The Steel Guitar Forum

Here is a 73 Lacquer / wood neck Emmons in the process of getting a full resto by me. Somewhere along the way someone anodized all the aluminum gold. Well, it's going back to polished aluminum. I'm dropping the cabinet off at Southbound in a few days (same guys who do the finishes on ShowPros) . Now I'm going through all the small parts which are incredibly crusty and dirty. Here are a few pics and a link to all the pics is below.

A big Thank you to Lynn Stafford for the good recommendations and parts I will need

http://www.p2pamps.com/steelguitars

Before and after changer... Amazing what 40+ years will do to a changer. She will play like new soon.

Shazam!...thats a beauty...good luck on it..

That looks great Mike! Keep the photos of the restoration coming. I love seeing this kind of stuff.

Don

I kinda like the gold, Mike.

Very cool!!

Herb Steiner wrote:I kinda like the gold, Mike.

Me too. I think you should keep it. Especially if it goes well wth the wood stain you will be using.

What is going to happen to the fit of the rollers in the roller nut slots if the anodized surfaces are removed?

Hi Chris

Those rollers will fit just fine after the gold is removed as anodizing is almost like a stain and really has little if any thickness. That apparently was done after this guitar was made by lord knows who. In fact it buffs right off with not too much effort.

Herb Steiner wrote:I kinda like the gold, Mike.

Hate it LOL - besides, it all so rough in person I could never keep it on there. I think I'm going to do her up in a blue/black like this pic...

Anodizing is not like s stain. A stain you could remove with a solvent and maintain material thickness. You are going to need to remove material to remove the anodizing. The buffing wheel you mention will not access the slots in the keyheads.
Count on 0.002" thickness of your gold anodizing in the surface of the Emmons alloy. The sanding or polishing belt will be removing 0.004" from each slot when you add both sides of each slot. Four thousandths is a lot of added slop. That is a piece of 7x tippet material.

Chris Lucker wrote:Anodizing is not like s stain. A stain you could remove with a solvent and maintain material thickness. You are going to need to remove material to remove the anodizing. The buffing wheel you mention will not access the slots in the keyheads.
Count on 0.002" thickness of your gold anodizing in the surface of the Emmons alloy. The sanding or polishing belt will be removing 0.004" from each slot when you add both sides of each slot. Four thousandths is a lot of added slop. That is a piece of 7x tippet material.

Thank you for you insight Chis. You are obviously more skilled at this than I am. I guess stain was abad choice of words to describe the anodizing.

I have done it before, but have a lathe where I could machine the new rollers to fit.

Well I got a lot of the small parts cleaned and ready to go yesterday in my Ultrasonic hot tank. Legs were froze up so they are perfect now. I'm going to need a few more bell cranks and some new rods too. Body is headed for the finisher this morning... Now I wait.

Looks great, Mike! Those zip-loc bags look like a must to keep everything organized and not find extra parts after it's assembled Two thumbs up for that blue and black color combination.

Jeff Garden wrote:Looks great, Mike! Those zip-loc bags look like a must to keep everything organized and not find extra parts after it's assembled Two thumbs up for that blue and black color combination.

Thanks Jeff

Yeah I'm an amateur when it comes to this so the bags help me keep it all straight. My real thing is building/repairing tube amps which is of course dealing with lots of parts as well. Now it will be about 4 weeks before the body comes back (I hate waiting LOL)

Wow Mike, you doing a great job, I liked the gold too.
That's going to be one nice guitar.

Steve Fazio at Southbound did some work for me and I was very happy with the result. I went with poly and was glad I did.

Good luck..looks like a fun project... and when yer done:

OOH BABY!

Best, JW

john widgren wrote:Steve Fazio at Southbound did some work for me and I was very happy with the result. I went with poly and was glad I did.

Good luck..looks like a fun project... and when yer done:

OOH BABY!

Best, JW

Yeah ole Steve has quite the operation over there at Southbound. Just came from there and that smell! Love wood-shop smells. 4 weeks and waiting

You're doing all the right stuff, man. The bags and the labeling are a must for OCD'ers. I use the same system when disassembling and reassembling. Makes things so much easier.

That will be one beautiful guitar when finished, Mike. Of this I am sure.

That is a huge undertaking.
You got some skills....

Rick

www.rickjohnsoncabinets.com

That 'before' picture is scary - what on earth were they thinking?????

great stuff, thanks for sharing !

Looking good. The gold looked like nasty nicotine stain. As Roger wrote. What were they thinking.

Use the zip lock bags during rebuilds too.