Mini-Project - Encore PRS Copy

After finishing the Westone I decided it was time to finally fix up my first ever 6-string electric - an old Encore PRS copy that I bought second hand back in the mid-90s. I'm calling it a PRS copy since it looks like that was what they were going for with a Strat (ish) shape, two humbuckers and a Strat-type trem, and I have no idea of an official model name or number for it. I've scoured the internet for more information and found nothing, not even a picture of another one like it, so I have no clue what they called it, when it was made or how much it sold for new. If anyone reading this can shed any light on it, please get in touch! The reason I've decided to do it up is that I've decided to sell it - I don't play it any more and I need the space, so it's time to let it go.

The problem it's had for years now is that a chip broke off the end of the nut - it's never caused a problem with how the guitar plays, but I wouldn't buy a guitar that looked like this, so why try to sell one like it! A couple of close-ups of the damage:

In these photos you can also see the huge amount of glue that had been used to glue it in originally, and the fact that, somewhat unhelpfully, it had obviously been glued in before the neck was covered in an equally huge amount of lacquer. That made it a little tricky to remove it without ruining the lacquer around the edges, but after carefully scoring through the surface of the lacquer with a sharp knife I was able to gently tap it out with a small hammer. That left a fair bit of glue in the slot:

That was easy enough to file away though:

Then it was fairly simple, as with the Westone, to sand down the new nut to the right height and glue it into place:

Then, after a setup to get it playing as well as possible, a picture of the whole, finished guitar - complete with new tremolo arm, since I'd lost the old one!

Surprisingly enough for an Encore (as any guitarist will tell you, their cheap Strat copies are pretty nasty), it's actually a really nice guitar to play, and it sounds good too. The volume control has a push-pull switch to coil split the pickups, and it's pretty nice looking too! Not nice enough to keep though, so hopefully the local guitar shop will take it off my hands...unless you'd like to make an offer!