Magnatone 150 restoration project

[HH1978]

Hello,

I thought this would be an interesting project to share. I acquired this exceedingly rare 1961-62 Magnatone 150 a couple of months ago. The seller said he was the original owner and the guitar is all original, however I doubt it is true, as the top has obviously been oversprayed with black paint (a really poor job, when you look closely at it).

Finish aside, there are a few issues I'll have to adress :

- a crack on the side, at the strap button.
- a bit of separation between the top and sides
- missing truss-rod cover

Other than that, the guitar is in good shape, the neck is straight, the truss-rod works, electronics are fine.





So let's start the fun part : this is how the top (which looks like solid spruce BTW) is attached to the body : strap pins screws, tailpiece screws and an additional screw in the lower horn. No wonder that the joint is bad. The best idea I have now for fixing it is to ad felt all around, but open to any better suggestion. Note the number 14 on the top. One of the two existing model 200 I know of has a number 18 written the same way. It might very well be the number of the guitar. I wonder how many were made. My guess would be well under 100.




Funny way to wire pickup, but why not...



That crack doesn't help the top to body joint either... not sure how I'll fix this.

[mgeek]

This is AWESOME, thanks for sharing, never seen one of those taken to bits before, what a wild construction method

[jthomas]

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[MattK]

Re the crack - I would remove the strap pin, glue and clamp the crack with Titebond red, then drill and dowel the strap pin hole with a maple dowel a bit larger than the screw hole needed. Then drill a good sized pilot hole, touch up the finish and screw the strap pin into the dowel.
The overspray is a shame, have you tested whether the paint can be removed?

[HH1978]

I haven't done anything yet, except removing the top. I think the paint can be removed with very fine grit paper. It looks like one rough coat of black paint with no clear coat upon it. There are spots where it's scratched and the beige appears. The difficult part will be the edges, where the original black paint is under the black overspray. I have the untouched back as guideline though.

Thanks for the tip regarding the crack!

This is AWESOME, thanks for sharing, never seen one of those taken to bits before, what a wild construction method

Indeed, but Barth was really into experimenting stuffs... Besides the fact that he was involved in the frying pan design when he worked for Rickenbacker, I have other guitars he made either with Magnatone or on his own that show a lot of unconventionnal things. I have a prototype/test bed guitar from him. It looks clean and beautiful from the outside, but the first time I took the pickguard off, I believed that someone had been messing with the inside, until I realized it had to be himself

[MattK]

If that paint can be scratched I would go after it with gentle heat from a hairdryer and a nylon guitar pick. Sanding a curved surface to remove one layer would be impossible. As a second option, 0000 steel wool with some naphtha/lighter fluid as a lubricant, but be super careful!

[MattK]

You might also be able to use a blacklight torch to see the difference between original black and overspray - LED blacklights are cheap on eBay.

[Con-Tiki!]

excellent.
i'm in Pittsburgh. Those were made not far from here, but they never turn up...

[HH1978]

I really wonder how many were made to begin with. This model 150 is number 14, Noah Miller (oldfrets.com) owns the model 200 numbered 18. Sam Taylor (Southside Guitars) has a model 200 too, but I don't know the number, and guitarist Paul Brett in UK has a model 100. There must be others but these are the only ones I know about.

If that paint can be scratched I would go after it with gentle heat from a hairdryer and a nylon guitar pick. Sanding a curved surface to remove one layer would be impossible. As a second option, 0000 steel wool with some naphtha/lighter fluid as a lubricant, but be super careful!

Thanks! I'll try this.I won't be able to work on it before the weekend. I'll get a blacklight also