This Melody Maker came in with a few issues. It’s been heavily modded from where it would have been when it left the factory with a new reliced paint job, Bareknuckle P90 pickup and scratch plate.
The P90 had fallen into the cavity as there was nothing holding it on to the cover other than what looked like glue. This didn’t work. I put some foam under the pickup and that pushed the pole pieces back to where they should be, It had also been installed wonky, so I filled the screw hole and straightened it out.
The fretboard was very dry and the fret ends had sprouted so I relied these back and then levelled the frets as they were very uneven. I’m not sure what he’d been done to the guitar in the passed but the first and second fret had been worn heavily on the bass side.
I discovered the nut had been shimmed with paper, this wasn’t needed after the fret level but the plastic nut fell to pieces once it had been removed, it must have been held together by the paper shims and the fact it was heavily glued into the slot. I replaced it with a bone nut.
The owner had wondered about changing the tuners which where not original and very cheap but someone had epoxied the grommets into the holes, as they were too small which meant an easy job was made hard. This may happen in the future.
I was very happy how this turned out, the work paid off and this guitar is simple and direct, how I like them.
