Leaderboard

But how does it sound, now, Steiner? Quickish ancedote: Headed to a party in my S-10 about thirty-five years ago. Rutting season, and I was being careful! Middle of nowhere, small herd pops out of the scrub pines to my right. I t-boned a large doe. Stove in the front end, radiator Swiss Cheesed. Truck, with the headlights still on, sits there steaming like the Union Pacific's Big Boy. This is pre-cell phone days. I have about ten miles to hike back to town. About that time a car, big Buick Estate Wagon, rolls up from the other direction. I wave, and the car stops about twenty-five yards past me, about where I hit the deer. Great! A ride home. Two Good Ol' Boys pile out of the Buick, pitch the deer into the back...and take off. I got home at about 3:00 a.m.

Ive never worried about dinging or scratching a guitar, Im going to at some stage if Im going to put serious play time on it. My most gigged guitars are the most dinged, scratched and worn. What relics are good for, for me, are taking in trades, because they are easy to sell on, there is a demand. I took on a lot of them because of that. Oh man, I spent so much time trying to be less direct. I cut paragraphs out and redid them, then deleted them, reworded what I kept, re edited again.....all I want to say is, I cant stand relic'd guitars

NIce job, Brent. It totally baffles me as to why someone would want to mark up a beautiful, new, expensive guitar like that. I just don't get it.

Rob, this may have more than one meaning.....

MORE AFTERS…

So I saw this Custom core 535 on the gear page…. The guy had gotten it in a trade and was told that it was “artisan aged” but the guy lied to him, someone had tried to age it themselves by taking 120 or 80 grit sandpaper to the finish!!! (I’m not joking) So the guy I bought it from was very upset and really felt defeated. And basically just wanted to get out from underneath it. So we made a deal. It’s a 2023 CC 535 in Dark Cherry Sunburst After opening the case, and evaluating the damage done to the finish and how deep the scratches were, and the fact that the gloss was gone, I decided to take the bull by the horns and try to make lemonade with the lemons I was handed. If Pete Moreno were still alive, I would have taken it to him I sure do miss Pete I thought about taking it to a professional luthier and seeing if could be buffed out, but that would have cost a lot of money and I’m sure there would have been no guarantee that he would have not burned through the finish. So the first thing I did was completely disassemble the guitar. Took all the hardware off. Pickups out. Dropped all the electronics inside the body. Then I wet sanded the back of the body, front of the body and the front and back of the headstock with 2000 wet/dry sanding paper. I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded The scratches were just too deep. I was afraid I was going to go through the clear. After sanding, I put some liquid scratch remover on it, that I bought at the auto parts store and used my cordless drill with a small buffing wheel. I buffed and buffed and buffed… the gloss started to come back but 75% of the scratches remained. Then, to bring back some more of the gloss, I took some turtle wax and my drill and buffed on it with the car wax some more. I was really happy with the amount of gloss I was able to get back!! It just looks like an old, scratched up Heritage now!!! Then I pulled all the electronics back up, installed a different set of pickups (I’m not a big fan of the 225 classic pups), put the tuners and hardware back on, oiled the fretboard. Then put new strings on it and did a complete setup!!!! I’ll let you be the judge. But I think it looks A LOT BETTER. Yes, it still has a lot of scratches in it, but at least it’s not all dull looking now. It’s always gonna be a player because of what some dumbass did to the finish. But in reality, it just looks like a guitar that has been played A LOT 🤣 Anyway…the most important part is that this CC 535 PLAYS AND SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY STELLAR!!! It’s a friggin TONE MACHINE!!! BEFORE…. AFTER…..

I said it on the gearpage to you, and I'll say it again. Buy some clear and respray it with a clear topcoat, I know you are afraid you can't do it, and you think it's a valuable guitar, but there are plenty of how to videos out there, and you will increase the value with a decent job. And the buffing out of the new coat would be less work that what you've done already. Nitro is pretty forgiving. Educate yourself, take your time and I bet you can do it.

Well, in any event, I did say I was being careful....

I don't know if simply buffing would have fixed it, but the advantage of nitro is that it could have been resprayed with clear and then buffed out. I don't know that Heritage would do it but Arnie Hileski or Dave Teske might have been able to do it.

Well, Brent, you could’ve saved yourself a lot of trouble by just taking it to Heritage after disassembling it. They would’ve buffed it out for you.

Because it increases the value!

Oh yeah Rich!!! It’s a real joy!!!

Thanks Scott!!!

Thank you Tim!!!

@brentrocks...Brother, you are the original 'fix-it dude' when it comes to battered Heritage guitars. Like your former broke-neck 535 of a few years back, this restored CC 535 came out great!

I don't think that any of us have been privy to the current practice. Some years back they had the LW series which we saw, and of course we are familiar with the Millennium. I don't remember seeing any H150 body blanks with chambers when we visited back in August. Tim Pierce just did a video about his special guitar and their new Standard II guitars.

Great job Brent! You put a lot of work into that axe and it looks much better. Enjoy!

No worries.. As you know, it's always so easy to work on the electrics of a semi hollow guitar. 😕 When I was working on my 535, somehow the lead from a tone cap broke off. Turn the knob and ... nothing changes. So it's pull the harness out and do it all again.

Thank you Lyle!! I cannot imagine why someone would take a $4900 guitar and take sandpaper to it??? All I can say is….DONT DO DRUGS. LOL. 😆

I thought I was done chasing the full-hollow-with-humbuckers will o' the wisp. Then, the esteemed Talisman Rich posted in another thread that Wolftone makes HBs in P-90 size . . . Little wheels in little head turned . . . Found a 2023 530 in ebony at Dave's Guitar for $1750 and bought Wolftone Legends for it . . . Ebony is good color so I can tell my axes apart: 535 in OSB, 530 in red, and now RichCaster in ebony . . . Looking for good bankruptcy lawyer . . .

I don't think the Standard II is an entry level guitar. They are basically the same as a standard. The Ascents are more entry level. So I guess, you have the choice of the Standard C (.88 to 1.0") or the Standard II 60s (.84 to .92) neck. The biggest problem is that not everyone prefers a fat neck. If you make them all baseball bats, the there will be folks like me that won't be comfortable. But DetroitBlues will be ecstatic! Were they bolt on necks, you can have 2 or 3 profiles, and then someone could choose their favorite. That's not possible for a set neck. I remember early on when G&L had about 5 different neck profiles, and if you ordered a guitar, you just told them which style you wanted. I think they even offered different radius and nut widths. Keisel still allows you to choose thick or thin, and 5 different radius options.

Golly. When I intersected with a local deer while on a 55mph road last Thursday it never occurred to me that I was increasing the value. I feel better.

I don't get it either but I understand it. Not everyone can afford a strat Jimi Hendrix lit on fire, but everybody wants one