My patience was rewarded by this trashed out Gretsch G3155. The fretboard has some severe warping and gouging in the wood. The back of the neck was sanded down to the bare wood. For what purpose, I don't know. All of it's parts were gone. Just a sad, sad, empty shell.
The front isn't in bad shape with one minor scratch. I think that I'd like to paint the guitar an off-white color instead of the red.

The back

The fretboard is in terrible condition, much worse than you can see in the photo.



The cure.
I wanted to have a three pickup guitar and decided on P90's. These are a set of handwound Kent Armstrong P90's. Originally I was going to put a tremolo on this one, but ran across a very cool looking trapeze tailpiece with an "S". "S" for Sarah or Streamliner. I will have the same style "S" inlayed into the headstock under "Gretsch".
The control layout is going to be very simple. I've decided to have all of the controls near the upper bass and treble side of the bout. It will have a master volume and ToneStyler tone knob on the treble horn. It will have seven way pickup selector switch on the bass side horn.
1. Bridge
2. Bridge and Middle
3. Bridge, Middle, and Neck
4. Bridge and Neck
5. Middle
6. Middle and Neck
7. Neck

In the beginning I'm probably going to keep it red until I can afford to paint it. It's kinda expensive!
It will have two additional cat eye sound holes cut into the top and bound like the other two. You will see there is still a little hole on the lower end of the bout. This will have a simple kill switch so I can cut all power to the amp.
I'm thinking it will likely need a little support between the cat eyes and I will defer to my guitar tech on that. It will likely be a wood web or a wood pin/column support.
This will give you an idea of what the finished product will look like.

The first step is to remove the damaged fretboard and put on a new Pau Ferro fretboard. It will also get a new bone nut.
The tuners are Grovers.
The three P90's are handwound Kent Armstrong. I'm going to change out the black covers for cream color.



The StellerTone ToneStyler pot is very cool. It is a 16 position pot which increases the tone range on both ends of the spectrum.
The TruArc bridge is aluminum with additional holes bored through. I'm very curious to see how it performs. It looks very cool as well.
The "S" tailpiece seemed a natural choice when I saw it on eBay. S for Sarah or S for Streamliner. Tim Gibson does awesome inlay work and will put the same S on the headstock.


