The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for your information! I knew by now it was definitely an 1803T... so you reckon mine was red or burst?

How do they sound and play when fully working?

EDIT: Ahhh, you mean mine is also sunburst because it would obviously have been sprayed without fittings.... i get it!!!! Thanks!

Hi !

Yes, yours was sunburst. As to the sound of it...it is of course not a "high gain burner" but it has a nice twangy sound. Overall is a very nice guitar and I love the shape of the neck, but the output level is very low.

Oliver !

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Axes of the 80´s - Click here

Thanks mate.
I just love the shape of it, and yes the neck does feel great and is in great condition for the age which is why i want to push ahead with the restoration. I'll prolly end up doing it red...far too untrained to attempt sunburst!

Here's a great tutorial on an easy way to spray a sunburst. Note that he mentions that you don't need exotic paint, most guitars were painted with auto paint at the factory!

http://projectguitar.com/tut/burst.htm

And here's one at the Reranch site showing how to use the colors for a traditional Fender-style sunburst- but yu could again use auto colors, it wouldnt have to be nitro lacquer:

http://reranch.com/sunburstaerosol.html

I think if you like sunbursts you should totally try it- you've brought this guitar back from the brink of extinction, why not?

HEy xplayer,

Cool, thanks a lot for those links! I'll best wait to see how brave i'm feeling when i come to that stage!

OK, before i let this thing slip any further (and before i move), i have to sort this out, at least the electrics. I'm afraid i'm being a complete dunce despite all your help:



OK, i'm gonna be able to tin the ends of the wires. What i dont understand is what i'm supposed to connect the soldered ends of the thin wires too. Do i insert a small lead between this end and the rest of the electrics, or do i solder (as seemed to be the original case) one of the thin wires to the copper baseplate of the pickup? I cant imagine that being too useful as it would make the whole copper plate "live" surely.

I'm sorry, as you can see i need idiot-proof step by step instructions. IF any of you are patient enough to help me out successfully, i'll give you a virtual mars bar.

hm, I'm going to say don't attach it to the base plate, use a third wire for that. This gives you a 'floating ground' which is more useful if you have switching which reverses phase on that pickup. And the two wires then connect to signal, and signal ground.

Somebody who works with strat singles can correct me if I'm wrong, that's what I would do with humbuckers.

Most of the strats I've had to wrestle with had cardboard baseplates and the signal ground was a sepearate lead just like signal hot. Maybe that's why they come with built-in 60hz frequency modulators.

Arghhh i dont understand
I speak three languages but dont have a clue what you're all on about!

Coilineese is an odd language. Sometimes there are no rules.

Simply put, no worry about connecting either wind end to the baseplate. Just carefully connect leads to them and remember which is start and which is finish. Make sure to tape them to the coils so they won't get pulled and broken again.

If you can, use a different color lead for start and a different color for finish. That way even if you wire the pickups backwards they'll still all be in phase with each other and you won't end up with weak tinny sound in certain settings.