Well now that the pickup has been repaired, we’re ready to put this baby back together.
Firstly, we scrape out all of the crud left by extra lacquer, rubbing compound, etc., before fitting the tremolo:
Then we make new holes, since the old stripped ones have been plugged:
Before fitting the tremolo, I wanted to mount a ground wire to it, but I wasn't too happy about connecting it to the base, since I wasn't sure how the signal would transfer from the main block/drum. After thinking about several options, I noticed that the threaded hole that holds the arm lever on the top goes all the way through the drum (although it's not actually threaded all the way through).
So I tapped a thread a little bit into the bottom and connected the ground wire there:
And here's the tremolo system all fitted back in:
And from the top. You can also see the ground wire coming through into the control cavity, which I've also shielded with shielding tape, just like the back of the scratchplate:
The neck and strap buttons attached (apologies for the shaky photo):
Finally, the pickguard/scratchplate holes are marked and re-drilled, so that it too can be re-fitted:
And here it is all back together:
I did a quick sound demo of the guitar. It's pretty basic, but hopefully you can at least hear more or less how it sounds. I had to record it on my camera in low light, so, you know...
Apologies in advance for the crap video quality/sound quality/accent/playing/background mess.
Well that's the end of the Hofner Colorama restoration. If you happened to stumble upon this post and haven't seen the whole process, feel free to click on part one here: http://diystrat.blogspot.com/2011/09/hofner-colorama-ii-restoration-project.html, and follow the whole story by clicking on "Newer Post" when you reach the bottom of each part.
P.S. Here's a guy showing what these old Hofner Coloramas can really sound like:
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