eldegas.com

The very first guitar that I bought, three weeks into my lessons when I started playing in February of 1992, was an ElDegas that my guitar teacher had hanging in his lesson studio. I bought it from him for $100. The front had been covered in stickers and the back had been carved up with sayings and names and stuff. I have since stripped the guitar and have broken the headstock a few times, and ultimately re-finished the body and new neck with a Watkins rub in finish. I love this guitar and it will never be sold, although I don't play it as much as some of my others.

Here's the body stripped of its parts and finish:



Here's the old broken headstock:



The re-finished body, back to working order. In the picture it's sporting a vintage pair of pickups, DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge and a DiMarzio PAF in the neck. It currently has a pair of prototype Seymour Duncan P-Rails in it.



And the new headstock. The shape is the same as the one I use on the guitars I build.



Thanks for looking!

Trevor

Nice handiwork!!

Welcome

Hi Trevor. Yes, nice work indeed.
It's always a big plus when these great old MIJ guitars are rescued from the wood chipper! That looks to be a beautiful slab of mahogany there and I'll bet she has a terrific tone.

Just curious...you seem to be well skilled, how come you didn't repair the original headstock? That one picture shows a nasty shatter, but could it not be spliced and repaired?

Barry wrote:Hi Trevor. Yes, nice work indeed.
It's always a big plus when these great old MIJ guitars are rescued from the wood chipper! That looks to be a beautiful slab of mahogany there and I'll bet she has a terrific tone.

Just curious...you seem to be well skilled, how come you didn't repair the original headstock? That one picture shows a nasty shatter, but could it not be spliced and repaired?

The original headstock has been broken 2 times and repaired 3 times. It fell once, and before I was into the whole guitar repair thing, I had it done by a guy whose idea of how to do it left it with a weak spot. So of course it broke again when it got bumped. So I clamped it back together with some strong wood glue. After that it felt like it was flexing and the guitar wouldn't stay in tune even with 9s tuned to Eb.

So my dad and I re-visited the original break point by dove-tail routing across the neck at the break and inserted a piece of mahogany across the grain. We sanded it smooth and re-shaped and all seemed well. However, the neck itself just never reacted right to truss rod adjustments and I could never get the guitar to hold tune, so after almost 15 years of messing around with it and never being truly happy, I found the new neck I'm using at AllParts and it's been great ever since.

I'll get the original neck back from my friend and post pictures of the repair work on the back. It's pretty scary.

I'm planning to make a template using the original headstock so that I can cut the original ElDegas head shape onto necks for others.

pinto79 wrote:...I'm planning to make a template using the original headstock so that I can cut the original ElDegas head shape onto necks for others.

Lord knows you've tried! OK, fair enough. Templating that HS would be great, I don't think anyone else has done that here. Mind you, it is a Gibson clone so I'm not sure what differences, if any, there would be.

Barry wrote:

pinto79 wrote:...I'm planning to make a template using the original headstock so that I can cut the original ElDegas head shape onto necks for others.

Lord knows you've tried! OK, fair enough. Templating that HS would be great, I don't think anyone else has done that here. Mind you, it is a Gibson clone so I'm not sure what differences, if any, there would be.

The one from this guitar seems to not have as sharp a point in the centre. The Gibson one being much more of an open book, whereas the ElDegas one is more of a wave for want of a better word.

I'll post pictures of the template once it is done.