Yesterday I took delivery of a fantastic example of a Fender USA 1969 – Yep 41 years old! – Fender Mustang.

This is the long scale version at 24” and was immortalised by Kurt Cobain in Nirvana’s “Smells like teen spirit” video (although he used the Left Hand version)!

According to the seller this item was bought new in 1969 and passed onto his son who didn’t play, and consequently the guitar is in incredibly good condition!

View the gallery for more details about this guitar.

By now the neck had had plenty of time to soak in it’s dose ofGuitar Honey, so I wiped it down and buffed it to a beautiful satin sheen with the blue cloth from the Pro Duo set. I cleaned the headstock and neck with Smudge Off and the blue cloth from the Pro Duo. The tuner housings I polished up with the Smudge Off and Yellow cloth from the Pro Duo. A quick treatment with Nº1 Carnauba wax on the headstock and neck (avoiding the fingerboard), and then replace the neck and screw in tight with a cross head screwdriver.

I then went through the usual procedure of restringing the guitar (with Ernie Ball 10’s – I might change these for 11’s later if tuning proves to be a problem as a result of the slightly shorter scale length and the tremolo system).

I checked and adjusted the intonation of each string.

I adjusted the height of the bridge, using the the two allen key screws in the feet of the bridge, until I got a low/buzz free sound. (I must admit I tend to do this by ear rather than using suggested heights of adjustment…)

I adjusted the height of the tailpiece to avoid the strings catching the back of the bridge, but still give enough angle over the bridge for a clear pitch.

I plugged in an blasted through “Smells like teen spirit.”

Nice!

Tags: cleaning, guitar maintenance