Examples

Here's a nice example of a complete restauration of an elderly guitar.

This old Aria was a present for a friends confirmation. Today he closer to his retirement... Therefor the instrument has been through quite a lot over the decades. It's been played a lot, spent some time in the attic and has been "nailed to the wall" as decoration.	Lots of "patina" around the pickups. The bridge is covered in grime.

The headstock is quite dirty too, the remaining strings are in a mess, the frets are worn and the fingerboard is played down.	Because of its overall bad state I decided to completely refret the fingerboard. I removed the old frets and sanded the fingerboard to an even surface using a radius block to achieve the original radius of the fingerboard.

The fingerboard is now clean, smooth, the slots are cleaned and it's ready for the new frets.	The new frets are in, marked red and ready for levelling and dressing.

The once lovingly handpainted bandlogo has suffered quite badly over the years. I freshened it up and covered it with a protective layer of varnish. I took out the tremolo to disassemble and clean it.	The frets are now dressed and polished to a nice shine. I also put a second layer of varnish on the logo.

After a special bath I cleaned the parts of the tremolo individually with such highly sofisticated tools as a toothbrush and rags.	The freshly cleaned Tremolo is reassembled and shines (almost) like new.

Next step: The electronics. This looks surprisingly good. All solder points are intact so this part is primarily about a thorough cleaning.	I roughly disassembled the pickups in order to clean and polish their covers. I also polished up the pickguard and all the knobs. After reassembly it's all shiny again.

The tremolo and electronics are back in place. Time to put on new strings.	The result. The guitar is restored to its old glory. What you can't see in the picture is that I touched up a 3 cm2 hole in the finish - but then, that's the idea... Oh, and yes, it works perfectly again.