd guess the guitar is from the late 1960's, 1967 or 1968.

The shield wires should just connect to ground.

One other thing that I noticed, the bridge was on the guitar backwards in the first few photos. The intonation screws should go towards the vibrato bar and the mute pad should point to the neck.

[dubtrub]

You can clean up the metal parts with Semi Chrome paste, it comes in a tube. All the stickers will come off easy with Naphtha, which is essentially Zippo or Ronson cigarette lighter fluid. Once you've taken the guitar all apart you can wipe down the entire guitar with Naphtha to clean all the grime and crud. It won't hurt the finish.

[J i m m y]

The wiring is ridiculous. The tone pot was actually held in place by a used cigarette butt!!!

[ala02c]

Thanks so much for the help, this is a very supportive forum!

Mr Bill thanks! I thought that was a mute/damper mechanism of some sort. I'll flip it around but is it missing a pad or something? Maybe I can use foam or sponge?