"Plastic" Framus

AustrianJohn

I bought a body/neck on eBay of a Framus 5/355 (strat copy) as a renovation project. The body is made of an off-white plastic material instead of wood. The paint job is scruffy so I plan to sand down to the bare body and repaint. Does anyone know what type of paint works (or doesn't work) on this type of body?

The plate where the bridge should go is obviously expecting a bridge of a different shape and size to normal strat type bridges. The vintage section at warwick.de don't stock bridges for these. Any ideas about where I could get one?

If the body had been wood I'd have filled the bridge holes and re-drilled for a new bridge - probably a Fender hard tail. Can anyone offer advice on filling or drilling holes in a plastic guitar body?

paulnb57

Regarding paint, you can get rattlecan primer for car plastics so that might work as a base then auto rattlecans for top coat.

Bridge might be tricky! The two holes top right and top left of the current bridge plate look like they might be for studs for a tunomatic bridge, it would be worth measuring the distance between the two holes and see of something like a Tunomatic or similar would work....

paulnb57

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/z/jOUAAOSwu4BVkkXi/$_72.JPG

http://static.musicforums.ru/agora/forums/mfor/guitarbuysell/notes/466927.gitara_043.jpg
 

 

AustrianJohn

Paulnb57 - thanks for the comment.

The holes at the front of the bridge plate are 8cm apart - same as the stop on a tune-o-matic, but wider than a tune-o-matic bridge by 0.5 cm.

The guitars in your pictures are subtly different. The three screws at the bottom of the plate on mine are in a straight line, while in your pictures they are slightly offset. I think that Framus made a number of guitars that look like Strats, but the official history has only one (the 5/355) - plus the HH variant.

paulnb57

Shame a TOM wont fit, I suppose alot of imternet searching will be required to try and find the correct bridge... Paul