The resurrection of the Le Brea

Another resurrection of an old friend. Many years ago, while working in a great music store, I sold a Fender LeBrea to a nice man. 20 or so years later, I get a request to repair a friend's guitar, belonging to her father. My friend, I hadn't seen in a dog's age either! It turns out, I did know her dad and indeed sold him the guitar. She got it from her uncle in Kentucky, years later, in stowage. I got it home, opened the case to find it without strings. Further inspection showed the output jack was gone. I found some wires bundled up and tie wrapped to the pre-amp inside the body. After removing the pre-amp, I found the wires going to the pickup and the wires going to the jack were cut, the pickup itself, gone. The jack lead was now too short to go out to the end of the body. My first plan was to unsolder the short wires off the pre-amp and install a new lead of proper length. Closer inspection reveled it would be necessary to completely unsolder and remove the three pots off the pre-amp circuit board. Nah!! Way too much labor. I opted to tack on a length of wire to the existing lead. Ditto for the pickup connections. First, I assembled the entire system out of the guitar and plugged into an amp to test it. Nice, everything seemed to work fine. The original pickup must have been glued somewhere inside near the bridge plate. I had a replacement under the saddle pickup for the repair. I was happy to find out the new pickup was going to act right married to the Le Brea pre-amp! Now to install the new pickup. First, I un-soldered my test connections to the pickup. Next, I had to drill a small hole in the end of the bridge for the pickup wires to feed into the body. Next, I had to re-solder my pickup wires to the pre-amp, install a new jack, re-install the pre-amp, put a fresh 9 V battery into place and tie wrap my wires and secure them out of sight. Now for new strings and the ceremonial test through an amp. It worked fine! Sigh of relief!!! The strings were a bit high off the fingerboard so remove the saddle and sand the bottom and install. Next, the height at the nut could use some adjustment. One string at a time, loosen, move out of the way, and file each nut slot. Replace string, tune to pitch and check. Repeat the steps until the string found it's proper place in the nut slot. Repeat the steps for the remainder of the strings. Test. Nice; I could play this one all night. Tomorrow, a good cleaning and polishing and this baby's ready for Bonnie to play her little pea picken heart out!

Attack of the Teisco Cont.!!

OK, the second and final post concerning the attack of the Teisco!

As I stated in the previous post, my friend passed on to me his first guitar to be restored, an old Zenon, made by the Teisco company in Japan, most likely in the early sixties. These student model guitars are now coveted by many. In the case of this particular Zenon, by buddy just would love to have his first guitar playable once again.

In the previous installment, I stated that half of the tuners were missing, the jack loose, and many years of grunge covered the instrument. I have always kept old guitar parts in storage, to be used or re-cycled as needed. I did manage to have the parts to re-assemble the six tuners! The nut was gone and I did use a new cheap plastic variety, I'm pretty sure Teisco used at the time. I took the pickguard off and checked the wiring. I found a broken wire and loose jack. I spritzed the three controls with WD 40, soldered the broken wire back onto the switch, and replaced the output jack. The tone capacitor was gone and the wiring to the controls altered. I did not want to disturb any more of the circuit than I had to, and decided to leave the tone control alone.

I removed the primitive tremolo system under the tailpiece, and attempted to adapt a Floyd Rose part to accept a whammy bar, but the system is too primitive, so that too I left alone.

I began to string it up after re-assembling and cleaning the area, only to find the strings high off the fretboard. I removed the neck and cut two plastic shims to place in the neck pocket, and replaced the neck. The strings were nicely over the fingerboard, requiring even raising the bridge adjustment wheels up a bit. The bottom of the pickguard, housing the output jack, was broken off. I decided to use the original repaired section, but added three more screws to secure the section. It was time for the test! I plugged it in and started playing. The bridge pickup really honks nicely and the neck pickup warms the tone. One of the rocker switches, is a bit persnickety, but does work. This baby is good for another 45 years, I reckon!!!

Attack of the Teisco!!

The latest restoration project: An old Zenon from the 60's, belonging to a good friend of mine. His first guitar, he'd love to have it restored. Many folks covet these cheesey guitars, most likely manufactured by Teisco in Japan, with names like: Norma, Zenon, Teisco.

Stay tuned for the latest news on this restoration!