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In the previous post, we set about making a replacement decal for the neck on this vintage Hofner Colorama II. Before we lacquer the neck, we need to apply the decal. The decal is printed on special laser waterslide decal paper. This paper just prints on a standard laser printer. It’s also possible to get inkjet waterslide decal paper, but just note that an inkjet printout requires that you spray a layer of lacquer over the printed decal before you let it anywhere near water. So first we put some not-too-hot/not-too-cold water in a little dish and place the decal in there, making sure to submerge it. After a minute or so you will notice that it starts to separate from the paper. You can test this by seeing if it will slide around on the paper, but don’t force it too much. While we are waiting for the decal to reach this separation stage, it’s a good idea to spread just a little bit of water on the area where we will apply the decal. This helps to prep the surface for what is to come. O...

In the last blog post, we stripped down and de-fretted a vintage Hofner Colorama II neck. Today we’ll re-fret it. First of all, we need to do some initial preparation, so we lay the neck out on its jig just like in the previous post and then sort out the fret wire. These frets have been bought pre-cut and pre-radiused. They’re not all the same length, so we need to sort them in order of shortest to longest. Here we’ve punched holes (don’t use the frets to do this!) in an empty cardboard box and placed the frets in them in the correct order. Next thing we need to do is clean all of the dust, etc., out of the fret slots. A thin craft knife will suffice for this, but do it in the opposite direction to the knife edge (in other words, if the blade is pointing forwards, then pull the knife backwards). Remember, we’re not actually cutting anything here, just pushing all of the dust out of the slots. Next we take our shortest fret and do a test fitting in the first fret slot. Uh-oh, it seems t...