Another Mesa Lonestar Reverb Problem

Fig. 1. A Mesa Lonestar Special with a bad reverb tank.

I have only repaired two Mesa amps in my life. Both were Lonestars, and both had the same problem: the reverb wasn't working. On the Mesa I fixed last summer (the Purple Beast), the problem was a broken wire in the tank and an pretty easy fix.

This time, the symptom was exactly the same. The first thing I did was look all over for the reverb footswitch input, which is unmarked and tucked away under the chassis, behind the reverb cable jacks (see Fig. 2). Once I had that hooked up, I checked that the reverb controls were turned up and that the tank was correctly connected (which I did by reversing the wires and still not getting any reverb). I checked the wires for continuity and tried new ones just to be absolutely safe. Still no reverb.

Fig. 2. Here I am pointing at the very well hidden reverb footswitch jack.

I had my kids check for continuity in the tank (Fig. 3), and everything checked out. I then plugged the tank into my Blues Jr, and there was no reverb. I had a new one ordered ($20) and waited.

Fig. 3. The younguns having a go at it. Specifically, checking for continuity on the wires in the tank.

When the new one came, I was excited about the quick fix (the sooner I fix it, the happier the customer is, the quicker I get a $1700 amp off  my property, and the sooner I get paid). I quickly installed the tank and tried it out. No effing reverb. I switched cables, tried it in the Blues Jr.—still nothing.

I thought I should take a peek at the allegedly new reverb tank, so I removed it from the plywood it was mounted to. I had glanced at the inside of the tank before screwing it to the plywood before, but I missed an obvious and important detail: the reverb tank was shipped with a small piece of foam packed under the springs, which prevents them from rattling when shipped and from creating a reverb sound when installed.

With the foam removed, I installed the tank and tried the amp, and it sounded heavenly.

A Speedy Refinish of a Mahogany Ibanez RG321

I just bought an Ibanez RG321 MH (mahogany) on eBay. I have wanted to try one for quite a while and the price was low enough for an impulse buy. When I got it, it had a couple more scratches than were visible in the listing photos (a pox upon thee, seller!). One of the scratches was kind of deep, so the exposed wood was in high contrast to the guitar's dark stain.

Fig. 1. One of the eBay listing photos for the Ibanez RG321 MH.
You can see that the finish is not perfect, but the worst gouge
does not show up in this photo.

 I started lightly sanding it to remove the scratch. One thing led to another, and in only a couple of minutes, it looked like Fig. 2 below. If you have ever tried to sand a poly-coated guitar, you know that this amount of sanding can easily take an afternoon. The stain came off quite easily, so I kept sanding. While I was at it, I rounded the lower horn a little. The original was too pointy for my liking. It's not that noticeable, but woodworking is not my thing, and I didn't want to risk altering the guitar too much.

Fig. 2. In contrast to poly-coated guitars, getting down to this much
bare wood only took a couple of minutes on this guitar. Also note
the slightly more rounded tip on the lower horn.

Over the course of a couple of short evening sessions, I removed the neck, hardware and electronics, and sanded the body down to bare wood. The only tricky part was sanding the back without scratching the chrome string ferrules. I used an old razor blade for that (Fig. 3) to scrape around the ferrules. Keeping it flat and working slowly, I was able to remove the finish without scratching the ferrules or gouging the wood.

Fig. 3. Using an old razor blade instead of sandpaper to avoid 
scratching the shiny chrome finish on the string ferrules.

On each of the next three evenings, I put on a thin coat of tung oil, lightly sanding with fine steel wool between coats. I ended up with this:

Fig. 4. The body, after three light coats of tung oil.

 
Unfortunately, the seams between the different pieces of mahogany show up more clearly with the lighter finish. But I like it better than the original dark stain, which made the guitar look too dated. I just reassembled and restrung the guitar—here are the before and after pics:

Fig. 5: The guitar as purchased (left) and after refinishing (right).
Not a huge difference, but the scratches are gone, and I greatly
prefer the lighter finish.