Restoring a vintage Hofner Colorama II (lots of pics)

[irishstu]

Hey guys,

 

Thanks to those of you that support this project. For those that disagree about removing the lacquer/paint, I completely understand where you're coming from, but I've made my decision. When I got this guitar off ebay I was hoping both could be preserved, but when I saw the guitar in person I decided both had to go. They are already too far gone.

 

Please also understand that this was a budget guitar in its day. It's still not worth much (like I said, one in excellent condition can be bought for about $300 if you look around), and if there was any sort of financial incentive behind this restoration, the thing would've been binned immediately. I'm doing this as a labour of love. I've made my decision how I'm going to go about it, and if some of you disagree that's completely fine, but please do try to respect my choice. Remember this isn't a vintage Strat or LP or anything of value. Just a cheap (but of some sentimental value to me) guitar that I've decided to practise working on, so that next time I need to do something similar to a more valuable guitar, I'll know how to do it.

 

csm, you are right, indeed. This same model (or close enough) also came with a vinyl covering. Apparently Hofner couldn't get them out the door quick enough in the early sixties, so they did it in order to avoid the waiting time required to let the paint dry. Here's a fine example: http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/hofner/myaxe/62col.html

Incidentally the "I" just means the single pickup version and the "II" is the double pickup version, so there are versions of the "I" that were painted.

[irishstu]

First of all, we lay the neck out on its jig just like in the previous post and then sort out the fret wire. These frets have been bought pre-cut and pre-radiused. They

[irishstu]

We use a plastic-faced deadblow hammer to tap the frets into place. This type of hammer is very forgiving and will not damage the frets (well, unless you REALLY try), so you can just keep on tapping until they are nice and snug in the slots. I tapped the ends of the fret into place before tapping the middle. This helps the fret to not spring up at the edges at a later date.

 

Here's my hammer:

 

 

Once all of the frets have been installed, we can use a fret rocker to check if any of them are sitting too high. If so, we simply give them another tap or two to encourage them to go a bit lower.

 

 

The frets are fitted, but they

[Vibroluxman]

neck is looking good. where did you get the precut frets? what type of file are you using on the edges?

[irishstu]

 

neck is looking good. where did you get the precut frets? what type of file are you using on the edges?

 

 

Thanks, taylor210eman. The frets are from this place: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/CHOPPERS-MUSIC

It's not that I had anything against cutting the frets myself; just that these ended up being an economical solution. They're sold as a set for a Stratocaster, which actually left me with two spare frets. A good thing, actually, since I messed up one of them already, and I'm a little doubtful about one more. I'll find out if it's a problem once the whole guitar's together.

 

I just used standard files (and a lot of care) on the edges. I don't really have a lot of specialised tools, and this is my first fret job, so I'm probably putting in a lot more effort than would be necessary if I had the right tools, or the experience, but I'm learning a lot along the way.

 

Oh yeah, one more thing I should mention is that I'm currently in Taiwan and, although this doesn't really present a problem as far as getting stuff over the Internet, I have a very hard time finding guitar finishing products here (which usually can't get sent overseas).

[irishstu]

Stripping the guitar body:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[irishstu]

Fixing the screw hole under the tremolo cover plate:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cutting a trough under the pickup pole screws to give them some relief (they were sticking right through the pickups and causing the pickguard to lift and warp):

 

 

[irishstu]

Removing the broken screws:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fixing another screw hole that was too close to an edge:

 

 

[irishstu]

Plugging the double set of pickguard screw holes and the enlarged holes in the tremolo cavity:

 

 

 

 

 

Filling and sanding imperfections:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[irishstu]

Deepening the serial number imprint:

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by vidiot72 and his amazing decals, I decided to make a replacement decal in Illlustrator and print it onto waterslide decal paper:

 

 

 

 

 

[irishstu]

Appplying the decal:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[irishstu]

Lacquering the neck:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[irishstu]

Plugging up and drilling a new rear strap button hole:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drilling a hole from the control cavity through to the tremolo area, so that the tremolo unit can be earthed/grounded:

 

[irishstu]

Spraying the body:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[xrleroyx]

Looking GREAT man. Congrats. I want clips or maybe PM me a link to higher quality pics, I've always wanted to do this.

[BryanMichael]

This was SOOOOOOOOO the RIGHT CHOICE to actually restore it. FANTASTIC!

[Mike Fiasco]

So those humbuckers are surface mounted? Wow. Are they real humbuckers or single coils in an HB shell.

 

You're going to wind up with a guitar that is even better than when it came out of the factory. You're doing great work.

[irishstu]

 

You're going to wind up with a guitar that is even better than when it came out of the factory. You're doing great work.

 

 

Thanks again.

[irishstu]

Fixing up the tremolo unit:

 

What it was like before. The thumb wheel screw that would normally hold the tremolo arm on is missing, and someone has hammered down the stud (completely destroying it in the process) to act like a rivet holding the arm on:

 

 

 

I've already drilled the arm out, leaving us with this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found some parts that might make suitable replacements:

 

 

 

[irishstu]

Among the smaller jobs I'm having to deal with is un-warping the plastic pickguard and back tremolo cover.

 

Here's how they looked before:

 

 

 

I couldn't find much information about how to flatten these, so I did what seemed logical in my mind and sandwiched the plastic in-between two sheets of tempered glass, clamped the whole thing and heated it on both sides with a very hot hairdryer.

 

 

And it worked a treat. Here's the end result of the back tremolo cover:

 

 

Unfortunately this method didn't work with the pickguard. It's about twice as thick and 3-ply rather than 2-ply, and I guess I just couldn't heat it up enough. It was recommended to me that I should use hot (if possible, boiling) water on it, so I lifted the top piece of glass off, poured boiling water on the plastic, and clamped the top piece of glass back on.

 

The pickguard flattened nicely, but came out looking like this:

 

 

Some car restoration guys recommended rubbing peanut oil into it. Unfortunately that didn't do anything at all.

 

I then tried black shoe polish (wax), but it didn't make any difference whatsoever, so I tried scraping a small part of the surface away to see if the effect was on the very top surface only, and as soon as I scraped it, it was like I was drawing on it with a black pen. Instant blackness.

 

So I tried some steel wool on it and after just a couple of minutes on the lower part you can see the black coming back. I won't have time to finish this until the weekend, but I'm hopeful this method will work.

 

[Flatspotter]

A little late for the pickguard, but putting it in an oven at low heat between the two pieces of glass might have worked. Anyway, looks fantastic so far!

[irishstu]

 

A little late for the pickguard, but putting it in an oven at low heat between the two pieces of glass might have worked. Anyway, looks fantastic so far!

 

 

Thanks Flatspotter. I kind of wanted to do that, but the glass that I had was too long to fit in the oven, and I don't think the wife would have approved of heating plastic in there anyway.

[irishstu]

Actually, if anyone has any ideas for how I can repair the crack at the front of the top tremolo cover, I'm all ears. I can bend it back together and there's no real structural strength required here. I'd just like something that kind of holds it together and minimises the crack as much as possible:

 

 

Thanks.

[mfergel]

Normally I wouldn't care much for this kind of guitar but watching you do this is awesome and a real motivator to try the same thing one day. You're doing a fantastic job of it.

[dcindc]

Don't they have hookers and beer there?

 

 

 

 

Great work!