Guitar Collector Forum

As regular visitors will know, I recently acquired a 1976 Shergold Meteor Deluxe. It is basically sound, but in a pretty well-used condition and in need of some TLC.

So, here we go.. the first stage of getting it up to scratch:- cleaning off 34 years of grime.

[Reduced size pictures posted here (click image for slightly larger versions), but if you're interested in better quality and more photos, see here: http://picasaweb.google.com/marsguitars ... luxePart1# ]

First, get those strings off
I love this Planet Waves string winder with built in cutter - don't mess about unwinding old strings, just cut 'em off.
Then of course need to take of the plastic bridge cover..
First thing to try is cleaning up rusty screws (as mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=380 )

It's all pretty grimey...

So, I took out the rusty bridge cover screws....

And 3 truss rod cover plate screws...

I'll do all screws in due course, but for now just wanted to try out the Dremel for cleaning off rust.
So, into the shed and drill some 2mm holes in a scrap of wood to hold the rusty screws...

A quick trip to B&Q to get some Dremel wire brushes - I got this bargain set of 30 parts... cleaning and polishing kit...

But when I went to use the brass wire brushes, realise that the shaft is too small. Damn!
Back to B&Q for collet set - 5 sizes. But cost twice the price of the 30pc set!

Once the Dremel was sorted, it did the job very well.

A light touch is needed; I used the cup brush for screw heads....... and this one for the threads...
Very effective, but a light touch is needed - especially on the threads, where it would be easy to get carried away and wear off the thread!

I'll do the other screws (scratchplate and pickups) at a later stage, but with limited time available today, I wanted to onto some cleaning and polishing...

I bought some highly-recommended Virtuoso Premium Cleaner and Virtuoso Premium Polish a couple of montsh ago, but hadn't tried them yet.

So, first the cleaner. Here's the top part of the body cleaned, as a demo - difficult to photograph the effect, but very very effective. A bit disturbing that it smells of T-Cut... I guess it must have some of the same chemicals, but not quite so strong. Certainly does a great job of getting rid of years of grime...
BEFORE:(note bridge cover marks)AFTER: (part above bridge cleaned)

Control knobs removed to get at very dirty scratchplate...
I used a cheap toothbrush to get into some of the hard-to-reach bits...

Having cleaned the whole body & neck with Virtuoso Premium Cleaner, I then polished it all with Virtuoso Premium Polish. This is quite different to the cleaner... gives a VERY shiny gloss finish (albeit with trademark cracks in the Shergold). It also smells nice.

I treated the plastic parts with Plexus - an amazing product that I use on my motorcycle screen and other plastic parts. I also used motorbike visor cleaner to get grime out of the ridges in the knobs!After polishing, it had such a glossy shine that it was difficult to photograph due to reflections!Note non-rusty screws on bridge cover and cleaned-up knobs...The neck looks great now, although frets need proper attention at some stage...Not a "full restoration", by any means, but a pretty good improvement for 3 ish hours enjoyable work. Next stage will be to clean up remaining screws, clean pickups, dress and polish frets, re-string and setup. But that's for another day...

Bigger images here: http://picasaweb.google.com/marsguitars ... luxePart1#

Looking good Paul. I haven't used that polish/clean system, I use the Planet Waves 3 step stuff and find it works well on the old Nitrocellulose finishes, bit like some cars, if you use a paste that is too aggressive you end up looking a a shiny bit of timber/metal A tip for cleaning the knobs...chuck them in with the washing up and let them soak in the Washing up liquid, I've even put some of mine in the dishwasher...results are brilliant. Another one is "Q" tips for the areas around the pups, lets you get that last little hint of polish from the joint with the body top---