This is what happens when you play a lot of gigs and never wipe down your guitar afterwards. Rusted metal work, tarnished frets and moving parts that were so gunked up they no longer moved. The bridge had also collapsed meaning the radius of the bottom of the strings didn’t match the radius of the fretboard. The frets had become pitted and all of these things together affected the way the guitar played making it feel tight and flat.
As I started to strip the guitar I found the pickup rings had been smashed at some point and were being held together by being in position. There was no bringing these back and they had to be replaced.
I decided that this guitar could really benefit from a re-crown as the frets and worn away in several placed along the fretboard.
