Morales ZES-300 has landed

[6stings]

Thanks slapshot!
It needs some serious cleaning and buffing, but I'll let it keep all the scars from a 40+ years of misbehaviour!
Pics will come when it's decent
Cheers!

[Brian]

Pictures please.

[6stings]

Sure Brian! It's still a work in progress, since I decided to check and fix every detail on it.
The body is cleaned.
The pickup routings are cleaned to the wood.
The neck pocket looked like it have been chisseled first 1.5 mm deeper and then 2 plastic 1 mm shims glued inn?! I removed the shims, filled the whole pocked with epoxy and rerouted it to give the neck heel a full contact...





All chrome hardware taken apart for cleaning.





The pickups cleaned and the old steel screw poles replaced with the new allen steel screws. The new poles magnetize 10 times better than the originals, not sure it would have any effect on the tone, we'll see.







All original and non original rusty screws will be replaced.
All neck and neck joint screw holes filled, glued, redrilled to fit '55 Chevy interior trim chrome plated screws.





The Vibra Matic was missing the string block and the handle, so I made a string bar by cuttins a piece of my son's percussion stand, the only 9.3 mm thick chrom piece I could find. A perfect fit.
Yes, the 4 Chevy screws replaced the weak, rusty original mounting screws here too.



The oddly routed control cavity is cleaned, but I'll rerouted it a little more to shape it nicely, well, it will take a little weight off too:))





The neck will be cleaned and frets polished in the next faze...

[Veenture]

Good job! Thanks for sharing the wonderful pictures
Do you happen to know what kind of wood was used for the neck (Ash)?

[6stings]

Thanks V!
Tha body has to be mahogany. It's not a plywood, but it's pretty heavy. It looks like it was made like a mahogany sandwich: two 1" plates glued together. You can see a contact line in the bridge pickup cavity picture if you enlarge it, about 3-4 mm from the bottom.

[slapshot]

maple for the neck mahogany for the body.pancake sounds right too.they've all had a neck shim in there too

[6stings]

maple for the neck mahogany for the body.pancake sounds right too.they've all had a neck shim in there too

I love pancakes:)

[6stings]

Wasn't happy with the old tortoise pickuguard, so I made a new one

[Veenture]

Fantastic photography, my compliments. If your new pickguard has no name yet, how about "Autumn Leaves"

[6stings]

Thanks V
Hope it will look little less sad in 'autumn leaves' than in tortoise.