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70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:01 pm
by Connor
For several years I worked in a guitar store in Ottawa, Ontario. Being mainly a "folk" shop we'd get all sorts of oddball instruments- usually acoustic. One day a regular customer showed up with a Music Master body with and neck- no hardware, no pickups. Being made of poplar which has roughly the durability of a raw potato the body was severely dented to say the least. It appeared to have been refinished more than once and had a nasty amateur "route" that seemed to be hand chiseled by one in a long line of abusers of this guitar. Any identification on the neck or body had been almost completely sanded off so that only the tops of all the digits on the neck code were extant. The customer offered to sell me the neck for $50 and throw in the body for another $10. I bought them both. A year passed and I took the poor thing out of the closet to see how much work would have to be done. I put it right back in the closet.

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Another year passed and I actually decided to work on it during the may long weekend. I removed any black paint still clinging to the body by sanding,filled any cracks and holes and sanded the whole thing level. Then I put it back in it's home and forgot about it. Early in 2009 I was laid off from my job at the previously mentioned the guitar store. This was a real shit sandwich as my wife had just given birth to my son, Finn. I did the only thing I could think of which was to sell my main guitar, a 2001 Gretsch Duo Jet which was waaay overpriced when I bought it anyhow. I'm a performing musician so I need an instrument at all times. Luckily I had my lead guitarists backup Tele to use in the mean time. I had a lot of parts lying around (mainly tele) that I'd accumulated over the years working in guitar shops so I decided what the hell, put all these parts to good use. the plan was to slap them together and see what came out. I wanted a one pickup guitar and yes, I know it sounds strange but though it's a Music Master I decided to go with the bridge pickup. I filled the neck pickup cavity with epoxy filler and levelled it with good ol' fashioned Lepage wood filler. Here's the body primed and filled:
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I picked Duplicolor Universal Black with a silver metallic for the colour and used two cans to cover the body. I wated a few days and shot my clear coat. After another few days I wet sanded and polished to a shine. It all went fairly easily. The best advice I can give here is shoot at least two cans of clear over a metallic as you can't sand any metallic finish between coats. You need a good build up of clear to level out and create depth over the tiny bumps on the metallic finish. Reranch agrees. I cut the pickguards (I settled on a "split" design) at a friend's who owns a scroll saw and a belt sander. I used the sander to bevel the edges which was the quick and dirty way to take care of a potentially difficult situation. I chose white over black but the white was  gleaming far to brightly so I dulled it with sand paper and shoe polish. Pretty much the most expensive pieces I pit on this bad boy are A) a Schaller roller bridge and B) a Duncan P-rails bridge position. I wired the P-Rails to a four position Tele switch to get all its tones. A big thank you to the fine folks at the TDPRI for the instructions on how to do that. the wiring alone took me about six bloody hours. The Bigsby I already owned so I didn't have to drop any coin on that. I put some really nice dents in the finish drilling some extra holes and installing the hardware. I recommend NEVER doing any major surgery on a guitar after you've refinished it. Do it before you put all that effort into getting a mirror finish. I really jumped the gun on that one. Shit. Over all I'm very, very happy with her but I'm going to get her professionally refinished one day. She's not quite done (mismatched screws, etc.) but she plays like a dream. Here she is in all her eccentric, offset glory...

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Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:11 pm
by Indiepop
What a beautiful transformation! Great job, I love the sparkle and the neck looks amazing  :?

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:56 am
by CROSS_guitars
If those pickguard sides were cut out a bit neater it would be amazing. Nice work though.

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:15 am
by Indiepop
CROSS_guitars wrote:
If those pickguard sides were cut out a bit neater it would be amazing. Nice work though.
Good catch, didn't see that. It almost looks like they are going to overhang.

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 3:39 am
by ohm-men
Exellent work sir!

And what e nice name your son has  ;)

-Jerry, also father of a boy named Finn-

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:24 am
by terminalvertigo
CROSS_guitars wrote:
If those pickguard sides were cut out a bit neater it would be amazing. Nice work though.
nonsense, it looks fine as is.

way to bring a lost member home! :)

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:01 am
by CROSS_guitars
Yeah sorry. i can't help it.

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:20 am
by wilco
very nice, looks kinda gretsch esque  8)

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:43 am
by valley_parade
Almost reminds me of the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez signature Jet King. Awesome!

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:56 am
by panoramic
ugh, you made it a jet king :(

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:59 pm
by HazeFX
i honestly hate it. can't say anything good about it honestly...  ???

BUT if you're happy with it thats all that matters, f-ck what everyone else thinks, right?

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 3:54 pm
by Connor
Exactly. Thank you. It's a work in progress so a few things still need to be completed. As for the concept I got the idea from this:http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Bodies/Vi ... aster.aspx As for the Omar Rodriguez model I had no idea it existed until I saw it in a local guitar store.Ironically I really wasn't all that keen on it- the body is tiny! Anyhow, I'm thinking about doing a tort pickguard if I can find one. Oh, and thanks for the Gretsch comment- that's kind of what I was going for. I think.

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:09 pm
by Indiepop
Would love to see a tort on it!

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:56 pm
by FenderBob
I like it!  Nice Work!

Re: 70's Music Master Resurrected!

Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 2:00 am
by Poop
Damn...  :o
That's a sweet axe.