messed up EB2

[gunnsi77]

greetings! i am new to this forum. i got an eb2 the other day, which is in very bad contidion, to say the least. any experts out there who think this poor old thing could be restored back a decent condition?

[eb2]

Yes, but it will require both some skill and an opaque finish to cover up that stupidity at the choke switch.  You don't have pics of the headstock and neck, which will play a part in the best approach.  Provided it is sound, then my take would be to remove all hardware, strip the finish off the top (and maybe the whole thing), patch the hole and correct it for the switch.  Then fill the wood, and use a good wood putty to cover the damage, then kilz the top.  Sunburst or any non-opaque finish is history with this kind of hole. Finish it black, or white looks good.  You could hit cherry red over silver and do the Gibson Sparkling Burgundy.  You will need to buy a bridge if yours is missing, of course, which is not cheap but more affordable these days than in the recent past.  Wiring harness, knobs, guard, strings - and there you go.

Your skill level will determine what you can do and what you should farm out.

Good luck.

[jules]

I can't believe what people throw away. It will take some time for sure, but it is completely fixable, and with the cost of these things of late, definately worth doing.
 
Replacing wiring inside is fiddly. First get the complete loom working. (take it all out)
 
You then need to put string (I use fishing wire) through the component holes, and out through the f-hole. Tie it to the correct part of the wiring loom and pull it through.
 
You can get all the parts back in this way, but it is fiddly and may take a little time.
 
As for hardware, you want a bridge first - one like this bar bridge by the looks of it. Other parts (scratchplate, thumbrest) are less essential but will come up on ebay

[eb2]

Another way to look at this is it is a fairly complex restoration item.  You have some expensive parts missing, and you have top damage and what looks like a rough headstock repair.  Fishing the wiring in is not an easy task - you will throw out an F bomb or five before you get it right.  And the treble F hole may be in a delicate condition.  So, all of that requires what I would consider luthier skills (and that is not exactly like carpentry) to get back in shape, and hope that the neck set and angle are still correct.  Then you need well beyond novice skills to do proper finishing, and for a guitar you are into a skill set not at all like modern furniture and cabinetry.  You can work with a couple of different refinishing media, typically nitro and specialty water-based lacquers, but any common stuff will have a negative impact on the value.  

Taking all that into consideration, decide what you want to do, and how much you can take on.  I don't want to discourage you taking it on, but I want you to have a sober idea of what it takes to do it right and how much you will have to learn and track down in the process.  If you did get this out of a bin, you might want to throw it out on ebay as a as-is restoration project and make some decent walking around money.  That way it will go to someone who is probably game to take it on and you can throw your time and cash at the EB3l, which is hopefully in better shape.  

And by the way, no fair getting an EB3l and not sharing pics!

[George Porter]

You then need to put string (I use fishing wire) through the component holes, and out through the f-hole. Tie it to the correct part of the wiring loom and pull it through.
 
You can get all the parts back in this way, but it is fiddly and may take a little time.
 

I've had pretty good luck fishing pots back in position using shrink tubing. A size that fits tight over the spline that the knob presses onto. It's flexable & you can easily start the nut over the flex tubing without anything getting in the way. You can carefully fish all 4 at the same time, (on the EB-2D). I made a similar plastic plug with a flexable plastic tubing on it to fish the guitar jack into place. It's still a pain....:mad:

[eb2]

The hole under the bridge should be left as is.  You have the original choke under there, and that is kind of a miracle.  Nothing from the control cavity will fit through there anyway, so leave it as is.  There is wiring from the choke that feeds through a small drilled hole to the cavity.  When you get everything out, that wiring will stay suspended inside the guitar body until your re-hook everything back up.  That will hook up to the push button choke switch, or whatever you want to use to replace that.

Getting the potentiometers through the F hole IS hard.  But it can be done.  You have to finagle them out gently, and work backwards, so the input jack is the last thing out.  

The first thing is to make sure the pickup pos and shield/neg wiring is disconnected from the pots.  You can just clip them at the pot terminals as you will be re-soldering to reconnect them later.  Then starting with the volume pot work the shaft out first, then tilt the pot's body out in the widest angle of the middle of the F hole.  You will need some needle nose pliers, and a God-given talent with your middle finger to do this.  The fit is extremely tight, and you will say your favorite swears a few times.  But if you have some patience and time, you will figure it out.  

There will be attached to the back of a pot or the shield of the harness a plain metal ground wire somewhere along the way.  This should be clipped off, and make sure you put something  on it so you can get at it again.  I have in the past soldered on a longer length of wire so I can easily get it and re-hook up the ground.  Do not try to pull that wire out.  It is attached to the bottom of your bridge insert.  It is a pain in the ass to pull the insert on the treble side to reattach a new ground wire.  You may want to use a multimeter to make sure there is connectivity between the bridge insert and the wire in the hole.

I think I have covered the fun stuff.  But you can do it. It just sucks.