Since buying a beat up 77FP body on the bay several months back, Ive been slowly working away at all the major dings and scratches and trying to restore it back to new as much as I could. Anyway, with the help of some useful advice from some of the forum members here, Ive finished all the restoration work and All I need to do is piece it together.

Ive taken a load of pics to show the repair process. There were 3 major areas of finish damage that needed repairing as well as a load of scratches everywhere, so heres some pics:

(I couldnt figure out how to post the pics directly on the page without skewing the page to the left because of their size, so I posted up the thumbnails instead - click on them for a better pic)

1st ding (Before):


1st ding (After):




2nd Ding (Before):



2nd ding repair process - hacking away the chipped clear



Down to the wood now, I had a bit of a feeling of aaargh! Ive mutilated my guitar:

Layer of paint - used enamel paint which took aaaaages to set:





Then cleared over - used cyanoacrylate superglue from stewmac:



Then sanded over:



And finished:

3rd Ding (Before):



Painted:



Cleared:



Sanding.....Oops, I got a bit carried away with the sanding, forgot that there wasnt much clearcoat on the edges and went down to the wood :-(



...So had to do a bit of touching up on the edges:

Finished pic:






Some scratch removal - before:



After:

And here's some shiny pics to finish with:









Group pic:



All I need to finish the guitar are some neck screws for the heel joint which I havent been able to find anywhere. AANJ neck screws are too long (well the 2 long ones are, but the 2 short ones may fit). If anyone knows where I can get some neck screws from or if anyone has 4 screws to sell then please let me know or contact me!

I also need a new pickguard, the one I have doesnt match up with the holes and the pickup selector switch has a real crap cutout. Anyone suggest a good place, whats pickguard paradise like? Just dont point me to Jeannie pickguards as Im never gonna buy anything from there again.

Nice Job mate!
Awesome collection.
Sorry to read your comment about Jeannie Pickguards, Bought a pickguard Truss rod cover & backplates for my UV a while ago.....still waiting for them to arrive.

http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f15/ne...tom-80834.html

Here's a few links that may help:

http://www.allparts.uk.com/

http://www.axesrus.com/axecart.htm

I'm impressed!!!
Awsome work!!!

At least it was in the black areas. Good job.

Nice work. That looks fantastic.

Once you receive it and it fits, nothing to worry about. Otherwise getting any changes is a pain, (and more costs) the guy just doesnt like to admit when he is wrong...
Im getting a quote from someone else.

Nice job!

Vai sure had some weird taste' but sweet guitar none the less!

Well, following all the repairs I did, I finally managed to piece the FP together. Took a while because I had to get a pickguard that fit properly and then I realised that normal sized pots didnt fit the cavity holes so I had to go hunting for smaller sized ones. Anyway, everything is finally peiced together. All it needs now is a bit of a setup which Ive never done before but I'll give it a go and see what happens. Ive tried to use all the parts as factory standard for a '91 FP, except the middle pickup which is an evo as the ISWV1 Jem single is fiendishly difficult to track down, but it all sounds cool anyway. I was a bit apprehensive about wiring together the VLX91, particularly as Ive never even used a soldering iron before, but fortunately, it all works! Oh yeah, the knobs and switch tip are fake as you can probably tell by the colour, Im just waiting for some original ones to appear on the bay.

One thing though, is that I always thought that volume pots were log and tone were linear, but I checked the pots on my VWH with a multimeter and the volume is linear and the tone is log, so I did the FP in the same way. Anyone know why thats the case? Ive got no problem with it, but Im just curious. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Anyway, heres some pics of the finished guitar...

Nice job!