Morris W-50
by claesgellerbrink
I recently got myself a Morris W-50, my third Morris and it sounds as good as the other two. Solid spruce top and it looks like the back and sides are solid Brazilian rosewood and quilted maple. It was pretty beat up when I got it from Guitar Hiro in Madrid with plenty of dents and a cracked back but now I’ve fixed it up a bit and it’s playable again. It’s a nice Martin D-42 copy with snowflake inlays and the typical Martin volute where the head and neck meet. Nice inlays all around and a beautiful 3-piece back with flamed maple and rosewood. I guess it was made around 1976 since they changed to hexagon inlays in the 1979 catalogue and then renamed them from W-50 to TF around 1983.
TF Morris W-50, Made in Japan around 1976
Morris Japan catalogue 1976
There was a bit of work needed on this guitar. The back was cracked in the binding just below the heel which made the whole neck tilt forward causing a pretty high action. I cleaned out the crack, someone had put some super glue in there, filled it with fish glue that I let really sink in and connect with the neck block, clamped it and left if for 48 hours. Now it seems really solid and the action got so low that I had to make a new higher bone saddle for it. There was a lot of dents and marks on the back of the neck so I filled them with nitro lacquer and sanded it smooth and buffed it up with metal polish, here you can read more about how to repair lacquer damage. The only thing left now is to ad some gold machine heads so I ordered a set of open back Schaller ST6 this morning and will fit strap button and an endpin jack tonight.
I recently changed the machine heads on my 1970’s Japan made Morris W-50 to Wilkinson WJ28NGD open gear in gold and I couldn’t be happier
Moridaira (Morris Guitars)
Founded in 1967 by Toshio “Mori” Moridaira, the Moridaira factory produced high-quality guitars, including the infamous Morris badged guitar. Moridaira also produced badged guitars for Hohner including Coronado, Futurama, H.S. Anderson, Lotus (some) and Sakai.
The whole family, Morris W-50, Morris W-40 and Morris WL-35
Claescaster 
the guitar looks really good how did you get the dents out?
I explain it a bit better in the link below. But the quick version is to use a soldering iron and a wet rag to try to get the dent to swell with the steam by passing lightly over. Then fill the dents with lacquer, scrape, fill, scrape over and over, and then finally wet sand with 400, 800, 1500, 2000, 2500 grit paper and finally buff it all shiny and smooth with some metal polish.
https://claescaster.wordpress.com/2013/11/26/how-to-repair-lacquer-damage/
[…] recently changed the machine heads on my 1970’s Japan made Morris W-50 to Wilkinson WJ28NGD open gear in gold and I couldn’t be […]
[…] Morris W-50, Made in Japan 1970’s,650€ SOLD Great looking Martin D-42 copy with snowflake inlays and the typical Martin volute where the head and neck meet. Solid spruce top with nice inlays all around and a beautiful 3-piece back with flamed maple and dark rosewood. The guitar is all original and in really good shape for being over 35 years old but with scratches and marks around the body. It has Wilkinson WJ28NGD open gear machine heads in gold installed now but the original will be included. The neck is straight, trussrod works and the action is low. The guitar sounds great, very clear and Martin like. You can read more about the guitar here and listen to it in this Youtube clip. […]