Taking a vintage guitar apart....

skaguitar

this is probably just me but.....
whenever I see an ad for a vintage ( or any for that matter ) guitar and it has been taken apart i.e. neck taken off, guts on show, pick ups although still attached hanging upside down out of the guitar it makes me squirm. This is always bolt on type guitars and I know it's to prove age and originality but I think once put together in the factory they should stay put together. To me it's like having a new car and then it gets it's first ding or crash and then you never quite feel the same about it again..? I know these guitars were designed to be taken apart so necks and bodies can be replaced but I think maybe the guitar will never quite be the same again once it's been seperated and put back together..?

like I said...probably just me and I'd love a birth year guitar ( 1966 ) but this always puts me off buying one...maybe someone can settle my nervousness on this...

FatPete

On a Fender (type) guitar, most basic adjustment/setup requires some disassembly. If you bought a 1966 car, you'd probably expect the fan belt to have been changed!

Strangefan

I think you see vintage guitars as more than they are, they're not some magic talisman which will give you the fingers of a godespecially cheaply built old fenders,, most of them were butchered in the 70s, and a bit "meh" hense all the work they had done to them. 

Bridgehouse

I’ve had my 64 Precision apart many many times - neck off, tuners off for cleaning, guard off and all sorts of stuff.

It has never, ever sounded or played any differently any time I have done it. 

So long as you take care and use good tools, there will be no change afterwards.

skaguitar

FatPete said:

On a Fender (type) guitar, most basic adjustment/setup requires some disassembly. If you bought a 1966 car, you'd probably expect the fan belt to have been changed!

I understand this concept but I wouldn't strip a 1966 car down just to prove it was a 66...? but like I said..it's just me and my own weirdness..!!

Strangefan said:

I think you see vintage guitars as more than they are, they're not some magic talisman which will give you the fingers of a godespecially cheaply built old fenders,, most of them were butchered in the 70s, and a bit "meh" hense all the work they had done to them. 

I definitely don't want one then....!!

Bridgehouse said:

I’ve had my 64 Precision apart many many times - neck off, tuners off for cleaning, guard off and all sorts of stuff.

It has never, ever sounded or played any differently any time I have done it. 

So long as you take care and use good tools, there will be no change afterwards.

Again...just my own weirdness about this...

Bridgehouse

I would be highly suspicious of any guitar of that age that hadn’t been stripped in some way shape or form.

If it’s been played a lot over the years but not even had the guard off then it raises questions about maintenance and cleaning pots etc for good playing 

If it’s sat under a bed for 50 years then I would want electronic and mechanical parts checking and maintaining. 

Or do tou just want it to look at? If so - original strings on it? Maybe even the case never opened?

gringopig

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Strangefan

It's not weired bud, I know alot of people who see them as they same...internet hype magazines constantly running articles on them and of course many "hero's" played them, so I can totally see why they're seen as something truly special  when really sift through all the mojo shite and they're just well made guitars, it just takes playing a few to get there .

I make my own pickups for my guitars and I can honestly say they sound just as good as any old Fender pickup  in fact I sold my custom shop 59 because of this fact. That's not be bigging myself up, it just made me realise that essentially a decent pickup is copper wire and magnets that is all, no mojo no fairy dust just a bit of skill to make sure you get a nice voice. 

Bridgehouse

Sorry, I don’t understand why you want to buy an example of something which is designed to come apart, and is required to do so to authenticate it - but that has supposedly never come apart but might in reality have a load of cheap replacement parts in 

skaguitar

Bridgehouse said:

Sorry, I don’t understand why you want to buy an example of something which is designed to come apart, and is required to do so to authenticate it - but that has supposedly never come apart but might in reality have a load of cheap replacement parts in 

I know...I understand they are designed to come apart and I also know that to authenticate it you need to take it apart... but I personally don't like seeing them apart and something about it makes me squirm. For the record I have 4 perfectly good guitars that are not vintage and do everything I need them too and therefore won't ever buy a vintage or birth year guitar. This was just an observation on my part so don't worry to much about understanding my weirdness..

Bridgehouse

skaguitar said:

Bridgehouse said:

Sorry, I don’t understand why you want to buy an example of something which is designed to come apart, and is required to do so to authenticate it - but that has supposedly never come apart but might in reality have a load of cheap replacement parts in 

I know...I understand they are designed to come apart and I also know that to authenticate it you need to take it apart... but I personally don't like seeing them apart and something about it makes me squirm. For the record I have 4 perfectly good guitars that are not vintage and do everything I need them too and therefore won't ever buy a vintage or birth year guitar. This was just an observation on my part so don't worry to much about understanding my weirdness..

Well you did ask us to try and settle your nervousness!

Having owned quite a few, vintage for me comes down to one question - do you want to play it or not? 

If not, then fine - put it in a glass case and leave it. If you do want to play it, then it needs maintaining as bits wear out and break, and adjustments need to be made - and as such having vintage guitars with bits of guts spilling out all over the place from time to time becomes the norm...

skaguitar

Bridgehouse said:

skaguitar said:

Bridgehouse said:

Sorry, I don’t understand why you want to buy an example of something which is designed to come apart, and is required to do so to authenticate it - but that has supposedly never come apart but might in reality have a load of cheap replacement parts in 

I know...I understand they are designed to come apart and I also know that to authenticate it you need to take it apart... but I personally don't like seeing them apart and something about it makes me squirm. For the record I have 4 perfectly good guitars that are not vintage and do everything I need them too and therefore won't ever buy a vintage or birth year guitar. This was just an observation on my part so don't worry to much about understanding my weirdness..

Well you did ask us to try and settle your nervousness!

Having owned quite a few, vintage for me comes down to one question - do you want to play it or not? 

If not, then fine - put it in a glass case and leave it. If you do want to play it, then it needs maintaining as bits wear out and break, and adjustments need to be made - and as such having vintage guitars with bits of guts spilling out all over the place from time to time becomes the norm...

I did ask that and if I did ever decide to go for it on the birth year guitar I'd like my nervousness settled.. but the reality is I have 3 great guitars... a 335..tele and a strat that I gig regularly and they do the job for me.
If I bought a vintage guitar I would gig it...I don't believe in guitars just hanging on the wall or in glass cases to be looked at every now and again...but as I've said my gut feeling is that once taken apart a guitar would never quite be the same.. like many things there is no proof or rhyme or reason to my thinking...it's just my observation on something..

ICBM

If you're careful how you take them apart and put them back together, there's no issue.

One mistake a lot of people make is not to preserve the original screw positions - this sounds very geeky, but if you put things like the pickguard screws back in the wrong places, the pattern of corrosion on them doesn't look right and it's very obvious that it's been had apart. I always set the screws down in the shape of the pickguard as they come out, so they go back in the same holes. (And the same with the other sets of screws.)

One of the chaps at the shop has made a little wooden block with holes drilled in it to make it easier, I should probably do the same.

Funkfingers

skaguitar said:

I personally don't like seeing them apart and something about it makes me squirm. 

"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and throw it away." Matthew 18:9

"Don't look, Ethel." Ray Stevens

usedtobe

We all have odd little ways.. I don’t like guitars being parted out. It’s as if once the parts become a guitar, they should stay together. Mental, I know..!

richardhomer

I agree that anything of that age which has been taken apart should be viewed with suspicion. Likewise the presence of ‘stickers’

OilCityPickups

My big eye opener came when I did pickup work for a rather famous touring band ... one that features lots of lip smacking  vintage guitars. Flight case drawers full of vintage fender and gibson pickups that were swapped out as necessary ... rubbing shoulders with modern recreations ... because you couldn't have instruments down with a show to do. No precious attitude, just nice old tools kept in tip top gigging notch by skilled guitar techs.
Stripping down vintage Fenders is a necessity, and usually they play better after a tuneup ... not worse. I'm assuming the OP wouldn't feel comfortable with a refret either ... in which case his hypothetical vintage guitar becomes unplayable with wear ... that's it ... it's the glass cabinet or landfill, as all the mojo would get thrown away with the knackered frets! :-). 

Funkfingers

usedtobe said:

We all have odd little ways.

Sorry about that.   

If I could remember the exact quotation, I would have used the Tommy Cooper joke in which he complains to the doctor that doing something or other hurts. The doctor replies, "well, stop doing it then."

Bridgehouse

I know they are more expensive to buy due to “mojo” or some other bullshit, but they really are just Guitars like any other

WezV

First thing I want to do with any guitar, especially vintage, is take it apart.

i took my first guitar apart within a couple of months... not stopped since then.

rossi

Guitars are very agricultural in build and design .Thats why there are zillions of builders ,mechanics ,winders etc.