In some recent "horse swapping" with eESGe, I acquired his Firebird Zero.
A much maligned and often disrespected guitar in todays gear snob circles.
It had already visited my shop for a middle pickup, to move the three way switch and add another volume pot.
So now this beast was mine.
Cool, lets rip it apart and address some shortcomings of the breed.
So as I was carefully unsoldering the connections to remove the pickguard, my soldering iron's tip
fell out of the iron right onto the face of the guitar burning a lovely little divot where it came to rest.
This unplanned catastrophic event did not deter me though, as I had some invasive mods already planned.
One of the universal complaints about these Zero's is the wonky bridge.
When the guitar was here before, I lowered the wraparound as low as it could go by countersinking the posts. So low, the underside of the bridge had pressed indentations into the top.
Clearly this bridge had to go. But what would be a suitable replacement?
I wanted to use a Bigsby on it, but couldn't find a wraparound roller bridge in existence.
Some old SG's had the Lyre tailpiece with the strings going over the wraparound, but this never looked right to me.
I was limited in bridge choices by the tailpiece post spacing.
Or was I? If I plugged the existing post holes, I could redrill them for a tune o matic post spacing, then could have my roller bridge with the Bigsby.
So I pulled the bridge/tailpiece anchors and made a couple poplar dowels with the correct grain orientation.
I glued them into place, repaired the dents from the old bridge, repaired the damage from the soldering iron tip and covered everything in black primer.
Before primer. Wraparound holes have been plugged. That spot at the lower end is where the soldering tip landed.
After a few coats of primer and a bit of sanding and blending... Soooo smooth.
Now when the new bridge gets here I'll locate & drill the post holes.
Then it will be time for a snazzy jazzy paint job and a Bigsby.
Stay tuned, it will be EPIC!
A much maligned and often disrespected guitar in todays gear snob circles.
It had already visited my shop for a middle pickup, to move the three way switch and add another volume pot.
So now this beast was mine.
Cool, lets rip it apart and address some shortcomings of the breed.
So as I was carefully unsoldering the connections to remove the pickguard, my soldering iron's tip
fell out of the iron right onto the face of the guitar burning a lovely little divot where it came to rest.
This unplanned catastrophic event did not deter me though, as I had some invasive mods already planned.
One of the universal complaints about these Zero's is the wonky bridge.
When the guitar was here before, I lowered the wraparound as low as it could go by countersinking the posts. So low, the underside of the bridge had pressed indentations into the top.
Clearly this bridge had to go. But what would be a suitable replacement?
I wanted to use a Bigsby on it, but couldn't find a wraparound roller bridge in existence.
Some old SG's had the Lyre tailpiece with the strings going over the wraparound, but this never looked right to me.
I was limited in bridge choices by the tailpiece post spacing.
Or was I? If I plugged the existing post holes, I could redrill them for a tune o matic post spacing, then could have my roller bridge with the Bigsby.
So I pulled the bridge/tailpiece anchors and made a couple poplar dowels with the correct grain orientation.
I glued them into place, repaired the dents from the old bridge, repaired the damage from the soldering iron tip and covered everything in black primer.
Before primer. Wraparound holes have been plugged. That spot at the lower end is where the soldering tip landed.
After a few coats of primer and a bit of sanding and blending... Soooo smooth.
Now when the new bridge gets here I'll locate & drill the post holes.
Then it will be time for a snazzy jazzy paint job and a Bigsby.
Stay tuned, it will be EPIC!
