Early 60’s Eko Archtop

An acquaintance found this old 60’s Eko (made in Italy) in a garbage can out in the rain. Most of the finish was gone. The top was cracked and had lots of water damage. The top and bottom had partially separated from the body. The fret board was all swollen and deeply cracked. Many of the frets had partially popped out. One of the tuning button posts was badly bent. The neck mounting screws were rusted and the list goes on. This one probably should have been left in the garbage, but hey, I’m a sucker for a challenge.

Here is the photographic progression as I worked both the neck and the body – sanded and re-fretted the neck, fixed the original tuning machines, re-glued the body back together, sanded & stained & French polished the body. Reassembled and setup. The nice thing is that all the hardware, including the tuners, pick guard, tailpiece and bridge are all original – they just needed a ton of work to make them look good again.

Turned out pretty well in my humble opinion. I finished it to intentionally look like a distressed and aged instrument (it was pretty distressed after all). The neck colour doesn’t quite match the body, but hey, it came out of a water filled garbage can – what do you want?!? 😆

The million dollar question is “how does it sound?” Not too shabby at all. The tone and intonation is pretty good, and I’m tempted to find a vintage neck pickup and electrify this thing.

Thanks for looking.