Today, the 24th of March, is my 22nd Birthday. While stuck in quarantine, I wanted a project to fill up the days.
Enter, this Pacifica 112.
You may be able to see from this image, there are some issues. Firstly, it's filthy. The more eagle eyed amongst you may also know its missing a bridge saddle for the high E, and subsequently, the string has also gone. The electronics also do not work, in fact the plastic jack plate has shattered entirely, probably at the same time a chunk was made in the back which goes right down to bare wood. Did I also mention it's filthy?
So, I don't plan on spending a fortune on getting her into a tip-top shape, but I will be experimenting on it. I currently have a Tele, a 335 and a strat, in black, red and blue respectively. With this battered pacifica, I want to create something entirely different, unconventional, and suited to the jangly indie sounds which I play a lot of.
So, the current to do list:
- Clean up the neck and plastic parts of the guitar as best I can
- strip battered black poly from guitar
- refinish (I have a few ideas about this - that may or may not involve something
@Andyjr1515 taught me once upon a time)
- replace the bridge
- replace the electronics
- new nut
- if budget is still there, new tuning keys
I will also be trying to save pennies where possible, so will be looking into the parts drawer and reusing parts where possible.
And don't think you guys won't be able to get involved - in fact, I will be relying on the expertise of the people here for this entire project. Which leads me to my first question:
How do you lift gunk out of a fretboard? I have read white spirit and kitchen roll can do the job or 0000 wire wool, but wondered is there another method people use?
Just so people are aware. I have no idea what any of these words mean.
Comments
Feedback
https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/167877/pacifica-project/p1
That reminds me, the unpainted body is in the loft too, it really needs to become kindling!...took me ages to strip the finish off it!...ended up with a LH neck on a RH body....gave it away to a mate...
I look forward to seeing this progress.
There are various ways you can clean. Naptha (cigarette lighter fuel) is pretty good.
Personally, I go in much harder - I use a single edged razor blade held in both hands and drawn from fret to fret with the grain like a mini-scraper and take off the whole top gungy surface down to clean wood and then re-oil. But then, that's probably just me...
Andy
I did chuckle this morning when presented with this disasterpiece. The first words that left my mouth were "I can see a trip up the A38 to Fradley coming up here"
- Have fully disassembled and cleaned the guitar with kitchen cleaner and cloths.
- Scrubbed the fretboard with kitchen cleaner and wire wool. As a result the frets are super shiny too.
- Applied first batch of lemon oil to fretboard. Looks already like it's drying out so might apply another lot tomorrow.
- Have ordered new strings and a new graphtech nut. Let's see when they get here.
I have noticed a few minor dings and dents in a couple of the frets, especially in the cowboy chord positions. Am currently 50/50 on whether to try and level, crown and polish the frets, but I know if I do want to do that I'll be ordering a new fret file. I've already butchered one neck with the 'baroque" branded one I have where the filing slot is too shallow to crown a fret and instead takes away too much of the top of the fret.
Slow progress, but we'll get there.
The weakest aspect of the PAC112 vibrato bridge is its waffur theeeeen sustain block. Some of the Wilkinson WV 5+1 steel block vibrato bridges can be persuaded to fit with minimal work on the guitar body.
The stock pickups and controls leave much to be desired. As a PAC311 owner, I can assure you that a humbucker-sized P90 will sound nice.
Probably only essential if you expect the vibrato to hold pitch. If you lock the bridge down against the body, the stock machineheads should be acceptable.
Back to the scheduled programme!
The back of the neck needs a good scrub up, and I might go over it with some fine sand paper, maybe starting at 800 grit and working my way up, to smoothen out some of the nicks and imperfections in the lacquer.
I am also pretty dead-set on switching the tuners. I don't think the ones on there now are particularly bad, but I want to be able to gig this guitar at some point, so a set of locking keys might go some way to helping that. Besides, the current ones are filthy.
I also stripped the current bridge assembly of all of it's pieces, and am soaking the bridge plate and screws in soap and water. Will then use an old toothbrush and metal polish to get it nice and shiny, before putting on a heavier block from my parts drawer and some new saddles from that same drawer. I'm also hoping one of the selection of trem arms I have knocking about will fit.
With a Wilkinson 5+1 pivot arrangement, you would need to fill and redrill one screw hole in the body. (The one in front of the low E saddle.)
If you are going to refinish the body anyway, there is nothing to stop you making all manner of alterations to the vibrato cavity.