This is how I received the guitar. When the they pulled the bridge studs out they chipped a dime sized 1/8" piece of wood around each hole. There were also 5 holes in the top from the old Tremotone tremolo and more mounting holes in the headstock for tuners and the serial number was half scraped off. The guitar had a 'worn' red finished from the factory.
I filled in the holes, glued the chipped pieces of wood and dyed and colored the filler in to match the color and grain of the wood and finish.
I did an initial spot level of the frets and polished them.
Here I sanded the body and neck to reflect a more "worn" look.
I then sanded a little more to take the top coat off mellow out some of the red color.
Here I stained the back, neck, and headstock with a dark brown over the sanded "faded" red original finish. In the pictures the "worn" spots show up a little more because of the flash than they really do in real life. The stain added a lot of brown making the bright red a little easier on the eyes.
Once I finish routing the pickup cavities and drilling for the new bridge, I will stain the top the same way that I did the back and neck. Then when the whole guitar is finished I will spray it with a super light coat of Niro Cellulose lacquer.
Here I used a paper template and several cardboard templates to make this 1/2" MDF template that replicates the lower half of the body. I'll use this template to cut and route the pickguard. This is a completely different design from the original pickguard that came with the guitar, but I think that it looks cooler and will be a little more original looking.
