1 9 8 8/9 E P I P H O N E S P O T L I T E T/A T O P
This is certainly the most ambitious "Guitar Tinkering" project I ever got involved with , If your not familiar with the the Build Features and basic info on this late 1980's model it may be worth checking the Spotlight Wiki Link Below.
Here is the photo log I took along the way while I almost fully stripped this guitar and then restored it, mostly to my Son's specifications. I tried to lay this out in the order it happened, and as always there's a lot of pic's I wished I had taken. I'll say I'm happy for the Pic's I got because this was a great deal of work, even if you took no pic's along the way.
With that in Mind I'll also "beg for forgiveness" for these Hastily Thrown Together galleries of pics - Once again Time, and perhaps talent in this case, leave us with quantity over quality here.
The Before Pics
These are all I have of the before I started pictures of the guitar. I dont think the pics really show how bad a shape this was in. This thing was a Nick and Ding Magnet to say the least, and spent plenty of Nights in a basement with granite pointed walls. Got it Apart to find that one anchor post for the 2 Point Trem Bridge was jiggling free in the seam between the center block and the body wing.
I told the owner I doubted I could produce a better looking finish than the 1/8th Inch thick clear polyester that's originally on there ( more on that later ). He said to go ahead cause he doesn't like thick glossy finishes and didn't have plans to use it anytime soon .
Stripping the Gloss Finnish
This was a really difficult chore. The thick clearcoat on this is polyester and was very hard to get off the guitar. Note the white powder on the table and neck of guitar in the Pic to the right, Polyurethane or Nitro Lacquer doesn't powder up like this.
Loose Trem Post
Got it Apart to find that one anchor post for the 2 Point Trem Bridge was jiggling free in the seam between the center block and the body wing, pointed out with the 3 red lines.
This was an ugly surprise at best - click the heading for more about it.
Masking Both Ways
Except for Stripping the finish no other single repetitive task required more time and effort than applying masking tape. This is partly because there were areas that needed to be masked as the old finish came off and lots masking as the new finish went on.
I think I spent more than 50 bucks on the tape I used from beginning to end,
for more about this click the link.
Headstock Face and Back Plates
CompletedProject
