This started as a nearly discarded totally trashed body and neck that I picked up off of ebay. It had been stripped of the original finish and someone varnished it. The entire right side starting at the input jack was broken and someone had screwed a metal plate to it to stabilize it. and the original bigsby B3 appears to have been changed to something else judging by the four holes drilled into the top. All of the original hardware was long gone by the time I received it. I decided to paint it a shade that kind of looked like the original color but with a slight twist, I used a metallic Ford car color lacquer that is opaque. Because of all the bodywork it required there was no way to use a translucent paint. I used a great set of DeArmond humbuckers that kind of resemble the original gold foils it had, A Bigsby B3CBVN trem that Gretsch used on the Duane Eddy model and white parts on it to set off the metallic paint and it changed the look completely. It looks like something Harmony could have made, I like the way it turned out.
Good job! Looks great. What was the most challenging area of the restoration?
I really intended to restore this one to original condition when I bought the pieces but the body had so many holes in it that it would have been impossible to fill the holes and still use a translucent paint without seeing all the filled in holes. It required a ton of filling, leveling and smoothing to get it right for a solid color. I think the paint on it looked so cool and it turned out to be so unique when it was done that I got over my initial disappointment of the condition of it.