I have to say this was a pretty brutal treatment of an old guitar, hammering a putty knife against the body to force the neck off with lots of wood tear out? I cringed at that work. especially, at least not showing any heat applied to loosen the glue; not using a leveling sander on the fretboard, just fingers with sandpaper that will make an uneven surface, wallowing out the peghead with a really crude wobbly drill job, you know those holes are all egg shaped and the tuners are going to wiggle wobble around in them. That was a little tough to watch.
Have to agree with you, especially the neck work. A $12 radius block for sanding the fretboard is WELL worth it and would clean it up as well as leveling it out with hardly any more work. Have to applaud him for working to save a beat up old guitar but he needs to learn better procedures to do it properly.
Thanks for sharing. I have a similar, I believe Kay or Kay derivative that I plan to restore. I've been looking at neck mounted floating humbuckers but I may add a piezoelectric disc as well. I don't like the piezo tone on it's own but it could be useful in combination.
So I have one of these old Kay's that the neck is only held on by the strings. I think it's the same model as this one. I am planning on doing a neck reset to it. Never did one before but I have worked on my guitars before. I figure it's a good guitar to try on. It's unplayable right now. I want to use it as a slide guitar anyway. I will be putting a pickup on it if the neck reset comes out ok. What pickup did you use?
Nicely repaired and lovingly restored. Sounds horrible amped, sorry. Maybe it's the recording? Piezoelectric discs really need an on-board pre amp and battery with a final buffered output stage to pump a full frequency range down a guitar lead and not sound tinny. Piezo discs have a high impedance and only micro-volts output, even with shielded wire from disc to amp, the wire capacitance acts like a tone filter stripping away whatever guts the signal has. Aerial coax cable (low capacitance) might carry the signal better in a short lead but a normal (non acoustic) guitar amp would have to be completely maxxed out and buzzing like crazy :). Those little amps built for cigar box guitars are loud but heavily distorted, hiding the tinny piezo output. A shallow Di-Armond, a filtertron or a soap bar type, normal wire wound pickup would make a decent jazz box or a very desirable blues box out of it? There are holes in the front where a pickup probably once lived.
You'd rout right through the tone bars for a HB or P-90 or whatever, but could maybe surface mount a gold foil without wrecking the poor thing. Agreed that piezo's not cutting it; might be fun to try a concentric volume pot to blend the two, though. Where'd he mount that piezo anyway? I've gotten way better results using actual Radio Shack buzzers I cannibalized, with an external preamp.
Nice job! Too bad the top was in such rough shape, the rest was pretty decent. If you want to get back to it later, it’s possible to do a little touch up, sand the surface smooth with 1500 grit and put some clear lacquer on it (just the top). I have some videos up of repair on a very similar guitar, made by Kay and sold at Western Auto as a True Tone, Kay also sold them through Sears as a Silver Tone but they were all the same guitars.
That was a good restoration. Too bad you didn't use the original fixing plates that the tuning pegs were on. Does it still have the same pickup? There are still a lot of Kay and Harmony/Stella guitars in pawn shops, and on online buying sites like eBay
I guess that’s the appeal of them. I just picked up an old Kay guitar from the 60’s. All laminated wood. They were cheap instruments then, and often made guitars for other companies. A lot of Kay instruments didn’t even have branding on them. Cheap guitars but still fun to mess with I guess.
I have to say this was a pretty brutal treatment of an old guitar, hammering a putty knife against the body to force the neck off with lots of wood tear out? I cringed at that work. especially, at least not showing any heat applied to loosen the glue; not using a leveling sander on the fretboard, just fingers with sandpaper that will make an uneven surface, wallowing out the peghead with a really crude wobbly drill job, you know those holes are all egg shaped and the tuners are going to wiggle wobble around in them. That was a little tough to watch.
Have to agree with you, especially the neck work. A $12 radius block for sanding the fretboard is WELL worth it and would clean it up as well as leveling it out with hardly any more work. Have to applaud him for working to save a beat up old guitar but he needs to learn better procedures to do it properly.
I’m gonna be honest I’m restoring a guitar right now literally for the first time ever and I’ve done a much better job than this…
Alot of work there. You brought it back from the junk pile. Congrats. 👍
Thanks 👍
Very well worth the restoration
Thanks for sharing. I have a similar, I believe Kay or Kay derivative that I plan to restore. I've been looking at neck mounted floating humbuckers but I may add a piezoelectric disc as well. I don't like the piezo tone on it's own but it could be useful in combination.
How do you adjust bridge height? Are there any measurements for that?
What is the neck clamp that you used?
So I have one of these old Kay's that the neck is only held on by the strings. I think it's the same model as this one. I am planning on doing a neck reset to it. Never did one before but I have worked on my guitars before. I figure it's a good guitar to try on. It's unplayable right now. I want to use it as a slide guitar anyway. I will be putting a pickup on it if the neck reset comes out ok. What pickup did you use?
Do you know if the bridge is held by the strings too?
@dorianblue8526 yes, the strings are holding the bridge on too
nice job
Any books u recommend to buy on how to repair vintage guitars like les paul gibson and Strats?
Kudos on a realistic restore of this old dandy. She sonds great. Very well done Dane.
Was that originally an electric acoustic?
No,
@@ZIMMSGUITARS beautiful job installing it!
Hi Dane! That’s amazing!
The end product looks incredible. You’ve got skills 👍
Hope your gig at the whiskey went well.
Take care.
Thanks so much!
Awesome video!
You take woodworking courses?
Nicely repaired and lovingly restored. Sounds horrible amped, sorry. Maybe it's the recording? Piezoelectric discs really need an on-board pre amp and battery with a final buffered output stage to pump a full frequency range down a guitar lead and not sound tinny. Piezo discs have a high impedance and only micro-volts output, even with shielded wire from disc to amp, the wire capacitance acts like a tone filter stripping away whatever guts the signal has. Aerial coax cable (low capacitance) might carry the signal better in a short lead but a normal (non acoustic) guitar amp would have to be completely maxxed out and buzzing like crazy :). Those little amps built for cigar box guitars are loud but heavily distorted, hiding the tinny piezo output.
A shallow Di-Armond, a filtertron or a soap bar type, normal wire wound pickup would make a decent jazz box or a very desirable blues box out of it? There are holes in the front where a pickup probably once lived.
You'd rout right through the tone bars for a HB or P-90 or whatever, but could maybe surface mount a gold foil without wrecking the poor thing. Agreed that piezo's not cutting it; might be fun to try a concentric volume pot to blend the two, though. Where'd he mount that piezo anyway? I've gotten way better results using actual Radio Shack buzzers I cannibalized, with an external preamp.
Nice job! Too bad the top was in such rough shape, the rest was pretty decent. If you want to get back to it later, it’s possible to do a little touch up, sand the surface smooth with 1500 grit and put some clear lacquer on it (just the top). I have some videos up of repair on a very similar guitar, made by Kay and sold at Western Auto as a True Tone, Kay also sold them through Sears as a Silver Tone but they were all the same guitars.
Please don’t tell me you do this for a living. That was the most painful hack job I’ve ever seen every step of the way.
That was a good restoration. Too bad you didn't use the original fixing plates that the tuning pegs were on. Does it still have the same pickup? There are still a lot of Kay and Harmony/Stella guitars in pawn shops, and on online buying sites like eBay
Lot of effort.
Looks and sounds just as shit as when i bought one 50 years ago J Steven Anderson. Scotland
I guess that’s the appeal of them. I just picked up an old Kay guitar from the 60’s. All laminated wood. They were cheap instruments then, and often made guitars for other companies. A lot of Kay instruments didn’t even have branding on them. Cheap guitars but still fun to mess with I guess.
Loose the background music
i have this same guitar 😅
thanks for the upload, it plays ok but i think i need to tweak on it for a bit
get some flatwound strings 💖