G&L F100 - Refinish/Restore

Bringing your older offset back to life.
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Danley
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G&L F100 - Refinish/Restore

Post by Danley » Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:19 am

A while since I posted. Busy with work and family; primary of which my father died earlier this year so I spent a lot of time dealing with the practical and emotional aspects of that. As a corollary, our main bonding activity for the past few years was texting each other ridiculous eBay auctions and basically daring each other to buy things. Dad played acoustic for years, but only picked up an interest in electric in the last few years of his life.

About three years ago I texted him this G&L F100 and somehow he bid and bought it. Here are some deep-before pics from the purchase auction:

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I'll be spare with words, but on arrival it was seriously one of *the* best playing & sounding guitars I'd ever played. Only a newer Ernie Ball Petrucci I played once even comes close to the way this guitar just makes playing feel natural for me, to use the cliche, 'like an extension of your body.' Built solid as a rock as well.

Then again I did recognize several issues on first picking it up:
  • Intonation was not adjustable within the proper range; the saddles wouldn't go sharp enough
  • Action was also an issue, as it would not go high enough to avoid buzz; this with the micro-tilt set flat. As a matter of fact, it basically made the micro-tilt unusable
  • The finish was nowhere near as nice as it appeared in pics; by which I mean there was no finish, which was unexpected. Bare mahogany with open grain, rather than what looked like a vintage 'tobacco' transparent finish
Anyway, it gave me another reason to visit my parents; to be able to hammer notes out of this thing. Dad and I spoke at short length about possibly refinishing the guitar (he has a paint booth,) but life got too busy for both of us to ever get on that project together. After my dad died, I really did not feel like touching any of his stuff for a good long while; not even turning the knobs. But I guess something about my attitude changed once I finally got the heart to pick it up from my mom's house, because I promptly ripped it apart:

Order of business one was the saddles; on review they were G&L DFV (vibrato) saddles. Early F100 saddles were totally unique to the (F100-only) string-through "Lock-Tight" bridge. Thanks to the assistance of Gabe from Electric Stringed Instruments (they reproduce trem bars and back plates for G&Ls) I was able to source probably the last set of NOS F100 saddles ever produced.

See the difference below; F100 saddles on bass, DFV on treble. The DFV saddles are shorter, and... Shorter.

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Gabe also helped source a ribbon from the original production log-book; as suspected from a bit of leftover finish, the guitar was black from the factory.

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In all honesty the raw finish of the guitar made me nervous of warping; in SoCal heat I shower guitars in sweat about ten months out of the year, so it wasn't getting played anywhere near as much as it should have considering how great of a guitar it is.

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I thought about just grain filling and adding clear/satin, the mahogany being not un-attractive; but since I had the enthusiasm, space, and time to do it- I figured might as well complete the project Dad and I discussed briefly, and return it to original black. Dad restored old cars, and his policy was to always paint things the original color when he could which is how we wound up with a coral and gray 55 Chevy among other things, so in his spirit I went to work:

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^Inner workings of the F100-only string-through bridge

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^No pic, but it's also stamped 'F100 - I'

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^Scribbling/unreadable date stamp

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Wiring mostly original but unoriginal/spliced by some percentage.

...After grain filling/sealer I paused. The original wood looked *really* good. But I went ahead & primered over that anyway:

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^Pre-clear

...Here's where things went sideways for just a minute, for the drama. I read a lot online that there was no need to sand between clear coats, and that got me pretty close to nowhere as the finish was WAY too textured. My technique was crap. I also sprayed on a freak day with 80% humidity in SoCal, and the finish didn't like that:

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So I sanded most of the clear off and started over again:

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^Better!

Waited till the finish was good and hard before the final wet sand and polish. Also added some (now-reproduced) red/black rubber tips from G&L:

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It also matches the other G&L I picked up for myself last year :)
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Sounds amazing still, but I'm going to avoid playing it for a few months at least to avoid messing with the finish too much while it's curing; also because it looks so good I'm pretty much thinking I need to baby it from here on out anyway :D So there's my dad's guitar, mourning its master in black.
Last edited by Danley on Sun Oct 14, 2018 4:32 pm, edited 7 times in total.
King Buzzo: I love when people come up to me and say “Your guitar sound was better on Stoner Witch, when you used a Les Paul. “...I used a Fender Mustang reissue on that, dumbass!

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Larry Mal
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Re: G&L F100 - Refinish/Restore

Post by Larry Mal » Sun Oct 14, 2018 10:03 am

That was a great read, thanks for sharing that with us. Sorry about your loss. Good to have you back!
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.

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Re: G&L F100 - Refinish/Restore

Post by solfege » Sun Oct 14, 2018 2:16 pm

Seconding what Larry said. My condolences, but also what a lovely tribute and a great thing to read.

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Re: G&L F100 - Refinish/Restore

Post by andy_tchp » Sun Oct 14, 2018 2:41 pm

Fantastic restoration and write-up mate, early bird G&Ls are something else (as is the help and enthusiasm from guys like Gabe, who I've also had lengthy email discussions with about the early days of G&L) - looks 100000x better in its correct colour.

And sorry for your loss. You've done a great job and I'm sure he'd be proud of how it's turned out.
"I don't know why we asked him to join the band 'cause the rest of us don't like country music all that much; we just like Graham Lee."
David McComb, 1987.

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Re: G&L F100 - Refinish/Restore

Post by ThePearDream » Sun Oct 14, 2018 3:43 pm

Great job on the restoration. My condolences on the loss of your father. Mine passed a few months ago, so this really hits home.
Doug
@dpcannafax

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Danley
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Re: G&L F100 - Refinish/Restore

Post by Danley » Mon Oct 15, 2018 6:50 am

Thanks all- and sorry to hear about your father Pear, it's def. a difficult thing to go through.

The F100 really is a pretty clever guitar when you get down to the details and it's cool to see it first-hand. The pickups split with the red switch, but part of the opposite coil stays active with a capacitor attached for hum canceling and a darker tone (split is darker than full.) The pickups are very bassy so the passive treble and bass controls are really helpful. Even the tuners are designed to push the string down toward the base of the post, for greater break angle.

Would love to pick up an active version with low impedance preamp some day :)
King Buzzo: I love when people come up to me and say “Your guitar sound was better on Stoner Witch, when you used a Les Paul. “...I used a Fender Mustang reissue on that, dumbass!

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