This is a real players guitar. The owner told me it was from 1973 which I’ve yet to confirm, but the serial number places it somewhere around there I think. Due an intermittent problem with the wiring it had become neglected of late so it was brought to me initially for a setup and to have the wiring sorted. This wasn’t the hole story though.
The original pickups had long since been replaced with a set of DiMarzios and I suspect that the guitar had been stripped at some point as the pickup routs and the control cavity showed evidence of white or cream coloured paint. The tuners had also been swapped for a newer set of Grovers but the original “harmonica” style bridge and a Gibson Bigsby style tremolo remained. I think the frets had been renewed at some point as they were in much better condition than I would expect to see on a guitar of this age.
After a deep clean of all the hardware and body, a fret polish and a complete re-wire I started to put the guitar back together to begin the final setup, at this point I realised that the nut was cut too deep on the low strings and that the fingerboard and neck was worn away near the first and second fret causing the low E to sit dangerously close to the edge . This may have been caused from playing but more likely when a headstock repair was carried out.
On removal of the old nut I found it had been shimmed with paper and had caused an uncomfortable lump. I cleaned the paper out and made and fitted a new bone nut which compensated for the missing fingerboard and gave much better string spacing. This guitar now plays much better and the mechanical parts work as they are no longer clogged up with grime.
