As I said, I kept it as is and used it sparingly. Originally I wanted to restore it perfectly, but as the price of vintage JMs kept rising and rising I rather enjoyed having a beater JM that I didn't have to worry about as much. I have other more valuable JMs and honestly sometimes it's a drag not wanting to take them out of the house or even worrying about making sure I put them back in the case after a long night. Finally this year it dawned on me to try and restore this guitar somewhat but not go all out on the neck. So the plan is to sand the body down and spray it a color I like with a matching headstock to cover up the neck finish, and change out the non-original parts where I can. But I'm not going to strip it and send it out for a proper refin that I'll have to be too careful with.
When I disassembled the neck I was surprised to see that the tuner holes are still the vintage 8.8mm and have not been routed to 10mm. I didn't know Schallers came in that size back then. So now instead of leaving them I'm going to just get a set of repro Kluson single lines and relic them slightly to match the other hardware. I didn't think I'd have that option without adapter bushings or proper plug and redrill.
Again since I'm not going for a super proper and perfect finish I'm just sanding down the body to use the white as a primer. For some reason I just couldn't get the thimbles out. I've taken thimbles out many times before using a soldering iron but these just would not budge. Since I'm not being too fussy with this one I just taped them up. I did fill and sand the extra strap hole from being used lefty. I also tried to remove what might be tape in the pickup cavities to see if there was a date under there but it's been too long and it all melted with the paint. Also couldn't get to the possible original sunburst underneath but it might be there for a future endeavor.
For the neck I just filled the extra string tree hole and primed it. The extra tree was super old and rusty, but the screw was more modern. The original tree has the correct half plain shank.
I decided I wanted something close to Shoreline Gold but easier to spray, so I went with Dupli-Color Light Driftwood Metallic. It's coming out great so far and just what I wanted - much more vintage correct but cheap and easy and not perfect.
That's where I am now as of today. I'm just letting the body and neck cure and I have repro Klusons ordered. I think I have all the other parts.
