Luthiery Laboratories

I inspected my temporary pickguard, and I don't see any issues, so I ordered a sheet of plastic from Home Depot: 24"x36"x1/16" for $22.43, delivered. That's enough for six pickguards like this, or five screw-ups.

My prototype pickguard came out good enough to use. You can see here what an improvement it is over the old brown one ( on the bench in front of the guitar - you can't call that yellow! ) The thin plastic conforms pretty well to the curved body. Unfortunately, shortly after taking this picture, the corner of the new pickguard snapped off by the bridge as I was doing some final adjusting and tightening. Good thing I got that extra-large piece of plastic! After wrecking a second one on the scroll saw working out the best blade and settings for the material, the third one came out perfect. ( The ruined piece went in the junk bin, but it didn't stay there for long. )

While working on the replacement, the old engineer in me got to thinking about why the material would break at a point that's not particularly stressed. The body is actually pretty flat there, it is much more curved around the lower edge, which is where I was expecting problems. Obviously, the screw caused it. But why? The factory screws on this reissue are Fender-style countersunk heads. Danelectro always used truss-head screws with wide flat heads. Apparently, the countersunk holes, together with the extra stress of making the plastic conform to the curved body, was enough to start a crack, and once a crack gets started, it just keeps growing. Also, the screw threads might have cut into the plastic, resulting in what is known in engineering as a 'stress raiser'. So for this pickguard, I switched to the correct screws, and also drilled the holes slightly oversized. It is now a month later, and it worked. In time the plastic will take a permanent set in the new shape, and the stresses will actually go down.

That first pickguard was a prototype after all, and the second one came out better ( and faster. ) Just checking the fit here. Without string tension to balance it, the tremolo wants to clamp down on the body, so it is propped it up with a rag. This time I will fit the pickup mounts to these pickups, which are slightly different from standard lipsticks. That's all hand filing. You might think that takes a long time, but it really doesn't - it's only plastic. It would take a lot longer to make a fourth pickguard after the router destroyed the third one!

Actually, I would not dare touch this plastic with a router. Clear plastics all seem to have a low melting point and are somewhat brittle. Thin clear plastic like this doesn't like power tools at all, it takes care and patience not to end up with a globby mess, even with a saw or sander. And yet, it is also hard and brittle and cracks if you are not careful. Just imagine what a router would do.

Here is how the guitar came out, with the new pickguard and screws, and all the chrome polished back to a shine. The black stripe came out nice, I think. I could also replace the screws on the control cover, but I'm running low on them, so I'll just leave the factory ones. I also reassembled the tremolo, mainly for looks, because it barely works. It pivots on the two forward screws, with a spring on the back one. That's the theory, anyway.

While I have it apart, here is the solution to the collapsing bridge problem - a simple shim. I like to use masking tape applied to the bottom of the saddle. Normally, a few layers of tape is all you need, but this particular bridge is collapsed so badly now that I pulled the tape off and used a washer. Fortunately, the collapse is self limiting, it gets to a point and stops, but this is the worst I've ever seen. These Danelectro bridges are pretty easy to disassemble, but the tremolo on this one makes it tricky, and I confess to a bit of swearing while putting it all back together. Really could use a third hand!

This is Danelectro's tremolo mechanism. It is both extraordinarily clever and almost useless. The mechanism replaces the rear hold-down screw with a bolt which floats on a spring inside the body. Tension is adjusted with the wingnut. The bridge plate is enlarged slightly to mount an arm. To convert it to a hard-tail, put a spacer under the bridge plate and tighten-down the wingnut. A small sliver of wood would do, and would not even require disassembly. A more permanent solution would be a stack of washers.

For history's sake, here is what the guitar looked like before the restoration. I think this is a really pretty instrument, well worth the effort. In fact, I think this one is now the nicest one on earth, literally!

Pete Townshend played Danelectros, but for the wrong reason - they were cheap to smash! I don't think he smashed very many Rickenbackers. With their solid steel truss rods, Danelectros are probably not easy to smash, he should have tried Gibsons, they break all by themselves.