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Guitar refurbishment project - advice?

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(@mrwolfglesga)
New Member
Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 2
Topic starter  

Hello!

I've recently bought a secondhand Nevada Les Paul (as far as I can tell, this is a budget copy of the higher end electric Les Paul guitar) and I am looking to refurbish it myself, seeing as it might need a bit of a fix and clean before being playable. I'm not really a guitar-refurb master, so I thought I should ask you guys.

What kind of tools would you need to make a cheap electric guitar playable? At the moment, I have basic non-guitar-specific tools, like screwdrivers, wrenches/spanners, wirecutters, but I'd like to invest in some guitar to be able to fix up my guitars, both acoustic and electric, rather than take them to the shop for repairs/setup advice. Any suggestions as to what the 'vitals' of guitar-refurb are?

Also, do you know of any links to basic guides about this kind of stuff? Forums are great, but obviously posts are very specific to certain models, and particular problems. This is mainly for an electric guitar.

Finally, it's got a few dents and scratches - how do you cover those up? (mainly the scratches, as I am sure repairing the dents would require changing the body completely, and I don't think I'm at that stage of guitar fixup yet!)

Oh yeah, last thing - do you have a guitar cleaner to recommend?

Any advice would be great! Thanks :D


   
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(@s1120)
Prominent Member
Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 848
 

To start get yourself a long straight edge, and some feeler guages. that's probably the first "special" tool you will need. There are many others... but starting out being able to measure where you are at on the neck is vary important.

As for info.. read whatever you can about repair, building, setups, etc. Do you have another guitar that you play that is setup nice? If so that's a huge help starting out. Kind of gives you a roadmap of where you want to be. I picked up a book called "making every guitar play well" or something like that... it was a huge help for getting a lot of the basics down, and in what order to go. Once you get going on working on them, you will find other tools that you need, or can make the proses faster, and less work. At that time you can buy, build, or adapt to get the needed tools.

Paul B


   
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(@mrwolfglesga)
New Member
Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 2
Topic starter  

Cool! I will hunt them down. Thanks! :)

In the meantime, I decided to restring and clean the guitar, as I noticed it was full of dust and grime pretty much everywhere. So far, aside from the strings, I've removed quite a few chrome-plated screws (not rusty), but I'm not sure how to clean these other than just giving them a wipe-down with white distilled vinegar or a purpose-built oil. Is there anything more that can be done for the screws and bolts?

Also, there're small flecks of white paint stuck to the body that come off with a nail scraping, and they are clearly not part of the guitar's look. Would a simple swipe with naptha or some other glossy body cleaner be enough to remove them or would just make them stick even more?


   
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