1964 Mosrite

[Mr. Bill]

That's a real beauty! I love candy apple red on any guitar.

I agree with SASouth, clean it up, polish it, but don't try and fix the finish wear. There is no good way to make it look nice without affecting the value. If there are any areas of paint that are flaking off, that can be stabilized with thin CA, but hard wear is hard wear. Just play it, enjoy it and try and keep it from getting any worse.

[Trocchi]

Thanks Etwang. I have to agree with you SA. The strings are new so when it comes time to change them I'll clean it up best I can, lube the tuners, saddles, and tremolo and call it a day. Its setup fine as far as I'm concerned. I may adjust the pickup height a little but other than that its good to go. Its amazing how easy this guitar plays at the nut. You need almost no pressure to sound a chord.

[Trocchi]

Thanks for the advice Mr Bill

[inspace]

Really great Mosrite there.
I actually like that buckle rash.
Look at this way: there will always be one better and one worse than yours. Here's mine:

[Trocchi]

and I bet she still sounds as great as ever. I bought mine a week ago and I've been playing it ever since. I'm gonna have to force myself to give her a break. Before the Mosrite I had just completed my first build, a tele, and its been hanging on the wall for the past week. I'll put it to work tomorrow. Be interesting to compare the tones of these 2 along with my strat.

[Trocchi]

Here is a pic of the guitar after I cleaned it up.

[SASouth]

Looks good!

[Hydra19]

Congrats on the beautiful Mosrite!!!!!

I would say it's in great shape for its age. I would keep the look as it is, I think it's got a lot more years to look fantastic and I doubt a new paint job would match that one. Besides, us Mosrite fans want a Mosrite to have to do with as much Semie Moseley as possible so the more original the guitar is the better.

I bought a '66 which is in similar shape but no buckle rash and the dings do not bother me one bit. It wasn't shiny and it seems it had some beer stains on it, I took some Virtuoso to polish it up and all the grime and stains were gone and it was shiny, although with laqcuer checking = beautiful.

The only issue with mine is that the speed frets are worn and have grooves in them. Nevertheless, I learned how to play it and got used to it. I bought the dunlop fretwire that is as close the Mosrite speed frets as possible but pulled out of a refret at the last minute to keep this Mosrite all original. It is not unplayable at all, sounds magical and I got Mosrite reissues with higher frets, so this one stays original.

If I were ever to buy a Mosrite again, it would be an original model, as nice as the reissues are, the real McCoys are just out of this world.

I bet your 64 is even better than a 66' and it must sounds like a kinda of magic!

[Trocchi]

The frets on mine are also worn but it still plays like butter and sounds great. Since I've cleaned it up I'm really happy with this guitar. Its honest wear. People nowadays go to a lot of trouble to to fake this look . We've got the real thing.

[Brian]

You'd be crazy to refinish that guitar. It has a mark for every note played on it over the past fifty years, that's something genuine and real.

If you want a guitar that looks new, then buy a new guitar. That one is perfect just the way it is.