Refitting an old guitar.

No replies yet huh? There's like 8 guys here that do their own guitar tweaking and setups.

Hellooooo?

Here's a site to get you started:

http://www.fernandezmusic.com/Classical%20Guitar%20Set-up.html

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/prfret.htm

Since you said dressing not resetting and that they seem to be OK then I assume you just mean clean them up then the best way is:

1) Put masking tape on the fretboard between each fret wire.
2) Then use 0000 (that's four o's) steel wool to polish them lightly.

The tape is just to protect the fretboard. The masking tape I found best to use is the blue painters type of masking tape since it is easy to get off and will not harm the finish

I bought the video 'Guitar Shop' featuring Mark Arnquist and have since enjoyed performing much of the guitar mantenance myself -Great video.

Mark's suggestion for polishing the frets was to use the product 'Never Dull' which can be easily applied then wiped off as though you were just polishing a car. Now this will only polish the frets and does not do anything for dents. That's another topic. I've used it and it works fine for me.

use the product 'Never Dull' which can be easily applied then wiped off as though you were just polishing a car.
I agree, Never Dull is a great product for cleaning and bringing up a shine. I use it on the aluminum on my motorcycle and it brings up a shine like chrome. I have never thought to use it on the guitar.

The steel wool approach is good if you need to remove very minor imperfections. Never Dull won't since it is a lot less abrasive as it is basically chemically treated cotton.

Thanks for the replies so far, they are very much appreciated. I'm rather anxious to get everything back together and give it a go. Anyone have any suggestions for a replacement for the cheap vintage trem? That's probably the only other thing that I should consider right now since I need to stay on a rather tight budget. ( After all, I think I've spent $20.00 on this rebuild so far. )

Here's some of the different types.

http://www.warmoth.com/hardware/hardware.cfm

You can probably find better prices elsewhere though.

Thanks DemoEtc! I'll check it out later this week after we get my thirteen year old's science project put to rest.

No problem, have fun :)

Well I managed to put everything back together this weekend, I used Nils' suggestion for polishing out the frets and it worked great. I was even more suprised when the darn thing actually worked. I have just one problem that I need help with though, I have a fair amount of hum when I turn up the amp and touch the strings, it goes away when I touch the jack plate. Obviously a grounding problem, but I do have solid grounds to the bridge and jack. I've notice on diagrams for fat stat wiring that there is an extra ground ( going to the shielding I suppose? ), but it wasn't obvious on the pickguard's wiring.

Any suggestions?

Thanks all.

You might go to guitarnuts.com and have a look around. There's all sorts of wiring and shielding diagrams and whatnot.

http://www.guitarnuts.com/phpBB2/index.php

Thanks DemoEtc, I'll check it out later tonight. I also noticed a reply that Slothrob gave last month to a posting that seems to be similar to my problem.

Well, the fix was embarrassingly easy. As careful as I tried to be, I still had reversed the leads to the output jack. It's actually pretty quiet turned up fairly high on a practice amp now and way more playable than it was before.

Thanks DemoEtc and everyone for the help.

Waay cool!

You're welcome :)