Fender Telecaster Restoration For Tsunami Survivor

My neighbour Mark Hoshi has been going up to the devastated area from the March 11th quake and tsunami almost from the day after the event.

While in one of the many evacuation centers Mark met a survivor who had lost everything, with the exception of his Fender Telecaster guitar. How he found it amongst the debris I'll have to let Mark tell you, as I do not know, but it was found. This guy's entire life was destroyed by the tsunami, but he wishes to play this guitar again.

I have no doubt that this is just a run of the mill Fender Telecaster, made in Japan I searched the serial number and it shows it was made between 1989-1990.

We know that the electronics will be shot, sea water is not kind, but we are hoping to save the body and rebuild the guitar so the guy can play it and have at least one thing from his former life.

Some pics......



















I took a bunch of pics as we were taking it apart to show the wiring, but it is kind of a rats nest.

We are trying to contact the guy now, and find out if he has a preference on the finish. The finish that is on the guitar now is about 1/8" thick, like plastic, it is badly cracked and broken in several places and the sea water got behind the finish in a number of places.

As you can see in the 3rd pic the guy must have carved away a substantial part of the top front of the body, so you can see the wood, it looks like my old friend Keyaki, but it could be something else.

The plan now is to completely remove the old finish from the body, sand it down and make it all nice and smooth, then refinish it, how we are not quite sure yet.

The neck or the fret board is quite worn, the guy must have played it a lot, I am wondering how to refinish that if at all?

I know some of you here are guitar guys, so if you have any info and or links etc we could use the help.

Cheers!

PS could one of the Admin guys look at the account for mark hoshi he is having trouble logging on to the site.

Cheers!

I'd look down the neck from the end towards the guitar body. Hold it at a bit of an angle to see some dark wood between the frets. make sure the gaps are even and that one end of the neck isn't twisted. If it is, it may need to be replace (unless it's always been that way and the guy likes it that way).


Edit: I sent him a password reminder. If he's still having issues, can you see what exactly he's having issues with...Thanks!

Shame about the GK-2 Unit. That's for connecting the guitar to a synthesizer.

Generally you don't really do anything to the fret board it self. I'd check the frets to see if they are worn out, but it all depends how deep you guys want to get into the luthiery aspect of this.

Might want o check the tuners to see if the seawater affected them as well.

The folks over at mimf.com are very helpful- I know some of them have rescued guitars from Katrina.

Brent Dowell said:

Shame about the GK-2 Unit. That's for connecting the guitar to a synthesizer.

Generally you don't really do anything to the fret board it self. I'd check the frets to see if they are worn out, but it all depends how deep you guys want to get into the luthiery aspect of this.

Might want o check the tuners to see if the seawater affected them as well.

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The frets do look worn, but do they need replacing?

I'll take some more pics...

Charlie Schultz said:

The folks over at mimf.com are very helpful- I know some of them have rescued guitars from Katrina.

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Thanks, I'll go and visit them!

Kudos to you and Mark Stu! That's a wonderful thing you both are doing for that gentleman. Being able to give him something back of his life after such a tragedy. That guitar will have all the more meaning to him than it did before.

This world could always use more folks like you two!

Rich Soby said:

Kudos to you and Mark Stu! That's a wonderful thing you both are doing for that gentleman. Being able to give him something back of his life after such a tragedy. That guitar will have all the more meaning to him than it did before.

This world could always use more folks like you two!

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I have nothing to help you Stu. But what Rich said times 2!!!

Stuart Ablett said:

The frets do look worn, but do they need replacing?

I'll take some more pics...

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Do not replace the frets. You're not set up to do it. Unlike on other guitars, Fender frets are installed from the edge of the fretboard instead of being pressed in from above. If the frets are worn, they can be re-dressed, but it's something you want an experienced person doing. If the frets are badly worn, then it's time to replace the neck.

I suspect all of the existing finish is lacquer. I'd check with Fender restoration pros before deciding how to replace (or repair) the finish.

Vaughan, are those Seymour Duncan pickups standard issue for that era of guitar?

Brent Dowell said:

Vaughan, are those Seymour Duncan pickups standard issue for that era of guitar?

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Doubtful, They were first used in production guitars in the 80's in the Kramer guitars. But that guitar could have been made later.

According to the serial number the guitar is vintage 1989-1990

I removed the finish from the body, took about 10 minutes with a scraper, honestly most of it came of just by looking sideways at it, the finish had let go from the wood, large pieces of it just plucked right off.






The finish on the body has failed completely.

Like I said, 10 minutes and it came right off


Notice the large chunks of finish

The neck is not nearly as bad, the area between the frets the finish was mostly gone and the rest flaked right off, but the back of the neck and the head are looking OK.....









I tried to take some pics of the frets to show how worn they are......







So this is where it stands....


I'll be doing my best to try to replicate the original finish, I understand it is called "Butterscotch Blond"

We shall see how this goes.

Sorry, here is a head shot and some back of the neck shots......











I do not think there is any reason to mess with the head, or the back of the neck, just the front, the fret board.

Stuart Ablett said:

The neck or the fret board is quite worn, the guy must have played it a lot,

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If that forearm wear through the yellow finish on the body's hip is for real, "played it a lot" is an incredible understatement. It takes years to naturally "season" a guitar like that. I hope that you will succeed and that the guitar will live again.

Honestly the frets are probably just fine since they are worn consistently down the length of the fretboard. One that is higher may cause some fret buzz, but if none are getting in the way it's probably best not to mess with them. As a matter of fact it will probably change the character/sound of the guitar since he's used to playing it that way.

I think they use some pretty heavy filler on those before painting, so no surprise that it came right off. I've got a ding in mine that shows that same white filler.

Hey Stu, you can get parts and repair tips from:

http://www.stewmac.com/

And as far as the fretboard goes, well, there's something to be said for the 'character' that the worn out fretboard gives it. You can see where he's played the thing. Dyeing the fretboard back might take away some of the soul of the guitar.

He worked hard to get those there, so I might just leave well enough alone.

Not much you can do about the body, but if he had worn the finish off on the upper bout, well, maybe you could finish it so it looks like it used to?

If you spiff it all up so that it looks like a brand new guitar, he might not recognize that it was his

glenn bradley said:

If that forearm wear through the yellow finish on the body's hip is for real, "played it a lot" is an incredible understatement. It takes years to naturally "season" a guitar like that. I hope that you will succeed and that the guitar will live again.

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The "forearm wear" was done rather crudely by some sort of rasp or such, I guess he needed/wanted more room for his forearm?

I do not think I can perfectly replicate the exact finish, it looks like something dipped in plastic, I think I can get close on color etc, and I can certainly sand down the body and make it look good, and make a nice rubbed shiny surface, with all new hardware. I'll leave the neck pretty much as is, I'll have to decide what to do about the fret board, dye it all the same color or just put a film finish right over the whole thing

I wish I could talk to the owner, but he is still living in a shelter, as I understand it, and the only way to talk to him is to have another one of Mark's contacts go to the shelter and meet him and talk, communication is going to be difficult. I'll take everyone's opinions to heart and try my best to do right by the guitar and the owner, I do not want to turn it into a perfect brand new looking unit, I understand the whole "worn in" thing, but it has to be refinished just the same.
Doing my best!

What a great undertaking! Glad the guitar found it's way through and to people that respect it and the owner. This is going to be a great project to follow! Thanks for inviting us for the journey. Jim.

Brent, the Seymore Duncans were an aftermarket addition. I don't know that Fender ever shipped with them from the factory, and especially not likely in the era when this guitar was made.

Stu, good to see the finish was easy to remove. The guys at StewMac might be able to steer you in the right direction for replicating the original finish, but barring that, you could dye the wood and go with either a tinted or clear finish. My vote would still be some type of lacquer. (I sure wouldn't use poly.)

The frets are not in bad shape, but they could use a dressing. Dressing the frets makes them all even again and removed the indentations that have worn under the strings. The way I learned to dress frets is to very carefully leveling the tops of the frets with a 12" to 14" long flat* bastard file (used lengthwise along the neck), then round them back over by carefully hand-sanding the frets and fingerboard, starting with 400 and working up to 600 or finer grit paper. The idea is to first get the tops of the frets all on the same plane, then remove any flat spots without changing the height of the leveled-off frets. On a guitar like this Tele with a lacquered maple fingerboard, I'd then follow with rubbing compound, polishing compound, then wax. Since the lacquer on this one is worn through, the rubbing and polishing compounds will discolor the wood. Personally, discolored wood wouldn't be a problem, but I would discuss it with the owner before doing it to someone else's guitar. Also personally, I'd leave the fingerboard unfinished, save for a bit of wax and a lot of eventual body oils. I'm sure there are ways to re-lacquer the fingerboard with the frets in place, but I've never done it, so any suggestions I'd have would just be conjecture. I do know that the end product should have no film finish on the frets themselves.

The very first fret dressing I ever did was on a vintage Gibson Les Paul. I had seen it done, and knew what gotchas to look out for, but I had to do the first one without any coaching. (My guitar repair mentor had quit the store, and the repairman job was dumped in my lap.) The frets came out looking great, but not without some sweating. (The guitar was worth about as much as the car I was driving at the time.) Fret dressing can be a nerve-wracking job, because it's pretty easy to really mess things up if done wrong.





*It's very hard to find a truly flat file. The files we used at the store where I worked were the result of my predecessor spending hours in various tool and hardware stores going through their files with a good straightedge. He still didn't find any flat files, but the ones we used had slight bows that we knew about and compensated for when we used them.