My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

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Greg_L
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My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

Oh dear sweet Jesus....lookie what I found....

Image

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This is a Sears Harmony H802...I believe. It's definitely a Sears Harmony. I think H802 is the model. Anyway, it's a real piece of shit, but it was my first guitar and I played the shit out of this thing. I got it around 1982-1983.

The black paint on top is actually Tree Black....that shit you spray on a tree to seal and cover a cut limb or crack or whatever. Hey, the guitar is wood, so why not? That punk rock paint job might have happened in like 1980-something. The burst on the back is the original paint and what the front used to look like. The pickups are godawful microphonic shit. You can literally speak into the pickups and your voice will come out of the amp. The chrome exhaust port thing is the tailpiece. The bridge is a bar of cheap metal sitting on threaded posts. I can't believe the bridge is still there. It just falls off. The neck is huge and the frets are tiny. The tuners...I wont even go there.

So anyway...the purpose of this attic find is to strip it all the way down, sand it to bare wood, if it is even wood, and paint it for practice. The practice part is important because I will be painting an SG and I aint practicing on that thing.

So like my LP Custom thread, I will update this one as I go along.
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JD01
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by JD01 »

Turn it into a good'un Greg. That's what I'm planning on doing with my weird Indian strat.

That's pretty cool shape.
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Minerman »

Wow dude, I remember seeing those guitars in the Sears Christmas catalogs in the 80's....My first guitar (a no-name acoustic) is still at Mom's, she's been asking if I'm ever gonna take it with me, so I guess I'd just as well bring it home...IIRC, Mom & Dad gave like $40 for it in '80 or '81...I'd been pestering 'em for an electric, & they wanted to test the waters to see if I was gonna stick with it or not...A couple/few years later, they bought me the Fender Bronco amp & a '73 SG Jr. from my uncle...Wish I still had those, but they're long gone...


Cool Greg, keep us posted on this dude!!!
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Greg_L
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

I don't know why the headstock is so fucking huge. Lol. It's damn near as big as the body. I don't think I can turn it into anything.

So it's apart now. The body seems to be plywood. Yes, plywood. Actual cheap ass plywood. See the layers?
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The pickup/control cavity is gigantic.
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Underside pickguard. This stuff has not seen the light of day in like 35 years. Tiny pots, weird switching. Mystery pickups.
Image
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JD01
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by JD01 »

Could you butcher the pick guard and pop a humbucker in there just to see how it sounds? You've got them T Tops hanging about haven't you?
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

Also, the bridge pickup is quite far from the bridge, so it's more like a middle pickup. Lol. I don't remember what this thing sounded like, but it couldn't have been good. I do remember the microphonic pickups and it being really bright.
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Greg_L
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

JD01 wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2017 5:24 pm Could you butcher the pick guard and pop a humbucker in there just to see how it sounds? You've got them T Tops hanging about haven't you?
I could do that. But like I just said, the bridge pickup will be far from the bridge. It's more like a middle pickup.
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Greg_L
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

By the way....the sticker on the tailpiece says "Skate Rock"

Skate Rock was a series of compilations put out by Thrasher Magazine in the early 80s. They were great.
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Minerman »

I zoomed in, but still couldn't tell what the sticker said...
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

Lol! The frets don't even go to the end of the fretboard!

Image


And the finish on the back of the neck is some kind of very heavy acrylic...almost like a clear plastic coating. It actually chips and breaks off. Don't know how I'm gonna get that shit off.
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Lt. Bob
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Lt. Bob »

is this your actual first git or one like it?

My first was a Silvertone ..... love to have that back
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

Lt. Bob wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2017 8:38 pm is this your actual first git or one like it?

My first was a Silvertone ..... love to have that back
It's the actual one. :guitarhero:
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Tadpui »

Wow, this will be interesting :)

Good luck, this will be a great follow. Actual plywood? I can't say that I've seen a solid guitar body made of ply before. I've seen acoustic guitar tops that were ply, but an entire solid body made of it? Jeez!
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Greg_L
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

Tadpui wrote: Sun Jan 29, 2017 11:29 pm Wow, this will be interesting :)

Good luck, this will be a great follow. Actual plywood? I can't say that I've seen a solid guitar body made of ply before. I've seen acoustic guitar tops that were ply, but an entire solid body made of it? Jeez!
Lol. Yeah, keep in mind this thing is a low-budget cheapo Sears catalog guitar. But I did get it at an actual Sears retail store. Remember those things?

I also had the matching acoustic parlor guitar. That thing actually sounded good, in my opinion, but the headstock snapped off about ten years ago and that was that.

The goal if this little project is to just learn and practice some basic guitar painting shit.

1) I think my first task will be to strip it. I'll chemical strip it - I'm not sanding through all that shit.
2) Clean, sand, and grain fill. Grain filling is particularly important to me as the SG that all this is leading up to is obviously mahogany.
3) After filling, seal, paint, clear, polish. We'll see how that goes. :headwall:
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Tadpui »

I remember Sears...we still have one or two hanging on by a thread around here. They even sold off the Craftsman name to Stanley recently. Bad sign for them. My last 2 craftsman items have both been total shit, so good luck to the next owner in reforming that brand name...

I'll be curious what kind of wood grain you find underneath the "tree saver" finish :D
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Greg_L
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

I'm thinking it's probably some semi-furniture grade plywood. The top and back seem pretty smooth, but it's clearly plywood. It's a meager 1-1/8" thick.
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Roman »

Those things were often phillipine mahogany ply. Same shit as the 70s wall paneling. Just thicker. Lol :D
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

Roman wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:24 am Those things were often phillipine mahogany ply. Same shit as the 70s wall paneling. Just thicker. Lol :D
You know what...that's exactly what it looks like and smells like. The splinters and rough cuts in the cavity are exactly like cheesy 70s wood paneling.
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Bubba »

Wow. That is one seriously horrible instrument. :lollers:

Didn't you have a silverburst SG? What happened to that?
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Greg_L
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Re: My first guitar - found! Gonna paint it.

Post by Greg_L »

Bubba wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2017 6:18 pm Wow. That is one seriously horrible instrument. :lollers:

Didn't you have a silverburst SG? What happened to that?
That's the one that's gonna get painted.

I'm hoping to go from this:
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To something like this:
Image
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