Danelectro 59 re-build

[Blaoskaak]

Hi all!

I bought a long time ago a used danelectro 59 body who was abused. I got it almost for free and was planning to make a neck for it and play it.

When the time passed i forgot that i had the body until i come across is again and thought, lets try to bring it back to life.

I am not a experienced luthier, i build 2 stratocasters before, but never sprayed it. My first strat, with blackmore scallop. The finish is tru oil.



My secound build was also only the neck. The idea was to put a new color in, to practice painting, but the black was in so good condition i decided to leave it black




The squier in the back was my first electric guitar. I still don't know what to do with it.

But back to the danelectro. The previous owner sprayed it in green. Very ugly, i felt sorry for the body actually. My plan is to spray it in orange, as close as the orange danelectro 59.

I have little compressor with a cheap spray gun, i think i'm better of with a good quality rattle can. Also i have no idea how to use a spray gun with compressor lol. There is also alot of moisture in the compressor. If anyone has tips for good polyurethane and sealer, then i'd love to hear!

For the neck i wanted to use maple with pau ferro fretboard, but i came across bubinga wood. I neaver heard of it before, but i really liked the color and grain, so i decided to use that. For the fretboard i use amazon rosewood.

The wood will be delivered in a few days.

The thought of binding the fretboard also comes to mind, but i don't know if that is difficult.

Here are some pictures from what i did on the body. It took some elbow grease to get the paint off. The previous owner sanded on some spots through the top layer of the masonite. I'm not hoping this will give problems while spraying. But only 1 way to find out.

It was a bit hard to get the inside of the cavitys free from a the green color.

I'm planning to use a sealer toget everything smooth and then use polyurethane and clear.

Here are some pictures





What kind of pickups i should use is still not decided. Still have time to think about it

This was it! Cheers

 

[crazydave911]

GFS has some tube pickups with the original size. They sound pretty good, search them on YouTube

 

[Blaoskaak]

GFS has some tube pickups with the original size. They sound pretty good, search them on YouTube

Yeah i was thinking about it to buy it from GFS. Not too epensive and sound really good for the price!

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UPDATES:

I got the wood delivered. Bubinga wood and exotic rosewood for the fretboard. I really like the grain and collor of the Bubinga wood. Would be nice finished with tru oil.



Printed the 1:1 drawing and taped everything together



Then i glued it on a piece of mdf and rough cut it on the bandsaw



The neck is gonna be a degree angle of 7 degrees. i Have decided to make a scarf joint. This was my first time and was pretty nerve-racking to do. Mainly because i had 5mm spare wood at the heel of the neck.

i Started to draw a line at 7 degrees and cutting it with my band saw. This turned out to be a disaster. The cut was crooked and lots of bumps.

To get everything nice and straigh i made a jig. the only problem now is thad i had to sand alot of wood to get the 7 degree and to get it nice. Now my neck is 1cm too short. i want to solve this to glue a piece of wood at the heel of the neck





To prevent the headstock shifts while clamping the wood, i drilled 2 holes on the excess wood from the headstock and put 2 nails in, when this was done i glued everything up and put the nails in. then clamped it down

 

[Blaoskaak]

Well had a few setbacks. The idea what i had with the bubinga neck didn't worked out. So had to order some new wood and this this i choose maple.

When i cut the neck out in the bandsaw and route it, put in in the body and measured the scale length. I came to the conclusion my neck was 7mm too long. After i measurd my template i find out it was wrong. Wish i measured it when i printed the drawing out. Would have saved my alot of time. Luckily (almost)everything what is too long can be fixed! I adjusted the template and made the neck the right size. I am very happy with the tight fit on the body

I adjusted the headstock too. Thought the headstock was too big and made it alot bigger. Not sure if i'm happy with the decision? But it doesn't look very bad.

Fretboard is slotted and has a 12 inch radius. Never played one before. Very curius how it plays. My strat has a 7.25 inch

It looks like the neck + fretboard is too thick. Overall thickness of the neck is 26mm. Can anyone who owns a danelectro tell me what the overall thickness is?

The photos are probably not in order. That is too much of a hassle on a telephone