Restoration • Guitar Electronics • Custom Circuit

First Act ME4016.
Burned, rebuilt & rewired.

A free guitar that looked, sounded and played rough became a long-running experiment in refinishing, repair and custom electronics — including a torch-burned finish, fretboard work, aged hardware, a rebuilt control area and an onboard JFET preamp tuned around the original pickups.

First Act ME4016Burned FinishFretboard & Fret WorkCustom JFET PreampControl Cavity Rebuild

First Act ME4016 transformation from original guitar through torch burning to the finished rebuild

01 • The Starting Point

A free guitar with nowhere to go but up.

The guitar came to me through my girlfriend’s work, where one of the therapists had given it to her. Neither of us cared much for the original look, and it wasn’t winning us over by the way it sounded or played either.

That made it a perfect candidate for experimenting. There was no plan to preserve it as-is — the idea was simply to see how far I could take it.

First Act ME4016 in its original brown finish with dragon graphic — The guitar as it started: original finish, original hardware and plenty of room for improvement.

02 • Strip It. Burn It. Sand It Back.

The finish became the first experiment.

The original finish was sanded away, then the body was burned with a propane torch before being sanded back again. The goal was to leave the grain dark and scorched without simply turning the whole guitar black.

First Act guitar body sanded down to bare wood — After removing the original finish.

First Act guitar body being burned with a propane torch — The torch treatment in progress.

First Act guitar body after torch burning — Freshly burned before the char was sanded back.

Burned First Act guitar body after sanding back the char — Sanding the burn back revealed the grain and created the final distressed character.

03 • The Part Where It Went Wrong

The control cavity got a little too much fire.

The torch work went too far around the electronics area and burned away enough wood to leave a substantial hole. I patched the area and finished the guitar anyway, but the original selector switch no longer had enough structure around it to mount properly.

So visually the guitar was much closer to where I wanted it, but electronically it was still unfinished. It stayed that way for months.

Burned-through First Act control cavity with an early patch attempt — The first attempt at saving the burned-through control area.

First Act control area showing damage around the original selector opening — The damage still made the original control arrangement impractical.

04 • Neck & Hardware

Making it feel as intentional as it looked.

The cosmetic work extended beyond the body. The very light fretboard was dyed with India ink, the fretboard edges were rolled, and the fret ends were filed and dressed to improve the feel in the hand. The chrome hardware was also sanded and distressed to match the aged finish.

First Act fretboard during India ink dye process — The fretboard during the darkening process.

First Act fretboard after dye and fret-end work — Darkened fretboard with the edges and fret ends cleaned up.

Aged bridge hardware on the refinished First Act guitar — Chrome hardware was deliberately distressed to fit the rest of the guitar.

Burned and clear-coated First Act headstock — The headstock received the same burned treatment.

Close view of crackled burned finish on First Act headstock — Close-up of the scorched texture under the clear coat.

05 • Months Later

Stop patching it. Cut it out.

When I came back to the electronics months later, I decided the damaged control area wasn’t worth trying to preserve. I cut out the compromised section completely and started over with a larger, cleaner opening.

A Strat-style rear cavity plate I already had on hand became the basis for a new control cover. That gave me enough room to rethink the layout rather than forcing the original hardware back into a damaged area.

First Act guitar with damaged control area before the cavity was fully cut out — Before removing the compromised section.

First Act guitar after enlarged control cavity was cut out — The damaged area cut away to create a usable cavity.

Finished custom control plate fitted to First Act guitar — The new control plate fitted and mounted.

06 • Circuit Development

The original pickups stayed. Their electronics didn’t.

The onboard JFET preamp followed a process similar to the Jackson project: breadboard the circuit with the actual guitar connected, then adjust capacitor and resistor values until the response worked with these particular pickups. Once the circuit felt right, it was transferred to a compact permanent build for installation.

JFET guitar preamp being developed on a breadboard — Breadboard development while tuning the circuit response.

Hand-drawn JFET preamp schematic with finished compact circuit board — The working circuit notes and compact finished board.

07 • Rewiring the Guitar

A smaller selector made room for something more useful.

The original pickups were reinstalled and paired with a compact three-way toggle switch, freeing up space on the new plate for the onboard preamp. A second toggle engages the JFET circuit, with an indicator LED built into the layout.

The result is a control system designed around the space that was actually available after the cavity rebuild instead of trying to imitate the damaged original layout.

Original First Act electronics mounted to the old control plate during disassembly — The original electronics during teardown.

First Act guitar electronics and JFET preamp installed in rebuilt cavity — The rebuilt cavity with the new electronics installed.

Finished First Act control plate with volume, tone, pickup selector, JFET switch and LED — The finished control layout.

08 • The Result

It stopped being the guitar that was given away.

What began as an inexpensive guitar neither of us liked became something completely its own. The burned finish and distressed hardware changed the character, the neck work improved the feel, and the rebuilt electronics finally made the guitar functional in a way the first version never was.

It also became a good reminder that not every project moves in a straight line. Sometimes the mistake becomes the reason to redesign the whole thing.

Finished First Act ME4016 after restoration and electronics rebuild — The completed First Act ME4016.

Close view of finished First Act control plate and burned finish — Burned finish, aged hardware and the final custom electronics layout.

Have Something Rough Around the Edges?

Sometimes a project gets better after the original plan fails.

If you’ve got a guitar that needs repair, electronics work or a more unconventional second life, get in touch and we’ll talk through what’s possible.

Discuss a Project

First Act ME4016.Burned, rebuilt & rewired.