Tung Oil & Pickups

No photos yet, but I finish sanded the entire guitar after work last night. It felt good to sit outside in the sun with the orbital whirring away and working with a sanding block again. Only took a couple hours, started with 80, then 120, 150 and finally 220 grits.

After that, I rigged up a coat hanger device for one of the tuner holes and broke the seal on my Rockler tung oil and the can of mineral spririts I bought at Home Depot sunday. Made a 50/50 mixture in a plastic up, grabbed a small cheapo brush and started to apply the first generous coat of tung oil to the Gretsch (outside, naturally).

It really seemed to soak this up and the wood turned a absolutely gorgeous dark mahogany color. The grain really popped too. I was very pleased. I let it sit, soak (and runs drip) for about 15 minutes, then proceeded to wipe the excess off and rub the oil in with a clean, soft cotton rag. Took the guitar back inside and found a secure location to hang it up to cure till I have a chance to apply another coat (probably wednesday or thursday, as we jam tonight).

I'm curious to see how many coats it's going to be before I'm at a point I'm happy with the finish. Will I want more on the back of the neck then elsewhere? Be interesting to figure this out as I go along.

The templates for the headstock logo came over the weekend. They look great and should serve their purpose admirabley. I still need to hit the auto touch-up paint section of whatever store strikes my fancy and see if I can locate some lacquer that looks to be a suitable color.

Given the time difference between here and Washington, it's somewhat difficult to coordinate that phone call I wanted to put into TV Jones, so I thought I would try their info e-mail address first, just to see if I can get advice that way. I just sent this off an hour ago:

Hi,

I need to purchase a pickup for a guitar I am
refurbishing. Here are the specs:

1961 Gretsch Corvette
solid mahogany body and neck
one bridge pickup
trapeze tail piece
converted to tunomatic bridge (body drilled for studs,
so it's fixed)
I'll be buying what ever TV Jones pup in the Gretsch
style English mount (the guitar was routed for a
humbucker long ago).

Other Gretsch guitars I own:

2005 6120-DSW
2005 6118 (Filtertron Tennessee Rose)
2006 Electromatic Pro-Jet

I play mostly music in the realm of The White Stripes,
Social Distortion with the occasional rockabiliiy,
surf and blues style tunes thrown in.

In the past I have had hi output humbuckers in guitars
(like Duncan Distorion) and haven't cared much for
their versatillity and tone.

I'm thinking a PowerTron, but perhaps a PowerTron Plus
might be better?

Also, the route is about 3/4" to 7/8" deep, and I am
unsure if I need to specify the short pole piece
screws, or if that's deep enough to accomodate the
standard ones.

Thanks for any help you can provide. If it's better
that I call, I'd be happy to do it.

Thanks,

That's all for now....