NGD....this time it's serious

[Greg_L]

I noticed that a few images ago and thought maybe it was like, light reflecting off something. WOuld i be correct in assuming previous owner was really really diving that wham stick to the boards and just wore the finish away?

WTF is that even ?

No there's no way the wang bar could reach that spot. I think it's from finger wear. Someone that had this guitar played with one or more fingers anchored on that spot. Maybe they were a finger-picker. Nokie Edwards was a finger picker sometimes. Maybe this was his guitar!

[rayc]

Excellent resurrection. They are my taste in guitars though in a budget galaxy far, far away.

[Greg_L]

Excellent resurrection. They are my taste in guitars though in a budget galaxy far, far away.

Thanks Ray. This guitar really is an unnecessary luxury, and expensive, but I swear I've wanted one of these things since I was 15 years old. Maybe I'm in a mid life crisis. Lol. Some dudes leave their family and buy a convertible. I try to be good to my family and buy things like this.

[Armistice]

Excellent resurrection. They are my taste in guitars though in a budget galaxy far, far away.

Thanks Ray. This guitar really is an unnecessary luxury, and expensive, but I swear I've wanted one of these things since I was 15 years old. Maybe I'm in a mid life crisis. Lol. Some dudes leave their family and buy a convertible. I try to be good to my family and buy things like this.

So that's where I went wrong... buying the convertible. Should have bought more guitars instead.

[Greg_L]

So that's where I went wrong... buying the convertible. Should have bought more guitars instead.

Yes

[Greg_L]

The steady grind towards perfection continues...

New bridge showed up today. And it's wrong.

new vs old.jpg

The string spacing is too wide. It fits, but the strings are too wide. You can clearly see the new bridge, while looking great, has saddles that are way too far apart from each other. This thing has the E strings damn near hanging off the fretboard. That aint gonna work. Especially not on a guitar with a neck as narrow as this one. And the strings don't line up over the pickup poles. Direct replacement Mosrite bridge my surftastic ass. But!!!!! All I really need are the roller saddles. So time to modify. That's what I fucking do. The new rollers roll beautifully, but they're a little too tall. The rollers, not being all rusted to shit, are slightly bigger than the originals, and the saddle pieces themselves are a little taller than the originals. I removed each roller saddle from the new bridge, filed the bottoms down about .010", and boom, perfect fit. They sit flat in the old bridge base and the intonation bolts pass right through. Now the strings glide nice and easy across the rollers and everything is good to go!

new+old.jpg

Gave the neck a faint little bit of relief, threw some 10s on it, nailed the intonation, and got the action really low. These tiny frets are hard to feel, but they let you get ridiculously low action. Crazy. Your fretting fingers gotta be on point to play this thing cleanly. I get a little buzz on the high strings on the 2-4th frets because they have little string dents in them. But nothing too bad. I think raising the action back up to a normal-ish height might take care of that. So I think that's about it for now. Tone clips to come.

[JD01]

Well done, mate. That's great.

[rayc]

Problem solving - I love it.

[Greg_L]

Well done, mate. That's great.

Problem solving - I love it.

Thanks dudes. All that's left now is to play the snot out of it and see what else needs to be done. The most obvious issues are now handled. Disassembly, inspection, verification, cleaning, fixing, reassembly, setup...all done and good.

I am seeing a crossroads on the horizon though. I'm not there yet, but I suspect I will be. I'm still not out of the woods with the microphonic pickups. I've come to learn that this is normal for these pickups because they weren't made with screaming Marshalls in mind. I'm not even sure there were any cascaded gain stage 100 watt amps when this guitar was made. Johnny Ramone's A-B box "on/off switch" when he was using stock Mosrites live makes perfect sense now. Man, the howling he must have dealt with... But I think I can work around all that. I've already gotten it fairly loud in the room and they do howl a little but I can move around and minimize it. They're not as bad at home as my first impression was in the guitar store.

The other issue might be the frets. The tiny low frets don't bother me. But being tiny and low with the addition of fret-wear string dents on a few of them could be a problem. There's not enough there to file and re-crown. Just for comparison...

Measured with calipers, 22nd fret on the Mosrite, low E side, the fret and section of fret with the least amount of use and wear.
Height: .017" - 0.43 mm
Width: .070" - 1.78 mm
In the worst string dent, 3rd fret, B string: .006"!!!! 0.15 mm.

Same measurements on the new-to-me Gibson SG, which is a 2011 model, but it was virtually unplayed. The frets are in like-new condition.
Height: .055" - 1.40 mm
Width: .090" - 2.29 mm
No string dents to measure.
The SG and my Goldtop have frets that are nearly identical.

The Gibson's frets are mountains compared to the Mosrite, and Gibson frets are relatively mild compared to modern guitars.

So I've ordered a set of Dunlop Accu-Fret 6340 frets just in case. Mosrites actually use vintage mandolin fret wire, but I'm not hunting down any of that shit. This particular Dunlop model comes recommended by Mosrite gurus and it closely matches the stock fret wire. And, according to the experts, a re-fret doesn't hurt the vintage value because it seems most still-existing original Mosrites have been refretted and a nice playing guitar is more important than original but unusable frets. But we'll cross that bridge later, if necessary.

[JD01]

How do the frets you've chosen compare with your normal frets?
You gonna do the work yourself? I bet you're shitting it about ripping frets out of that!

I know I couldn't play with frets like that. But then I quite like big frets.

[Greg_L]

How do the frets you've chosen compare with your normal frets?
You gonna do the work yourself? I bet you're shitting it about ripping frets out of that!

The new frets....

fret wire.jpg

The width is nearly identical. The crown height, after a level and crown, should give me more to play with than stock Mosrite, but not as much as the Gibson. So kind of in between the two, but not far off from Mosrite spec. I'm thinking if it all goes well it should probably feel about like they did brand new. Low, fast frets....but not as low, or dented, as they are now.

And no, I absolutely will not be doing this myself. I know two guys here in town that can handle this. They build/repair necks and refret vintage guitars all the time.

Maybe [mention]muttley[/mention] can weigh in here....my biggest concern is sanding the neck. I do not want the serial number sanded away, which is a common thing for Mosrite necks after a refret. Is it possible to refret a neck without sanding it down?

[WhiskeyJack]

Maybe @muttley can weigh in here....my biggest concern is sanding the neck. I do not want the serial number sanded away, which is a common thing for Mosrite necks after a refret. Is it possible to refret a neck without sanding it down?

Weird. Why would a sanding be required i wonder. Fascinating.

man things came together really good for you man. Bummer about the bridge but who really cares at this point. it works and you got to keep more original parts on it at the end of the day. I am getting stoked to hear what this can do.

Going back to the J. Ramones sound and the howl, i wonder if that may have been the magic though? Like his sound always had this thing to it, and i can help but wonder if that is what it is.

[Greg_L]

Weird. Why would a sanding be required i wonder. Fascinating.

I don't know. I don't know anything about a refret, and the one time I tried to replace one fret on a another guitar it was a massive fail. Alls I know is I've read tales of refrets requiring a fretboard sanding. I assume to maybe get a fresh level surface on the fretboard? Maybe? I would not want that done.

man things came together really good for you man. Bummer about the bridge but who really cares at this point. it works and you got to keep more original parts on it at the end of the day. I am getting stoked to hear what this can do.

The bridge worked out fine. I'm happy with it. I could just put the original crusty saddles back into it if I ever decide to sell it in a hundred years or something..

Going back to the J. Ramones sound and the howl, i wonder if that may have been the magic though? Like his sound always had this thing to it, and i can help but wonder if that is what it is.

It's really hard to pinpoint what made his sound...besides it just being him. The gear does matter, but to what degree? I don't know. I've talked to people that were in his orbit. They all say the same thing - he'd sound the same on anything. His amps were pretty standard. His style and his guitars were unique. So the Mosrites probably had a little something to do with it.

[Greg_L]

[mention]WhiskeyJack[/mention] Check this...

Classic good quality Ramones TV footage from 1977. This isn't the whole show, but this clip starts with Johnny on his backup Rickenbacker. I think it's a 660. This guitar was allegedly stolen by someone in the Cheap Trick camp. Anyway, the first song is the Rick, then it edits to the second song and he's back on the blue Mosrite Ventures II. This was his first Ramones guitar and it was also stolen. That means it's out there somewhere. The guitar sound is noticeably different between the two, and more Ramonesy with the Mosrite, but it still sounded like him through the Rickenbacker. Just more so with the Mosrite.

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGNFRG5ERSU[/BBvideo]

[WhiskeyJack]

[mention]Greg_L[/mention] There isn't a huge difference difference between his rick and the mosrite transition. minimal. the Mosrite is more open and snarly. but then i hear a big difference when they play Glad to See you go. Like it's huge. wtf happened there? they also put their jackets back on.

[Greg_L]

@Greg_L There isn't a huge difference difference between his rick and the mosrite transition. minimal. the Mosrite is more open and snarly. but then i hear a big difference when they play Glad to See you go. Like it's huge. wtf happened there? they also put their jackets back on.

It's just the TV/video edit and sound production. The video is edited with the songs out of order. Once the jackets came off they stayed off.

I hear a pretty distinct difference between the Ric and the Mosrite. To me the Rickenbacker has a smoother, less middy sound. The Mosrite is more aggressive and little brighter. The Glad To See You Go part has to be just sound production. In the source video of that TV concert there's a lot of crowd noise at times and the mix changes as the show goes along.

[Greg_L]

TONE CLIPS!

[Greg_L]

So my fret wire showed up today. Dunlop Accu-Fret 6S/6340 Flat. That's a long name.

fretwire1.jpg

fetwire2.jpg

It's hard to take a good pic of a piece of fret wire, but there it is. They're really small and flat like the original fret wire. I think this stuff will do the job. But now I'm thinking I'm not gonna need it. Some of my frets are a little more worn than I originally thought, and they're really tiny, but now that I've been playing it a lot they're not a big deal. I'll keep these for when the day comes that I do wanna refret it. I think they'll be perfect for keeping the right feel and style of how this neck is supposed to look and play..

[Tadpui]

Somehow I missed your bridge dilemma. Nice job getting that one done! I'd actually searched and found a NOS bridge for you...for only $330 plus shipping

I hear ya on the frets. I'd say that if it's too bad after some playing, adjusting, replaying, readjusting...just bite the bullet and get it done. It'll only get worse with additional playing.

And hey, maybe [mention]muttley[/mention] can whip up some suitable replacement pickups if the originals turn out to be a no-go. While it'd be a shame to ditch the originals, it's gotta be able to handle the situations that you're gonna be in. And that definitely involves some serious SPLs and possibly registering on the Richter scale from time to time

...of course that's coming from a guy that's too chicken to replace the original pickups in his Jazzmaster...

[Greg_L]

Somehow I missed your bridge dilemma. Nice job getting that one done! I'd actually searched and found a NOS bridge for you...for only $330 plus shipping

I hear ya on the frets. I'd say that if it's too bad after some playing, adjusting, replaying, readjusting...just bite the bullet and get it done. It'll only get worse with additional playing.

And hey, maybe @muttley can whip up some suitable replacement pickups if the originals turn out to be a no-go. While it'd be a shame to ditch the originals, it's gotta be able to handle the situations that you're gonna be in. And that definitely involves some serious SPLs and possibly registering on the Richter scale from time to time

...of course that's coming from a guy that's too chicken to replace the original pickups in his Jazzmaster...

Ha, no I've already decided the stock original pickups will stay. I've got some Fender surfy and screaming Marshall clips up in the tone thread.