I think I have said this before but I will reiterate the point: it is always a pleasure to improve something good!
This nice-sounding Fender came to me with some simple enough problems. It’s action had crept up to a point to make playing difficult, it had managed to lose three tuner buttons somewhere along its journey, and being black and a dust and fingerprint magnet, it was in need of a good hot-water bath!
I started with the simplest thing first and found some tuner buttons that I had lying around; only, the ones I found were pearloid and the ones that came factory-fitted on the guitar were plain white plastic. Since the owner was okay with them, I pushed them on and that was one issue taken care of.
Having taken off the strings, I could see that the guitar body was in dire need of cleaning and the fretboard and bridge were very dry. But before I took the strings off, I did take measurements of how high the action was.
But there’s rarely ever anything that can’t be solved with a damp piece of cloth and the love potion that I apply to open-pore areas (fretboard and bridge) of the guitar.
And here, I must point out how lovely good wood looks once it is given a coat of nourishment.
Next, the measurements I had taken earlier were transferred onto the saddle
and the saddle shaved to those readings.
Fresh strings were thrown on and everything was well with the world!
But as I sign off, do appreciate this pearloid purfling. I thought it added just a bit more oomph to the guitar!
