Hi there
I've recently been given an old guitar; it's pretty beat up, and needs a bit of work, but it should be fixable. A friend of the family gave it to me after she heard about a similar job I did on an Aria strat I had that I never liked (stripped the finished, gutted the electronics, etc), in case I wanted another old guitar to experiment with. Thing is, I've no idea what it is. There are no markings or serial numbers anywhere, even inside the neck pocket. There may be branding on the pickups or electronics, but I haven't got that far yet.
I suspect it's very old (20+ years), it's seen a hard life, and it's probably worth next to nothing (which is fine, I'm going to strip it down anyway). But I'm curious about a few things:
i) The headstock looks exactly like a Fender one, just without the logo and visible truss rod. I thought Fender headstocks were trademarked?
ii) The next appears to be rosewood (see last pic). Whatever it is, it's definitely not maple, it's too dark and too soft. This would mean it's pretty old, right, since rosewood necks are rare these days?
iii) The body looks like a weirdly distorted Strat knockoff, but it's not a shape I remember seeing before. Taking this together with the Fender headstock, I'm guessing it's a cheap 80s copy of a superstrat?
You can get the other images at the following addresses, if you're interested:
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/01.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/02.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/03.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/04.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/05.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/06.jpg
If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful. Or, if anyone has any neat ideas for a re-finish, let me know, I'm still undecided. I don't know what the body wood is yet, so I don't know if a natural finish is worth trying or not. I'll wait and see how she looks when the paint comes off.
Thanks
Steven
I've recently been given an old guitar; it's pretty beat up, and needs a bit of work, but it should be fixable. A friend of the family gave it to me after she heard about a similar job I did on an Aria strat I had that I never liked (stripped the finished, gutted the electronics, etc), in case I wanted another old guitar to experiment with. Thing is, I've no idea what it is. There are no markings or serial numbers anywhere, even inside the neck pocket. There may be branding on the pickups or electronics, but I haven't got that far yet.
I suspect it's very old (20+ years), it's seen a hard life, and it's probably worth next to nothing (which is fine, I'm going to strip it down anyway). But I'm curious about a few things:
i) The headstock looks exactly like a Fender one, just without the logo and visible truss rod. I thought Fender headstocks were trademarked?
ii) The next appears to be rosewood (see last pic). Whatever it is, it's definitely not maple, it's too dark and too soft. This would mean it's pretty old, right, since rosewood necks are rare these days?
iii) The body looks like a weirdly distorted Strat knockoff, but it's not a shape I remember seeing before. Taking this together with the Fender headstock, I'm guessing it's a cheap 80s copy of a superstrat?
You can get the other images at the following addresses, if you're interested:
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/01.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/02.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/03.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/04.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/05.jpg
http://www.steventhomson.co.uk/images/unknownguitar/06.jpg
If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful. Or, if anyone has any neat ideas for a re-finish, let me know, I'm still undecided. I don't know what the body wood is yet, so I don't know if a natural finish is worth trying or not. I'll wait and see how she looks when the paint comes off.
Thanks
Steven