Bringing a Combo back to life

[Haole Jim]

Interesting photos and story. Any "history" available on the guitar?

Those nails made this picker's tummy knot up. Yech.

[olrocknroller]

No telling what you might find in a vintage guitar, but NAILS! I would suggest removing the neck, carefully gluing and clamping to heal the cracks, then plugging and re-drilling the original screw holes. This will give the screws a nice fresh bite, and you can throw the nails away!

[ElBrewski]

History? not much, my cousin bought this guitar in the 80's from someone he ran across that needed the $. Being more of an acoustic player my cousin passed it on to me and it's only been out of the closet a few times in the past 10 yrs. I've put together a few partscasters (Tele) and occasionally repair amps so I had this one on my list as a fun project to do when I had some time.

Yep the nails have to be dealt with.

A picture that Aaron posted on his "sustain" thread answers my question regarding the saddles being out of order on my bridge - they are. You can see here that his bridge has the larger gauge strings with the wider saddles.

[oipunkguy]

yeah, all my vintage mosrites the saddles were out of order. I just removed them and put them in the right order. maybe they were like that because people used wound g strings more often back in the day, but I'm just guessing on that one. from what I remember all the saddles were the same height, so it didn't affect the string height. on the modern mosrite bridges, all the roller saddles are the same. makes it a lot easier to manufacture, but less interesting to in my opinion. glad you are reading my posts larry.

[ElBrewski]

Yes Aaron, your pics have come in handy. It was a simple matter to swap two saddles, as far as why it was done I suppose I'm fine with that remaining a mystery.

I've got all the pieces cleaned up so for the time being I'm moving on to putting the guitar back together, with the current finish as is - and even with the nails until it's time for the refin. I'm interested in how it plays & sounds since upon closer inspection the frets are a bit worn but I hope that it won't affect how it plays enough to cry out for a re-fret.

[ElBrewski]

Well, after cleaning/polishing, new pickguard & trem bar & re-assembling this is what the guitar looks like now. Although I am still planning for the sunburst refin I'm saying she cleaned up pretty good. I'm also I'm happy with how it plays. The action and set up is not bad and so far it seems quite stable (maybe the nails help with that )

[olrocknroller]

You're right; she does clean up nicely. Seeing it in these photos, I agree that a sunburst, or even a solid finish will improve this guitar immensely, the mismatched grain in the top didn't show as strongly in previous photos. That mismatch would discourage me from a natural finish, much as I prefer them.

[leftyjay]

my brother brought me his 66 ventures mosrite to clean it up and set it up with thicker guage strings and spring on the trem.

first thing i noticed was the bridge saddles were out of order. i did some checking online and found this was a common thing. most say it was to allow for the radius of the strings to match the neck.

i took his bridge and re-arranged the saddles to be correct with the thickness of the strings. was actually able to give him a lower action once they were in the correct order.

now i dont know what to think about the mis-matched saddles.

[vibramute]

It looks really nice, very 'Maphis' looking with the walnut-ish finish.

[Veenture]

She looks really likeable, good job! I'd keep her the way she is