ShortScale.org

No, not a band name. I've been unable to use or dispose of my no-name MIJ since one of the two pins that operate the tremolo fell out of the tremolo arm and disappeared. For a couple of years I was thinking of taking it to a clockmaker as I think they use tapered pins to secure clock springs. Today I decided I'd try to make my own pin. I found a spare 2.5 mm HSS drill bit that was just a little too large and ground the end to a slight taper until I could wedge it into the hole to over 2/3 depth. Then I cut the end to a suitable length - I didn't have a cutting disc on my Dremel-style drill so I used a spike grinding bit and worked around the shank until I could snap off the bit I wanted. Then I heated the area of the tremolo arm with the hole briefly over a gas flame and rapidly tapped the pin into place. Once cooled it was rock solid. Yay! I ground it down to the right length and put the tremolo arm into place and... the pin outside the hole was too fat and was fouling the side plate of the bridge assembly (this is a wacky design). Back to the not-a-Dremel to grind enough off the side of the pin so the term arm would move smoothly. I said the design is wacky. The tremolo arm can only raise the bridge, raising the pitch, and can be folded completely back out of the way. The bridge is a straight bar that can slide up and down between side plates but the intonation is pretty good on the higher strings. Annoyingly the side plate is curved in front of the bridge, comfortable to the hand, but an uncomfortable right-angle behind.

So, a few things need thinking about.
1. When I first took the neck off the guitar one of the four neck screws snapped off. Fortunately it was one of the screws at the body end so it's lived as a 3-screw neck ever since. I don't remember whether I removed the stump. I don't know whether to bother about it. 2. As you can tell from the first picture, it needs knobs. I'm not sure where/whether I have suitable knobs.
3. Pots are scratchy; I need to spray some Servisol into them.
4. The wood that the tuning machines for the top two strings screw into is chewed up and broken through to where the bushes fit in (thanks, Plops, for those bushes you sent me some years ago). They are holding at the moment but are at a slight angle, lifting off the headstock at one end a couple of mm under tension. If I had woodworking skills I guess I would chisel out the old wood and glue in a fillet of new stuff. 5. The pickup has a slip of painted plastic around the pole screws that is patchy in colour. 6. I replaced the tiny rusty woodscrews that held the scratchplate on with brass ones. One fell out a while back and I don't know where my stock is.
7. Frets are a mongrel mix, the first two having been stripped out of the old Eko Cobra and filed down to suitable height. 8. Ideally I'd get rid of the zero fret that clicks every time you bend the G or B string and reposition the nut accordingly but, as the acronym goes, IANAL*

Still, it's back in a playable state. Both my younger kids learned basic chords on this machine (younger daughter doesn't try to play any more, younger son is way better than me). The baseball-bat neck is not really to my taste with my stubby fingers but it should shortly be in a state where I can pass it on and make a vacancy for a different acquisition. The trouble is I don't think any beginner would want to take it on. (Oh, yes, spot the deliberate mistake with the marker dots ) I do think it might be a laugh to take it to a jam night just so people can go "WTF?".


*I Am Not A Luthier

Although the strap covers the top horn in that final pic, it's such a cool shape for a guitar. Looks very modern. The mishmash of frets and the dot-weirdness would annoy me, though!

That pickup looks so serious!

Here's how it looks with a couple of cheap knobs thrown on and no strap. When it comes to the dots, a dot at 10 instead of 9 bothers me way more than no dot at 3.

Gorgeous. I usually don't like 1 pickup guitars, but there's a lovely symmetry between the pickup and the bridge which balances it. I could easily imagine some exotic luthier making these with rosewood necks and charging £2,000 for one (more if you want extras, like paint).

The no dot at 3 didn't even get noticed by me, but the 10 one did. Actually, that's a lie, the 8 dot did, because I read it as 8 somehow, having read the second dot as 5. So clearly the no dot at 3 is an issue! I'm also curious that I located that dot in relation to the ones below it and not the 12. Perhaps I didn't trust the 12.

the dot placement on this guitar actually makes it easier to play

Yeah, if you like wrong notes, maybe.

so binary...

dots wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 7:42 pmso binary...

Dots knows his dots.

Nice looking little guitar. These Teisco-ish guitars used to be dirt cheap and have been treated generally like garbage and I doubt a lot of people went as far as refretting them and replacing the wacky parts like the tuners and bridges to make them playable. It's much less headache to buy a used Squier that will be playable right away than trying to pimp up these. At the same time they will eventually become very valuable, I think people will start modding them with "premium" parts to make them playable

I love it! Let me know if you ever sell it please

...aaand it's on its way to its next home.

So nick being the loveliest has sent this guitar to me(turns out to be an ibanez 901)

It's super super tiny! And looks comically small against my huge frame.

I am going to give the frets a level and dress which hopefully sorts the bit buzzing around the 2nd fret.
It's got a huge baseball bat neck profile that's actually really comfy.
The trem is hilarious but quite clever and only increases pitch but it does stay in tune well.
I love it and will get it playing and recorded asap.
Thanks massively again Nick!
Here it is again for scale next to a Jazzmaster

Pleased you managed to ID it!