Junk shop acoustic refurbs (various)

[JohnH]

Did you say someone was spamming??? Didn't notice as I was too interested in what was going on in this thread....

Ha ha ha, I hope it's at least a little interesting. I've been enjoying remembering the process.

I reckon that the guitar was made by Harmony (in the US), but re-badged as a lot of their product was (for various stores and mail-order catalogues). The headstock is the right shape and the 'steel reinforced neck' decal is the same I had on the 1965 Harmony H59 that I restored.

A web search seems to indicate that Canora electric guitars and bases were probably Japanese made, so it looks like Canora were a Canadian import business who had their name put on a number of different makes of instrument. There were quite a few companies like that in the UK as well.

I think you must be right. I had it listed in my computer as 'Stella Harmony (question mark)', so clearly at some time I'd thought the same. When I did a fresh search yesterday I came up with lots of harmonys that looked right, but no actual info. I had done a little research and kept pretty good notes at the time, but my notebooks are all in a box in storage somewhere, so I'll have to have a dig

[JohnH]

Pics continued...

I put a thin layer of brown stain to add some warmth to the black that was going over the top:





Black stain over the top:





Tried to build up the front slowly so the brown still peeps through:



Scraping the binding. You probably can't tell from the pic, but I didn't know I was supposed to mask out the binding, and the oil based stain got into little cracks in the binding and created a kind of crackle-crazed effect. It makes the binding look old, and it's not entirely terrible aesthetically, but was definitely unplanned and I'd do it differently next time...

[JohnH]

Bought a fret-slotting mitre box from Stewmac, and started work on the replacement rosewood fretboard. I only messed up one slot, which I filled with a little sliver of rosewood and re-cut. The fret covers it pretty well, and even I have to look pretty hard to find it.







I don't have pics, but I also bought some mother of pearl inlay dots, and a brad-point bit to drill the holes for them. I used a hand drill, but didn't do too badly with the inlay

Gluing the fretboard. Drilled little pilot holes in the centre of the first and twelfth fret, and had corresponding holes in the neck. Used little brass rods to guide it into place:

[JohnH]

Finishing with Tru Oil. Note the weird blemish on the side - turns out that even though I sanded and sanded and sanded, I didn't know what I was looking for in terms of surface finish pre-stain, and there are a few weird blotches. The front and back are pretty smooth, but the sides have evident grain.

[enikoy]

Neat resto. I think a job on something like this is a great way to build on skills and experience.

[Simon Barden]

That's really nice. A shame about the few little blotches. It's like you've sanded through some finish that was still in the surface layer of the wood, especially on that bottom forward shoulder, so the stain's taken better in that part. It's very easy to sand more off on edges and convex bends.

[JohnH]

Neat resto. I think a job on something like this is a great way to build on skills and experience.

Yeah, totally. And the guitars are so cheap there’s no stress if it doesn’t work out lol

That's really nice. A shame about the few little blotches. It's like you've sanded through some finish that was still in the surface layer of the wood, especially on that bottom forward shoulder, so the stain's taken better in that part. It's very easy to sand more off on edges and convex bends.

Thanks Simon. The blotches are less obvious now they’re under a few layers of oil, but they are still annoying. To be honest I don’t even think I really noticed them at the time. I’m currently sanding off the finish from the parlour sized guitar I rescued from the skip, and I’m determined to do a better finish on it (though there’s a lot of work to be done to it; I’ll document it here)

[JohnH]

Forgot the final photo!

Attached all the hardware, and then altered a bridge from another guitar to fit. Strung it up with the two E strings so I could figure out the string spacing, and bought myself some nut files to slot it. My first attempt at both bridge and nut were passable, but didn't look the best, so I've since re-done them (and am about to do them again)

[Simon Barden]

Penultimate photo, surely?

[JohnH]

Penultimate photo, surely?

Ha ha ha, true