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Post subject: 94 MIM toploader project - finished
Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 1:21 pm
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Picked up a 94 Toploader on Friday for $75. It needs pickups and a bridge. Color was black, but top was sanded off not quite down to bare wood. Neck is maple and in pretty nice shape. Going to put some GFS blade type pickups in it.

Anyone have an early 90s toploader? How do you like it?

I'll post pics later.

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Last edited by Kong on Mon Dec 26, 2011 2:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader standard
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 2:22 pm
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Here's a few pics of this beast. May do a re-finish. Going to get it playing first, when the bridge and pickups arrive later this week.

Neck is pretty nice. It was pretty grimy, but I didn't take pics before I cleaned it up. I put tuners I had left over from my blacktop Strat build.

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader standard
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 9:26 pm
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Kong, the master of the refinish :D So what we going with this time:

1) Sand down to bare wood, re-do in a butterscotch tint perhaps?
2) OR since you're going with the blade pickups: respray in Candy Tangerine, black pearloid pickguard :) Hair metal that sucker up :P

Dan

PS Hows your other life-moding project going? happy and healthy I assume :)

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader standard
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 9:39 pm
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Impulse7 wrote:
Kong, the master of the refinish :D So what we going with this time:

1) Sand down to bare wood, re-do in a butterscotch tint perhaps?
2) OR since you're going with the blade pickups: respray in Candy Tangerine, black pearloid pickguard :) Hair metal that sucker up :P

Dan

PS Hows your other life-moding project going? happy and healthy I assume :)


Hi Dan,

Life is good, thanks for asking. It's good to be the Kong. Option 1 is exactly what I have in mind for this one. Or maybe gold ala Gatton...

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader standard
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 9:53 pm
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I know Alren Roth is fond of the Rails type pickups, so maybe a gold with rails as a hommage to both of those great twangers might be the way to go. Either way looking forward to the outcome.

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader standard
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 10:24 am
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I got a replacement bridge for the toploader and a set of rails pickups from GFS. Earlier I was thinking about a gold refinish for this one, but now I've had time to think and I'm going to go with Copper Metallic from re-ranch. When I do the re-fin I'll probably upgrade the bridge to a Wilkinson with the compensated brass saddles. I just have to make sure I will not have any string spacing issues.

For now it is a pretty cool beater guitar and plays pretty nice. The neck is great, nice action and no buzzing to be found.

Hoping for it to look something like this when comlete:
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Here it is with the bridge and pickups installed.

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Last edited by Kong on Sun Nov 09, 2014 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 5:44 pm
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Sweet looking beater as you say Kong :)

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 6:04 pm
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My first electric guitar was an '83 toploader Tele.
Toploaders play great.
Don't listen to any nonsense that you get better tone when the strings pass throgh the body.
It makes no difference in the sound or playability.
I recently made a guitar using an '83-84 toploader bridge that I found on line:

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Here's my project toploader, which came out great!
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=53915


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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 7:26 pm
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MickJagger wrote:
My first electric guitar was an '83 toploader Tele.
Toploaders play great.
Don't listen to any nonsense that you get better tone when the strings pass throgh the body.
It makes no difference in the sound or playability.
I recently made a guitar using an '83-84 toploader bridge that I found on line:

Image

Here's my project toploader, which came out great!
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=53915


I checked out your project, very nice! I'm digging the toploader; it plays nice and sounds great. I may change the bridge to 3 brass saddles but I am keeping it a toploader.

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:47 pm
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Took a heat gun to the body yesterday and removed the black finish. It has some kind of veneer on the top and back. Othewise it looks like the body was made from 7 pieces. Not sure why they did a veneer on a solid black guitar. There is a shiny sealer on the edges. I'll clean it up further with some sanding and I'm going to clean up the cavities as well. Then it will be 2 coats of sanding sealer, then primer, metallic copper and clear. I'm going to use some valspar spray paint I found in Lowe's and see how good of a job I can do. This one is not getting a lacquer finish. For the clear I'm going to try poly acrylic. Going to test my finish ideas on a scrap piece of wood before I do the actual body. If it works it will cost me about $25 in finish supplies to get the look I want. I'll have $175 total in the guitar when it is done and hopefully it will look like a million.

Here's a couple shots of the body with the finish removed.

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:14 pm
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You've got a good start on the project Kong. You know that we're all paying close attention to this build. I really like a good build thread. Good luck, but you don't need it! 8) :wink:


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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 5:30 am
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Howdy!

Good to see the mighty Kong back at work! Looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Cheers!

Andy

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 6:48 am
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Popcorn is popping. I'm watching this one! :D

RickyD

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 11:35 am
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Hello Fellas.

I did some more sanding to clean up the edges and the cavities on the guitar. I also brushed on some sanding sealer yesterday. I'm going to sand again today and hopefully spray the primer.

Here is the body after yesterday's sanding.

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Post subject: Re: 94 MIM toploader project
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 2:35 pm
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Sanded back the sealer coat and shot the primer today. Going to have to fix a few small issues and re-prime a few spots. The sanding sealer had a small run on the top edge of the guitar that I didn't quite sand out which the primer exposed thankfully. Also there is some delamination on the bottom edge that will need a bit of glue.

Then I'll re-primer those spots and it will be ready for the color coat. I tried my copper paint on a test piece today and it looks pretty cool. I'm getting excited to get this thing finished and start playing her again.

Here it is with the primer coat.

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