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Joined:
March 2016
Posts: 13
| Just joined and looking for advice on my beater restoration. Yeah, I know it's not the greatest guitar. But in it's defense, I have to say it's been through the wars, taken a beating, and still sounds decent. Besides, I want to get into lutherie as a hobby, and this will be a good first course.
It's a made-in-Korea 1517D with a deep bowl and no cutaway I bought in the eighties after not playing since the sixties. (My previous setup was a Vox through a Fender Bassman. Man, I wish I still had those, lol) Anyway, this one has gotten banged up--some nicks and dents, a nice scratch on the top, the lower ear on the headstock broken off, etc. And it needs a fret job. Too expensive to pay for, so I decided to do the work myself. BTW, I've never worked on an instrument before. Here's where I'm at so far....
-removed the tuners, nut, and piezo system.
-Repaired the headstock with a brad (for support), some Famowood, and black medium viscosity superglue.
-Pulled the frets from the rosewood fingerboard...I was lucky to have only a little chipping.
-Sanded the fretboard down to 12 inch radius. It's laser straight right now...dunno what string tension will do to that. Wishing I had Dan Earlewine's neck jig.
-repaired a split in the front of the bridge.
-Did drop finish repairs with aforementioned superglue.
-Decided to remove the bridge, making it easier to refinish the top, and decided to replace the bridge with either ebony or an exotic wood. Or perhaps and Adamas(?) carved walnut. Had a small amount of tearout in 2 spots, under 1/2 inch diameter each.
QUESTION: Best way to fix this? I'm thinking epoxy filler.
-Scraped and sanded the top smooth. It came out really nice. Wiping with alcohol reveals that it will look brand new with a clear finish, although I haven't decided yet whether to stick with black or do something different.
-I noticed that the binding was sitting on a shelf that was slightly proud, and decided to file/sand the bowl smooth. Sanding goes much much faster for this, btw. I don't know if the bowl is fiberglass or Lyracord, but it is exposed, so I believe I will need to do something special to seal it before finishing.
QUESTION: What's the best way seal the bowl?
-Sanded the neck and did drop-fills to a few dents.
-John Budney at DWDrums is sending me an Ovation decal for the headstock, which will make it much easier to deal with repainting. He said to contact Dan Savage here for advise. You there, Dan?
-I'll be re-fretting using EVO fretwire. It's supposed to be nearly as hard as stainless steel, but much easier on the tools. I haven't done that yet because I've been toying with the idea of replacing the fretboard with a maple one.
QUESTION: Can anybody tell me what the scale is on this guitar? It measures 12 5/8" from the nut to to the 12th fret, which should make it 25 1/4 inches. But the distance from nut to saddle is approximately 25.3 inches. Is this compensation? Or is this a Martin dreadnaught scale of 25.4, 25.33 compensated?
And last step before finishing...since smoothing out the binding/bowl, I'm thinking about replacing the binding and perhaps the purfling as well. I'll have a parts bowl to experiment on soon, as I'm buying that $25 neck and bowl from the same model guitar from Alexander Pepiak at LostArtVintage.
I'm Lloyd and glad to have found this site. (I copied this from the welcome section and renamed it) | |
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Joined:
March 2016
Posts: 13
| Grrr....can a mod correct that stupid typo in the title? | |
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Joined:
June 2012
Posts: 2318
Location: Pueblo West, CO | Hi Lloyd,
Lloyd - 2016-03-31 11:59 AM
I noticed that the binding was sitting on a shelf that was slightly proud, and decided to file/sand the bowl smooth. Sanding goes much much faster for this, btw. I don't know if the bowl is fiberglass or Lyracord, but it is exposed, so I believe I will need to do something special to seal it before finishing.
QUESTION: What's the best way seal the bowl?
Lyrachord is Ovations trade name for fiberglass. Prior to 1982, all bowls (most, really) were woven cloth and epoxy resin. 1982 and beyond used sheet molding compound (SMC) bowls, which are still fiberglass, but are roving fiberglass pre-preg polyester resin.
Not sure what part of the bowl is exposed. Pics would help.
Lloyd - 2016-03-31 11:59 AM
-John Budney at DWDrums is sending me an Ovation decal for the headstock, which will make it much easier to deal with repainting. He said to contact Dan Savage here for advise. You there, Dan?
Nice. I made my own decals. If you've taken the headstock down to bare wood, you'll want to build up a level finish before applying the decal (water slide, I'm assuming) so you don't get any bubbles under the carrier sheet. If the headstock veneer is rosewood you'll need to seal it with an alcohol-based finish, such as epoxy or shellac before applying the oil-based finish. (poly)
Once you've got a level finish on the headstock, apply the decal, then start building up the finish to hide the witness lines of the decal. This involves spraying a medium-heavy coat of clear finish on and lightly wet-sanding with 600-grit to level the finish. I repeated the process several times until the entire area was level.
If you're going to go with a black finish on the headstock, then you'll need to spray on the black first, then level (wet sand with 600-grit) and apply the decal, then applying clear over that.
Lloyd - 2016-03-31 11:59 AM
-I'll be re-fretting using EVO fretwire. It's supposed to be nearly as hard as stainless steel, but much easier on the tools. I haven't done that yet because I've been toying with the idea of replacing the fretboard with a maple one.
I just used EVO fretwire. It is nice and it is fairly hard. Almost like spring steel. I need to refret my 1619 and my Alvarez PD100S and will be using EVO wire on these.
Lloyd - 2016-03-31 11:59 AM
QUESTION: Can anybody tell me what the scale is on this guitar? It measures 12 5/8" from the nut to to the 12th fret, which should make it 25 1/4 inches. But the distance from nut to saddle is approximately 25.3 inches. Is this compensation? Or is this a Martin dreadnaught scale of 25.4, 25.33 compensated?
I could be mistaken, but except for the baritone gutiars, all Ovations are 25-1/4" scale. (25.25" )
Lloyd - 2016-03-31 11:59 AM
And last step before finishing...since smoothing out the binding/bowl, I'm thinking about replacing the binding and perhaps the purfling as well. I'll have a parts bowl to experiment on soon, as I'm buying that $25 neck and bowl from the same model guitar from Alexander Pepiak at LostArtVintage.
The binding Ovation uses is an ivory color. The cream binding from AllParts.com is an almost exact match. I used the BWB binding from Stewmac. | |
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Refurbinsh my 1517D