I received a message on instagram asking if I could take a look at a couple of guitars! The first an ESP EC1000 Deluxe that just needed some TLC and the second a Fernandes that hadn’t been touched in 2 years and needed bringing back from the dead!

The ESP LTD was a standard run of the mill clean up, fret polish, and set up.  During the process I used some electrical switch cleaner on the pots to help them along as they were a little crackly, especially the volume pot. I really like these ESP LTD’s I’ve owned multiple eclipses in my time and I love that the bridge and stop bar’s have little grub screws to lock them in the right place! Make’s restringing and setting up a lot easier! This guy was finished up with a set of 10-46 Fender Bullets and tuned to Drop D.

Next up the Fernandez. I’m always nervous when someone says “I haven’t touched in a couple of years”… But all in all this, was not too bad! A lot of dirt built up on the fretboard, the body and the hardware but everything worked (again, some scratchy pots that needed a clean but not bad).

So with this one, I took off all the strings and all the hardware and went to town on really digging into the dirt and grime build up on the body and the neck first.

I took some fine steel wool and removed all the dirt build up from the fretboard – following the grain of the wood to not leave any scratchy marks. Then I lemon oiled the board to help hydrate the wood. I left the neck for a while and went back to the body to help remove any of those stubborn stains and took to the hardware to clean that up! 

Back up to the neck and fret polishing! By now you know the drill… 1500 – 12000 grit paper taking each fret one at a time and working your way up!

Chuck on a set of 10-52 Fender Bullets and tune up to Drop D and work through the intonation to get every string nicely in tune!