burns sonic restoration

[jamesblagg]

good evening people
just disovered your awesome burns resources.

anyway, I am restoring my grandads 196x sonic & have a few problems & questions, hoped I'm in the right place for some answers!
(its the maple board, single ply black pickguard & badge version if that helps)

1stly;
the zero fret & 1st fret on the board has been chopped off at some point & the nut glued next to end of the poorly replaced piece of wood for the 1st fret.
my brother says that it doesnt tune up properly because of this..
so do I need to either;

work out the scale length & make a new fret 1 board & have the nut next to that? (will this work/be tunable if I work out the length it should be?) like a guitar with no zero fret
or
just rebuild the whole fret board 1 & the zero fret as it was originally & hope it will tune up?
(i dont understand the zero fret tbh, does it essentially act as the nut/0mm on the scale?)

part of this problem being, i cant work out what length the nut/zero fret >> end of fret 1 should be using a scale calculator (ie a modern guitar is; 2x top nut >>> middle of fret 12)... this maths simply doesnt work on this guitar.
.the 440mm(ish) fretboard length being shorter than the 460mm(?) fretboard length on my strat)

from roughly measuring the scale must be around 600mm (=from existing botched inside top nut >>> about where the floating bridge piece should sit)
but when I use a scale caluculator to work it outs miles out seeing as fret 1>>2 is 32.6 ish mm, fret 2-3 is 30mm, fret 3-4 is 27.7mm

..............................

does anyone have a micrometer/vernier & a sonic to hand that would be kind enough to measure;
end of zero fret(inside the nut) >> end of fret 1/start of fret 2, for the total length of maple I need to craft
&
zero fret >> end of fret 1/start of fret 2 for my fret marking

any help much appreciated, apologies for the garbled first post!
i can post some pics if needed.?

Jim

[ecca]

Put a picture or two up Jim, let's have a look.

[jamesblagg]

Current state of botched 'repair'

http://imageshack.us/a/img132/9117/imag0378p.jpg

[jamesblagg]

Next to strat, note fretboard shorter.. 470mm on strat, 440mm ish on

http://imageshack.us/a/img818/3726/imag0379yv.jpg

[mgeek]

Is that a different section of wood spliced in to make up the first fret? Doesn't appear to be beech like the original board... Ay carumba!

As it's something of a wreck already (judging by the pics) I'd be tempted to bung a new fretboard on there...I've done this several times where a guitar was properly past it, or the slots were in the wrong place, from the factory and it's a pretty satisfying thing to do. Can't recall what scale length these were to start with...24.75?

[RayL]

From Paul Day's 'Burns Book' , the Sonic's scale length is 23 3/8". This is the same short scale as the Artist and Vibra-Artiste. The Sonic has 21 frets compared to the 24 for the Artist and early V-A.

Ray

[ErikMAMS]

Will has a point about replacing the complet fretboard.

However - with these small Burns guitars, I think I might just add a nut to get it playable for a start. Depending on how the rest of the project turns out one could always replace the entire fretboard later - if the guitars shows the potentials. I'm a player not a collector, so missing the zero fret wouldn't bother me.

With a 23 3/8" = 593,7 mm scale length the 1st fret position turns out at 33.322 mm - according to: http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/fret.htm

Further down on the linked page you can calculate all fret positions in one go. Maybe you can compare your actual relative fret spacings (2 > 3 and so on) to the calculator table in order to verify the scale length.

Erik

[burnsbonkers]

Hi James, I can help, I've got a very nice sonic I'll send dimensions later.
However, looking at the piece of Ikea furniture rammed in-between the first and zero fret, I'll have to agree with mgeek with the total board replacement idea.
There are places that sell pre cut boards and the like, you could even get one made to suit.
What other parts do you have? Everything?
It appears that it's quite an early version, so not only it being a sentimental piece, it's also worth bringing back to life .
Feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to help....you could send it me and I'll sort it for nowt.

[jamesblagg]

Thanks for the info gents (beech board hey? I assumed maple)
What is the lovely dark wood the body is made from?

I think a new fretboard is the best idea, the guitar has had A hard life.
Think it will be hard to match the grain of the existing board

Ive been taking pics as I go so might do a 'project sonic' thread when I've done some more work

Bonus is the electrics still work and I have all the major parts.
Going to cost up a new fretboard, wish me luck ha

http://imageshack.us/a/img202/2396/imag0374tm.jpg
Need to find some nice aged pickguard screws.. (odd/missing screws atm)

http://imageshack.us/a/img18/215/imag0375o.jpg
Clean(er than it was :p ) trem .. which model is it please?
It has 'burns pat app' on arm & '2' stamped in back of string barrell


Patrick that would greatly help if you could measure the fret spacing and total board length on yours.
(Just to double check the measurements posted above, tanks btw!)

[jamesblagg]

Next week's (so far) shopping list:

-repro leather strap from burns (long thrown out old broken original doh!)
-either repro plastic knobs like original or big alloy ones off nusonic/burns site (haven't decided yet)
& 16x tuner screws & 9? Pickguard screws

$

(Also, while I'm here: are the few white Sonics on a few websites I've seen legit? Or is it more likely these were repainted? I've only ever seen other red/black neck ones in the flesh)