Claescaster

Tag: Eko Ranger VI

August 19, 2013

How to… crown and polish frets

Last week I got all the parts needed to try to refret my Tokai, Since I have never done any form of fret work before I thought it was a good idea to practice on some guitars before I got down to business on my beloved Les Paul. The first thing did was to crown and polish the frets on my EKO Ranger VI. It was a bit scary, like always when you do things for the first time, but I soon realised that it wasn’t harder than anything else I done in the past.

How to crown and polish frets
I masked the fretboard and then crowned the frets with my Uo-Chikyu medium fret crowning file. I read that was good to use 400, 600 and 1200 grit sandpaper to polish the frets but I could only find 400 and 800 here in Barcelona. Either way, it felt like the main difference was made by the last step, the wire wool.

How to crown and polish frets
Once the frets was shiny on smooth from the wire wool I went over them one last time with a cloth and some metal polish and the removed the masking tape and oiled up the fretboard with lemon oil. I decided to change the machine heads as well, I had a set of open back grover copies that seemed to suit fine. I think the neck almost looks like new now.

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June 24, 2013

Eko Ranger VI

Eko Ranger VI

I went for a walk this Saturday and ended up in a Cash converter, as I usually do, and found myself with a Eko Ranger VI. I’ve been pretty curious about these and have kept an eye on eBay for one but they tend go for a lot more than I’m willing to pay but now the price was right. I took it home and gave it a good clean, oiled the fret board and restrung it. It’s a quite weird guitar, the neck feels like a Les Paul neck so it’s really easy to play solo on but it’s a bit thin sounding when strumming chords. I’m not sure if its’ because of the wood or the fact that it has a bolt on neck. I have a 12-string Eagle back in Sweden, a German made guitar from the 1970’s that has the same system and that one feels pretty similar. I’ve seen quite a few Framus and even some Japanese Epiphone’s with the bolt on so it must have been fairly common back then.

Eko Ranger VI I’m not sure if she has spend two decades in the sun or what happened to the pickguard. I will try to find a replacement and change that.

Eko Ranger VI It doesn’t say what model it is but I assume it’s a Eko Ranger VI.

Eko Ranger VI There are quite a few cracks in the lacquer all around and the nut has come off and been badly glued back by the previous owner.

Eko Ranger VI I guess it’s a 1970’s model since the headstock is not black but it’s a lot darker then these Rangers and has a black logo instead of white. Taken from OffsetGuitars

EKO sold
Update 2013-09-05 EKO got a new dad, a real Italian dad. This is how happy Gyo was when he picked up his new guitar.

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