1961 Hofner 172(l) Restoration Project

[drathbun]

I just joined here and had posted these posts last week at the Hofner forum. I thought people here might get a kick out of my project.
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I just bought a 1963 Hofner 172 on ebay. I've been looking for one for a few years as the first guitar I owned and learned to play on was a '67 Hofner 172.

Here's a photo of me in 1970 with my '67 172.



I've had some training as a guitar tech (neck resets, refrets, crack repairs etc.) but this will be the first time I've attempted a vintage restore. I want to have the guitar working and playable, but I also want to remain true to the vintage nature of the guitar within reason. I have a 1981 Rickenbacker 320JG (which could be considered vintage) and I replaced the tuners with new ones from Rickenbacker because the old ones were not holding tune and I want to play the guitar. I don't plan on selling the guitar but I keep the original parts just to ensure it can be returned to original state.

As you can see from the photo:

this one has a missing knob and the rest of the tuners look pretty rusty. I don't have the guitar in my possession yet (next week perhaps). I joined a Hofner enthusiasts forum and within hours got an offer from a user in Australia to give me a spare teardrop tuner! Isn't the internet wonderful??

As you can see from this photo:

the original knobs are missing. I'm guessing they were teacups originally. So I'll be on the hunt for a pair of those.

The previous owner tells me there is quite a hum out of the guitar and thinks the pots and/or the caps might need replacing. I'm guessing it just needs some cleaning and checking

Here is a full shot of it:



I'm going to do a photo-document of the restoration. Can't wait!

[drathbun]

Ok. I've received the guitar and here's the problem; both pickups are dead. Now the seller informed me the guitar did not work and I took a chance it was just a wiring issue, pots or switches. I've disconnected both pickups and put them on the meeting and both read full open circuit.

I'm just looking to get the guitar working and it doesn't matter if the pickups are original. I WOULD like to keep the original pickup covers and have them LOOK like they are original from the outside. My question is, would a single pole strat-like pickup fit into this case? How would I get the Hofner screw poles to work with a strat type pickup?

My other option would be to just forget about appearance and go for a new chrome cover like these:



and if I do that, I might as well replace the tuners with some Klusons and replace the pots and switches, but keep the control plate. It would be the body, neck and trem of a '61 Hofner but play like a new guitar.

BTW, it is a 1961 Hofner 172(l) not a '63. The bottom of the pots say 250K 311 which is the 31st week of 1961 if I'm not mistaken.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/drathbun/Hofner%20172/DSCF1180.jpg[/img

[drathbun]

I posted this one today...
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So I've decided to rewind the pickups myself. To do this, I'm making a pickup winder out of a fishing reel. I'll document that process when I figure it all out and put it together.

In the meantime, while I'm waiting for the pickup wire to arrive from StewMac, I've been working on repairing the vinyl on the body. I've taken all the hardware and the neck off the body. I scrubbed the vinyl down with some Fantastik and a toothbrush. It got much of the grime off. Then I mounted the body in my Dremel vise and took a hairdryer to the vinyl that is lifting. That softened both the vinyl and the plastic binding so I could peel it back a good distance.



I then coated both the inside of the vinyl and the surface of the body with contact cement, cleaning any cement that got on the outside surface with thinner. I let it dry, propped open so the two surfaces wouldn't touch, for about 45 minutes.





Then I pressed the top and bottom sections together with the flat of a slot screw driver.



I took the hairdryer to the plastic binding again to soften it and shape it back into the creavace and used some medium viscosity cyanoacrylate glue in the slot and pressed it down until it dried. I filled some gaps after hardening with some more cyano glue and then let it sit overnight. I cut away the excess with an exacto knife the next day.



It came out pretty well.

I then polished the frets with my dremel tool and some polishing compound being careful not to overheat the frets.



They came up gleaming but they are pretty worn. So I ordered some fretwire from StewMac as well and will refret the neck. I know I'm supposed to stay faithful to the original to keep its value, but I've decided to replace the fret dots with abalone dots instead. Many of the existing dots are chipped and to replace them with the same plain ones seems a shame. I have abalone on my AmDlx Strat and they just look so beautiful.

Here are the Hofner dots:


Here are the Strat abalone dots:

[Toadlc]

Very cool project. My first was a Teisco in 1967. I've often thought about picking one up for nostalgia.

[drathbun]

I'm only going to link the photos from here on to save people on lowbandwith.

I've been working on the pickup winder part of the project. I started with a fishing reel thinking I could use the reciprocal action of the reel could scatterwind the pickup. However, the pickup will not fit within the diameter of the reel so all it could do is spin the pickup.

Since a drill could do that just as easily without all the manual work, I decided to look at a drill solution. However, you need to hold the trigger down on a drill and therefore your hands aren't free to guide the wire on the bobbin.

So then I looked at at . This house is blessed with four (count 'em) FOUR sewing machines. One is an antique, one is borrowed, one is brand new (daughter's Xmas present) and one won't pick up the bobbin thread. So I worked on the sewing machine for a few hours and came up with this.

I like the variable speed but because the bobbin doesn't sit right on the centre of the flywheel, the wire jerks a bit and I'm afraid it might break.

So I'm taking the sewing machine motor off the machine and will mount it on a platform with a belt to a pulley using a stove bolt as an axle. The stove bolt axle will be attached to a block of hardwood at the other end where I have screwed a metal mend plate which will have double sided carpet tape on it. The pickup bobbin will be stuck to the tape. I'm also planning some sort of guide rod that will keep the wire within the thickness of the bobbin. Perhaps a piece of threaded steel with two nuts as the guides. I'll detail that as I build it.

However, the turn counter had me stumped. I had purchased a fishing line length counter but it had too much tension to it and would break the wire. Then I saw this YouTube video and this brilliant solution to the counter:



What a terrific idea! So I'm buying a cheapo USB mouse and will build some sort of cam device to attach to the pulley. I couldn't clearly see what the guy was using as a switch, but it is obvious it is two pieces of metal that are forced into contact as the cam rotates. So I took apart an old oven thermostat that I had replaced years ago (keep all that junk!) and took out the and arranged them into a. Why buy new when you can invent something? The copper blades have contacts on one end and spade lugs on the other. I mounted them in a drafting eraser which I cut to expose the lugs and then taped together with vinyl tape.

Here is the completed "". I soldered leads from the two poles of the momentary switch to the poles of the left mouse button on the circuit board of the Chinese mouse (when you click it, it squeaks "cheap, cheap"). I added some hotglue around the wires to keep them from moving and breaking off the very tiny and fragile connection. I've hooked it up to my computer and squeezed the poles of the switch together and it works!

Next on the list... put the parts together. Surgite!

[Spud1950]

The mouse counter is a very cool idea. There's also the hand held calculator converted to a counter idea.



I've been collecting parts to make a winder. Check out this forum. There's an amazing array of winders that people have built,including many using sewing machines and sewing machine motors and parts, and lots of info on winding pickups.



Here's a nice example of a winder made with a sewing machine motor and foot pedal.

[drathbun]

Very cool stuff! I especially like the little calculator!

[cheepaxes]

Very interesting stuff. Please keep it coming.

I played a blues open mic the other day where the house band guitarist had a one-pickup version of that Hofner

I guess it's moot now, since you're rewinding the pickups, but My first thought when you posted the GFS pickups was that maybe you could put the old covers on a new GFS pickup, or other pickup with the same dimensions.

-Scott

[drathbun]

I had that thought too Scott, but people here and over at the Hofners forum convinced me to keep it as original as possible. Someone over at the BeatGear forum has offered me two original pickups if I can't get my rewound ones working. And someone else at the Hofner forum sent me an original tuner to replace the broken one! Amazing the support among guitar enthusiasts hmm?

[drathbun]

Well things evolve don't they?

For a couple days I worked on a plan for how to put the pickup winder together. I was planning to mount the sewing machine motor on a 2x4 and then mount a pulley that would be the axle to drive the winder and then add the switch counter. As I was doing that, I thought to myself that I was reinventing the wheel here. The sewing machine doesn't work for sewing (bobbin won't thread). But in every function needed for pickup winding, it is perfect. Why replace it?

So I attached some double-sided tape to the turny bit of the sewing machine and . Then I fastened . I slid a threaded bolt through the holes of the angle irons with nuts and washers to clamp the bolt and a couple of nuts to create a guide for the pickup wire. I put some heat-shrink on the threaded bolt to make the surface smooth.

Until my pickup wire arrives I can't test it. However, I think if I keep the spool sitting on the floor below me and use the foot switch to control the speed so it goes fairly slowly, I can control the tension with my fingers and move the wire back and forth over the guides. It doesn't seem that different from the .

As to the counter; well, my genius of the little switch is for not! I was looking at all kinds of ways to get the sewing machine to bounce, push, scrape or squeeze the switch while it is operating. Then came the "doh!" moment; why am I using a switch when the machine itself is made of metal pieces which come together? and bend it so it will touch the foot clamp with each cycle.

Now the machine itself closes the circuit clicking the on the equals key of the . Voila! Instant counting! I made a youtube video of how it works.

[Spud1950]

[drathbun]

OK. I received my pickup wire (42 gauge) from Stew-Mac and I wound the coil until it was full. That was 5045 turns. I put the spool on the floor below me and guided it between two felt pads between my fingers.

I only get 3.68 ohms out of it. Does that mean not enough tension?

[Spud1950]

[drathbun]

[Spud1950]