Long overdue

So about 2 years ago, a friend brought me 2 guitars to do my magic on. One was a classical from the 50's that he found in a garage and wanted fixed so it would be playable, the other was an Ibanez Gio. The Ibanez, in my opinion isn't the greatest guitar, but it was his first guitar, and his baby, so I told him I'd do what I could. Since I started this project 2 years ago, I no longer have the "before" pics, I apologize.

The classical wasn't really in bad shape structurally, but the bridge was shattered, and the tuners were shot. I had a classical guitar laying around that my sister gave me which had no truss rod, so it was unplayable. I used that for parts since it had an ebony bridge and some halfway decent tuners. The bridge replacement went rather painlessly, but the tuners were a problem. the original tuners had the large plastic shafts, so I had to fill and redrill the holes on those.

The Ibanez...Oh where do i start? The back cover was missing, as were 3 of the knobs, and corresponding nuts on the pots, so they were all hanging out the back with partially detached wiring. The pickups needed cleaning badly, and the rings were cracked and missing springs. The pickup selector switch was broken. the strap pegs were gone, and they had been pulled out so many times he had resorted to duct tape to hold the strap on, leaving the body covered in several year old tape, and dried tape residue.

The first thing i tackled was the duct tape. Took forever to scrape off without damaging the paint, and then probably 2-3 hours in total to clean the goo off without removing any finish. I then drilled out the tattered pegholes to 3/8" and filled with a composite material i use, and capped with dowel plugs. Junked the old switch, and changed it out with an AllParts les paul switch. As a temporary fix, i took a scrap of 3/16" sapele I had laying around and made a new back cover until I can either find a NOS ibanez cover, or just make a new one from pickguard m aterial if he isn't happy with the wood cover. I managed to save the old pickup rings, and put new springs in there and cleaned up all the rust on the pole pieces. The last thing I did, which I didn't do until this week when I found out he was finally coming to get the stuff was find new knobs and get some replacement nuts so the pots would stop falling out. All in all, it was an ass ton of work combining a ton of small individual jobs, but I'm stoked with the results and I hope he is as well.