Polishing A Levin

[Bygde]

For my birthday some time ago, I got a guitar that had belonged to my deceased uncle. It's a Levin el-cheapo Stratocaster, with a maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, and a plywood body, and a couple of months ago, I decided that instead of having a guitar that sees little use (due to singlecoils and crappy trem), I thought I'd do something about it.

I bought a Dimarzio Fast Track 2 from Tradera (E-bay basically), and I bought a Wilkinson VS-100 tremolo a week ago. I've partially soldered in the pickup, together with a coiltap (will upload pics later), also the work on the tremolo has been started by plugging 2 of the 6 holes from the old trem (for drilling purposes), and I've marked out where the holes are going. Since the old unit was a 6-bolt, 4 bolts will be clearly visible. I am not refinishing this guitar, so I need an alternative method, and the two that comes to mind are:

- Filling the holes, and paint just that area black

- Taking a piece of stainless steel and make a sort of cover for the holes. Nothing flashy, just enough to cover the holes and look ok

Now for the pics:

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/Bygde/P1010687.jpg

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/Bygde/P1010692.jpg

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/Bygde/P1010690.jpg

Edited November 13, 2008 by Bygde

[Bygde]

So this turned out to be a much smaller project than I first thought. I haven't decided how I want to do with the holes, but now it's playable. I had to rout out a little piece for the bridge do slip in, and I drilled out the neck mounting holes, since the screws threaded both in the body and the neck. Also I found out that it's not pine plywood that I first thought. It has a darker colour, and a different grain compared to pine. The colour is more like walnut (although I seriously doubt it is), and the grain is mahogany-ish. Either way, here's the pics of the (maybe) finished work:

Routing to the right of the right bushing. Original routing was quite bad, so I didn't take too long to do it

Fitting the bushings

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/Bygde/P1010696.jpg

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/Bygde/P1010697.jpg

Testfitting

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/Bygde/P1010698.jpg

Finished! As you can see, the coiltap is positioned between the tone pots

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk281/Bygde/P1010702.jpg

The trem performs great, and tuning stability is pretty good, even with new strings, and a badly filed bone nut (not my work). The nut will be replaced with a graphite one as soon as I can file them myself. Just a tip though, the block on the trem is pretty long, so make sure the body is thick enough. I set the baseplate pretty high of the body (enough to do pretty high pull-ups), and the springs is pushing ever so slightly on the cavity cover on the back. Otherwise, the setup was so easy it should be illegal. Highly recommended!