Quick overview, I inherited this guitar from one of my best friends (Tim) who passed away last year. It was the first G&L I ever laid hands on way back in the late 90's/early 00's. I didn't even know he still had it, turns out it was in disrepair sitting in its case for I'm not sure how many years.
What I've learned so far is it was not always a natural finish/black pick guard guitar. At some point it was white with a white pickguard. I'm not sure if Tim stripped it or someone before him but there's a bit of paint in the pickup cavity to see the original color and the pickguard is clearly painted black. I don't think the wood was resealed after feels like bare wood.
The body is dated September 16, 1992 ; neck date is Nov 27, 1995 - Guessing the neck was replaced but who knows?
Only pickup that worked was the mini humbucker in the bridge. Neck pup has broken windings, not sure about the middle but the guitar was wired for just bridge pup to Vol, bypassing tone. Sounds pretty bad
Has locking tuners but they're missing parts, no trem arm
The plan is to get this sounding great again and address some of the sharpie, keeping some as this is a sentimental piece.
I've had the guitar for almost a year and have been slowly accumulating parts so far I've gotten the needed parts to restore the sperzel tuners, new trem arm from G&L, I opted for a set of Klein Epic '62 Strat pickups with a half blender wiring scheme.
Where I get stuck is on wether or not to refinish.
What I'm thinking of doing is a "relic" type finish on the front, sealing/clear coating the whole thing with paint only on the front. None of the marker on the front has any sentimental meaning (the back does) and the sharpie does not come off easily. I was able to get the red off of the headstock with a magic eraser because the finish is still in tact under the marker. Not so much for the body. I don't really want to sand it down too much since the original finish was most likely sanded off. So that is my workaround, if I finish the front and blend it into the bare wood on the back it may look better than a hard line transition between finishes.
I don't want to cover up the back so the other option is to just leave it as is. Although I already got rid of the phallus on the top horn
looks a little blank up there now in contrast to the rest of the front.I should mention I've never refinished a guitar before so this may come out real bad
Opinions on if I should attempt to refinish?
Any input is appreciated!
I'll keep you posted as this project comes together
-Dave