The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

First of all, what a lovely guitar this is. It's the oldest guitar i have ever had in my rolling collection and i was surprised by the tone. The state is also not too bad considering it's evidently been played....

Anyway, i'm pretty sure it is a 1803T. It looks like it's got two new knobs (no biggie), but for that at least it's got the original tremelo (albeit a bit chewed) and tuners. But i'm more interested in the finish. Has this been sanded down? The catalog scans on this site (muchos thankios for those who host and supply them) list sunburst, red or white as the colours.... only the 1832T came in natural. The top is good quality, so i cant tell. but i'm hoping some of you experts and guitar refurbishers on here can. And as for the back....well what on earth has made these marks??????? Any ideas? Another question.... why are these guitars so dang affordable!?

I know those marks well! That's what you get when you use a hammer and chisel to remove a poly finish!

(don't ask me how I know...)

Aha!!! Wondered if it might be something like that. If it were an animal, it would have hd about 40 different size teeth.

OK, why is the top in such good nick though?

And next question.... whats the best way to start refurbing the back, or is it beyond help?

they probably used something different for the top. Maybe they discovered poly comes off easier if you heat it (but watch for flying chips).

As far as fixing the back... you could try to sand it down level. The risk is, however, that you'll sand completely through the veneer someplace (I found this out the hard way on the guitar pictured above, but on the front!!!)

So maybe you might consider that it's worth the risk on the back to level it out- and if you get a small sandthrough that you can live with it. Another thing I wish I'd tried was to use a grain filler- we're talking about something like plastic wood- which is what's normally used on unfinished guitars with open grain (like ash or mahogany, which naturally has big pores) to fill the worst of it before sanding it back.

Thanks for the tips.
I'm a total newbie to this so forgive what may be a silly question: is staining the guitar with a nice dark wood stain (the kind i've used on the exposed beams in my house) a bad idea?

Yes. Bad idea. to make it work, you'd have to strip all the remaining finish- it looks like it's not bare wood, but clearcoated, yes? It would be like trying to stain plastic- smeary mess.

But you could certainly topcoat it with some nice tinted varnish, I'd recommend the nitro you can get at reranch.com www.reranch.com

Butterscotch is a nice reddish brown tint for one.

Sorry, yeah i meant to sand it down first...i didnt make that clear did I

Thanks for that link my friend, that state it is in, i might use it as my first refurb/improvement experiment, without it feeling like sacrilage (sp?). On the other hand, the natural colour top looks pretty cool, and i'm mighty glad the chisel was used on the back, not the front!

OK, i used the "screwdriver tapping" method to identify that the electrics on this guitar are not working properly. And there was me thinking my ears were just shot. Basically, seems like whatever i do with the two switches, the centre pickup is the only one that stays on. I took the pickguard off.... i'm in unknown territory here.... but nothing seems weird. Only thing that happened when i took it off, was what i presume to be the earthing wire broke. So here's the question: do i (a) take the plunge, gain some info, and use this as my first repair/resurrection project or (b) cut my losses and sell the thing for spares and parts? I'd love to try (a) simply coz it seems this one is crying out for me to learn... thoughts guys?

keep it together! it deserves it and so do you!

seriously, wiring problems should be no big hurdle. first, I would suspect the selector switch... not sure i see it in your pics. does the wiring look original or has it been tampered with?

a clear photo of the wiring under the pickguard would be the best place to start.

I have no idea how to tell if it were original or not :/

I'll try take some pics, maybe we can go from there. Thanks for your support.

In a quest to find what may be right or wrong, one thing i did notice was that the tape wrapped around the pickup coils was different.... clear sellotape (scotch tape) on one, and translucent milky tape on another. What that means, i do not know (bear in mind, this is the first time i've ever taken a pickguard off so be gentle )