refurbish

[Alan Sims]

I have just refurbished ce  special .Stripped her down cleaned  and sanded scraped some small indents on fret board  ,I think maybe shrinkage . Sprayed neck and side. ,and I am very pleased with result . I did buy a new velum was a bit apprehensive to change .Maybe next time ,but I am not sure to do about machine head tuners they are very stiff and jerky when trying to tune up .Has anybody out there got any ideas .It would be much appreciated .regards Alan.

[thereallyniceman]

Hi Alan,

Giving the old lady a service eh?  Well, at getting on 100 years old I am sure that she will appreciate it.

 You sprayed the neck?  What with?  I believe that they were originally finished in nitro-cellulose lacquer (today’s equivalent is car cellulose clear top coat).

 

The wood hoop CE Special fingerboard is rosewood and it does wear into dents at the fret positions most commonly used. I would guess that the wear was worse around the first and second  frets and less so up to the fifth fret?  Scraping and sanding works well and will improve the appearance.  I assume that the frets aren’t too grooved?  Give the fingerboard a rubbing with lemon oil to clean and feed the wood and make it all “feel” better.

 

You say “machine heads” ?  The CE Special does not have machine heads, it has Grover friction pegs that have thin fibre washers that grip each side of the peg-head.  The stiff and jerkiness may be that the end screws are too tight or that the strings are sticking in the nut grooves.  Try cleaning the nut grooves with welding torch tip cleaning files (£2-00 on Ebay) as I described in this post:

 

NUT GROOVES

 

Worn strings may over time develop notches that stick in the nut, so a new set may be better.

 Also when tuning, always tune down and then back up to the correct pitch, not down to the correct pitch.

 

Good luck with it…  how’s about some photos?

[Alan Sims]

hi Ian thank you for your advice I have turned the screw back a little and it worked . I used nitro for guitars. So simple to spray no runs at all .Clear satin.I will get my daughter to take photos.