The first guitar I ever bought or played was an Alpine acoustic. I make no bones about the fact that I am a huge Green Day fan. Yes their songs are simple, but they are fun, and often filled with emotion. When they released their latest album, Revolution Radio, the last song was an acoustic piece called Ordinary World. The song quickly came to mean a lot to me, and I wanted to be able to play it. I knew there was a little used guitar and instrument store in the local flea market, so I walked in one weekend, and for $50 got the acoustic, some picks, and a strap. Within six months I could play my basic chords pretty well, and learned a bunch of songs, I was pretty hooked. Then I started wanting to play electric guitar. As luck would have it, a close friend of mine gifted me a beautiful Washburn acoustic. Its still by far the nicest guitar I own. It was such a great improvement on the cheap Alpine that I went straight back to that little guitar store, and traded my first guitar in. For my trade in and another $40 I got the cheapest electric he had, a used New York Pro Stratocaster copy, and a Squire 10w practice amp.
Pretty quick I was even more hooked on electric guitar than acoustic. I honestly kind of lucked out on this strat, it's solidly built, and it wasn't terrible to begin with. But as I learned new techniques at a rapid pace, I became interested in making it feel nicer to play. I did some research, and learned about setups. Lowering the action a bit and setting the intonation kept me happy for awhile, but soon I wanted more. I discovered a you tube channel where a guy talked about how to do a fret level using DIY tools. I took a chance and I followed his tutorial. My work wasn't perfect, but it did yield an even lower action. I had so much fun improving my guitar I decided I wanted to try more. Enter electric guitar #2.
I found this Epiphone LP Junior in a pawnshop. I got it for $40. It was in rough shape, dirty, terrible plastic nut, uneven frets. Unlike my strat, it really wasn't playable when I got it. I attacked its issues with enthusiasm, researching each problem and solution online. I did another DIY fret level, cleaned all the hardware, and replaced the nut with a better pre-slotted plastic nut from a local guitar store.
Once it was repaired I completely fell in love with the Junior. I already was interested in juniors because Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong plays them. After I got one, I could see some reasons why. Its just a fun, workhorse kind of guitar, and very comfortable to play. This one has a fat baseball bat neck, which I love.
Around this time I also repaired a violin. On a visit to my Wife's grandmother, we found my wife's first violin in the attic. She owns a very nice handmade violin, the one we discovered had been her childhood student instrument. The tailpiece was broken off, it looked ruined. But with the confidence from fixing up the Junior, I did some research, and learned what was needed to fix the violin. It was only a $6 part, a gutstring that attaches the tailpiece to the body. After that all that was needed was new strings and properly placing the bridge, which I was able to do.
My next project was an Ibanez acoustic. I spotted it in facebook marketplace for $20. It was a teenager's first guitar, which he had played till it fell apart. The nut had broken in half and was gone, one tuner had stripped out its setscrew, and was useless, and some of the string begs had broken off inside the tailpiece and were stuck down inside the holes. I grabbed it primarily because I was curious if I could fix it, and for $20 I didn't feel like I would be out much if I couldn't.
I had some trouble finding a nut for this guitar at the local stores. I obtained a couple different plastic nuts, which were the correct width but too low. In the end I shimmed a nut up by gluing card to the bottom. I was able to get the broken string pegs out, and fill the stripped screw hole for the tuner. In the end I got a nice playing acoustic for $30 total. This project is the one that really awakened my passion for finding cheap guitars in poor condition, and fixing them up.
The last thing I did before obtaining the ME501 was my attempt to re-finish my Junior. I always hated the orange burst finish on it. I had watched a few videos on re-finishing, and decided to go for it. I am not afraid to say that I failed miserably. I tried to strip the old paint with a hairdryer and scraper. I don't think the hairdryer was hot enough, because the paint chipped off rather than peeling, and left gouges and dings in the wood that ranged from minor, to pretty deep. Its a plywood body, which probably didn't help. I sanded back some of it, but not enough. So when I started spraying, it was already uneven. Then I got in a hurry, and over-sprayed pretty badly. I didn't mask well enough which resulted in some bleed, and then lastly I over-sprayed the clear coat, which in addition to making some ugly runs and bubbling, actually caused the paint underneath to run. I didn't even bother trying to wet sand and buff at the end. I basically messed up every single step. It looks like a spray painted piece of wood, rather than a guitar finish. With that said, my love for this guitar is not diminished at all. I still prefer its current look to that orange burst I hated. Its my main punk rock guitar anyway, and the crappy paintjob is ok for that. I learned a lot of valuable lessons that will help in the future.
That pretty much sums up how I got started. I am hardly an expert at this, I am sharing what I do in large part to create a record for myself. But also because I hope if any other budget guitarists stumble across my ramblings they'll be inspired to try some DIY work themselves. There's plenty of bargain basement guitars out there that just need a little love to become a fun axe.
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