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'74 1115-1 Pacemaker Restoration

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arumako
Posted 2025-06-06 9:53 AM (#560998 - in reply to #560991)
Subject: Re: '74 1115-1 Pacemaker Restoration



Joined:
October 2012
Posts: 1070

Location: Yokohama, Japan

Love O Fair - 2025-05-30 2:21 PM

...To further this evening's posts on self-degradation-- my parents could never afford to send me to hack school.. so your short cuts are extremely valuable as learning tools to those of us who are sub-hack and wish to one day graduate upward to master hack (or would that be to graduate downward? Not sure.) And also assuming that to be the reason this forum is named what it is and why I was ever drawn to it.


Well Al, you're just taking self-degradation to the BFLG extreme! LOL! While you were graduating downward, I've been sanding the back of this 1115's neck with 600 grit sand paper. Per your suggestion, I tried to push the head stock to try to widen the crack in the back, but the crack didn't budge at all. After sanding really slowly it looks like the crack is just about gone. I've sanded about an eighth of a millimeter off of the neck in that area. I don't think that's enough to compromise the neck's structural integrity so I think all I'll need to do is finish the back of the neck! Cool!

Meanwhile, it made sense to repair the gouge in the bridge while I was working in the vicinity. Although the worst of the gouge was remedied with the installation of the CFRP pseudo tail-piece there was a bit of exposed gouge that remained and I needed to try to match the cosmetics of the center bolt used to position the JLD Bridge Doctor with the existing bridge bolts.

To fill the gouge in the bridge, I mixed wood saw dust into Hysol 0151. Unlike the walnut bridges featured on other Os, this Pacemaker's bridge is rosewood with deep beautiful grain featuring black, brown and red highlights; Since my existing rosewood saw dust came from a rather bland piece of rosewood, I decided to mix Koa, Mesquite and African Black Wood. The saw dust is pretty light in color when it is dry, but when it's mixed into clear glue, it darkens a whole bunch. Color matching is a practical impossibility, and all one can hope for is some semblance of the original coloration.

saw dust

Once the 0151 and the saw dust was mixed more Mesquite and African Black Wood was added. Here's what the glue looked like after mixing...

custom wood putty

Kind of like a custom wood putty. Had some 6.5mm diameter mother of toilet seat dots, so I super glued one onto the top of the center bridge bolt and applied the 0151 wood putty into the bridge gouge and around the dot inlay.

gouge repair

Hysol 0151 requires 72 hours for curing and it stays pretty sticky for much of the cure time so I had to wait before shaping the dot inlay and cutting away the excess flashing around the gouge. After the glue cured, it was easy to chisel and sand everything flush.

bridge repaired

The result is that the center bolt's head is visible under the inlay dot just like the other two dot inlays (only difference is the "+" head rather than the "-" head of the other two) making the whole bridge area look like it's endured normal wear and tear. The gouge is filled really nicely to the point of being unnoticeable (although noticeable in the pic) too. Finally, I used some WATCO Oil to apply a light finish.  

One final thing for this session; As I was wet sanding the entire top with 400-grit sand paper, I noticed that the finish that was gouged when I gouged the bridge had disappeared! Also gone was the routing groove that was left by my Dremmel when I routed the back of the saddle off. The finish gouge and the routing groove were much shallower than I had thought! That means instead of spraying a thin new layer of polyurethane, I can just wet sand, polish and buff the current finish and it should be as good as new! Thinning down these thick poly finishes might even help the sound board respond better (although I doubt my ears would be able to tell the difference)!

Feeling like I'm making my move up (maybe down?) from "regular" hack to "master" hack! Lol! Really happy with the results so far; and getting real close to the finish! Woohoo! Thanks for the encouragement and for letting me share OFC/BFLG!

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Love O Fair
Posted 2025-06-09 2:25 AM (#561007 - in reply to #558060)
Subject: Re: '74 1115-1 Pacemaker Restoration



Joined:
February 2016
Posts: 1845

Location: When??
Yay Ken!
Excellent move with the master hackster's special formula sawdust mix on the bridge gouge.. looks great! Not all that long ago I needed a custom tile grout color (light purple shade), so I essentially did the same thing using the glaze surface of prospective-colored tiles on a fine wheel grinder for dust, then coaxed it all into plain white grout. Turned out perfect, and likely stronger. Your custom bridge tailpiece looks like it's right out of this month's issue of Popular Mechanic's, so a great move on that as well. I actually used a magnifying glass to inspect the close details of the neck crack, and it kind of looks like it could have been a direct impact 'shatter' crack instead of a stress fissure from a headstock bumping; hence, not opening up by using tweak pressure. And then came the final crescendo when I was thinking maybe the disappearing scratches on the top could have been a divine gift from above for leading such a kind and fair life. Meaning that you may have the rest of us fooled with the hack thing, but you cannot fool the Big Guy!
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