I’ve got a baseball behind my workbench signed by 1970’s Cubs outfielder Jose Cardinal (my favorite player as a kid.) I don’t play ball with it because I know that autograph would disappear quickly. Baseballs are cheap, so I play ball with another one.

This Schecter Synyster Custom was played onstage and autographed by the members of Avenged Sevenfold. The owner wanted to keep those autographs safe so he had two options: hang it on the wall and never play it OR have us finish over the top of the signatures to keep them protected. He wanted to play it, so we opted to spray a few clear coats of polyurethane over the top.

For the new paint to bond properly to the original finish, we need to scuff the surface with sandpaper – taking great care not to sand away the signatures. Before we can do that, we have to remove the pickups, bridge, and controls.

Next it heads into the spray booth for several coats of clear poly, followed by wet-sanding and buffing it to a high gloss Finally, we put it all back together with the Works setup.

These signatures look exactly the way they did when the guitar arrived. But the owner won’t have to worry about playing it now that they’re sealed. Every guitar that has meaningful autographs should have this work done.

This late 60’s Les Paul Deluxe has had lots of work done to it over the years. Its original P90 or mini-humbucker pickups were removed and replaced with full size humbuckers, it has had mini toggle switches installed and removed, and its original gold top was refinished as a burgundy shaded burst. The current owner discovered that a hairline crack had appeared in the top, extending from below the tailpiece all the way into the neck pickup cavity. He asked us to repair the crack and refinish it to it’s original goldtop color.

These two small holes between the control knobs probably once housed coil tap, phase, or series/parallel switches.  They’ve been filled, but are still completely visible.

The body crack is barely visible – running through the tailpiece and bridge post holes and continuing all the way into the neck pickup cavity. To make the repair really look right, we knew we’d have to refinish the top. First, we completely strip away the old finish.

This close look at the pickup routs shows the original P90 routs, widened to fit full size humbuckers and (if you look closely) some remaining patches of the gold finish it once had. We opted to stay with the current humbucker pickup arrangement but to restore the gold finish. The one electronic alteration  we made was to wax-pot and cover the pickups.

Here’s a better look at the body crack after repair.

The refinish begins with sealer and white primer coats.

Then that distinctive Gibson gold-top. Here we peel away tape that kept the gold paint off the edge binding.

After amber top-coats and some light relic touches, it’s starting to look the part again.

Once the work is complete, there’s no evidence of the body crack or switch holes anymore. It’s just another great looking Gibson Les Paul Gold-top.

This online auction purchase made a layover at CFW for a body refin, before heading to its new home in France.

The buyer lives in France and the seller lives in Chicago. So before it shipped, the new owner of this vintage Guild Jetstar Bass asked that it be brought here so we could remove a clear refin, and restore its original 3-tone sunburst look.  The trick, was to make the new body finish blend in with the original burst finish still on the neck.

Here’s the untouched neck with its original sunburst finish.

Someone did a very good job of refinishing the body with clear lacquer and it aged nicely. But the new owner really wanted it to be a full sunburst like it was originally. So we got to work stripping back to the bare wood.

Before refinishing, Dan sands the body until all of the old finish is gone. The pickup rout still has the original base yellow color, so he’ll leave that alone and use it for a color reference.

Next, it’s into the booth for sealer coats and a base of vintage yellow.

Then the dark outer burst…

…and finally the red inner burst.

After amber top coats, we distress the finish to blend in with the years of heavy wear on the neck.

What a great looking and sounding bass.  We’ll pack it up carefully and ship it to its new home in Paris!

We had a couple of unusual projects recently that required some creative work with color. The owners of both this 70’s Fender Precision Bass and a modern Gibson SG knew they wanted to refinish their instruments, but wanted to do something a little more unique than just choosing a standard Fender or Gibson color.  Interestingly, both ended up with colors more reminiscent of  vehicles than other musical instruments.

The bass started out with a stripped body. It was a Precision Bass that had been routed at one time for an EMG Jazz pickup and a battery compartment on the back.  We filled both routs  and sanded them smooth to fit the texture of the rest of the body.

For our custom color, we improvised a sort of ‘Granny Smith’ flavored candy apple. It looked a little odd to the two of us on a color sample stick, but our customer loved it and said to use it. By the time it was put together with the original pickguard, pickups, and a new Leo Quann Badass 2 bridge, we were totally convinced he was right. It received a unanimous thumbs up from all parties. It matched perfectly with an owl strap from Chicago-based Souldier Straps.

After staring at this bass for a while, we figured out what it reminded us of:

A 1973 Honda CB500!

Next up is a late model Gibson SG that came in almost completely stripped of it’s original cherry finish.

The owner has a vast collection of green guitars and wanted this one to join that group. He asked us to match the color on a dark metallic-green pool cue and to inlay stars for the fretboard markers.  The new inlays required removing the frets so we could eventually smooth and level the entire fretboard.

Next we prepped the mahogany body for finishing by removing all the old paint and applying grain filler to the pores. This will insure that even a very porous wood like mahogany will have the smooth-as-glass surface look that we want.

After matching that green pool cue’s color and applying top coats of nitro, this SG is uniquely beautiful. Check it out.

So where did we find that killer racing green finish? From Porsche!

The Greco Super Real is one of the more sought-after copies of the Gibson Les Paul. They consistently fetch upwards of $1500 on eBay and in our opinion, outshine many of the more common varieties. It’s got great weight, feel, and sound but the appearance is a little less convincing. The owner of this guitar noticed that it had an orange-hued finish that was clearly not the traditional nitrocellulose lacquer found on Gibson guitars. He asked us to refinish it in nitrocellulose and relic the appearance so that it looks more like a genuine vintage Les Paul.

Those original goldtops got their look from clear lacquer finish applied over bronze powder. Over time, the clear finish would wear thin and ‘check,’  exposing the bronze to arm sweat and the oxygen in the air. As a result, many of these 50+ year old guitars have taken on a greenish appearance in the more heavily worn areas. The Greco’s owner knew this and specifically wanted to see this subtle effect on his guitar – which means simulating fifty years of wear and tear in a brand new finish. You’ll see we were up to the challenge.

The work begins with removing the old finish. It turned out to be two separate color layers between the outer surface and the wood. The top layer peeled off in large flakes.

Once all of the finish is off, the entire body gets sanded smooth and prepped for painting. The mahogany back and neck are coated with pore-filler which levels the surface of the wood and makes the grain really stand out under lacquer.

After a sealer coat, comes a white primer for the top surface. This gives a solid background for the gold color coat.

After gold and clear top-coats, the Greco looks beautiful and new… but not for long!  Now it’s time to scratch, chip, cut, and scrape it so that it takes on the appearance of natural wear and checking without having to wait 50 years.

Working from a photo the owner sent us, we started adding the random-looking dings, dents, and finish checking you’d expect to see on a vintage guitar. When we don’t have photos to work from, we use a 15 point checklist with each point graded for light, medium, and heavy wear to try to deliver what each customer wants. Overall, this one would probably fall into the medium/heavy range.

It’s subtle, but you’ll notice that the checking has the greenish hue we were looking for.

There you have it. Turns out you don’t need 50 actual years to get 50 years of wear!

Hold on there! Refinish a vintage Gibson? In candy apple red?? There better be a darn good reason to do something like that… and there was.

As mentioned in previous posts, the guitar repairman’s rule of thumb with vintage instruments is to leave it in as close to original condition as possible while still maintaining its playability. In the case of this 1960’s Gibson ES-355TDC, a couple of previous repairs have left it far from its original condition. When it arrived, the most obvious change was that it had been painted white years earlier and that white finish was flaking off in big chunks. A little closer look revealed a headstock repair the likes of which we’ve never seen. Throw in some long ago water damage, cracks in the body, and stains in the wood and the vintage value of the guitar is pretty well gone. You may as well paint it blue; or as the owner of this guitar decided, candy apple red.

Our original plan with this guitar was to strip off the old white paint and restore it to as close to original condition as possible – meaning refinish it in its original translucent cherry red color. But once the flaking paint was off, we saw that the headstock had been entirely rebuilt, with the new headstock made, curiously enough, out of plywood. There were also a great number of cracks in the surface layer of the laminated body. These cracks were likely the result of extensive water damage and could be the reason it was originally refinished.

The body cracks and flaws would be visible through any transparent color. We know because we tried it, even darkening the red color to try to hide the cracks. It just didn’t look very good.

So the owner called an audible and told us he’d just as soon have us paint it something flashier – candy apple red and while we were at it, could we add binding to the F holes. It was an unexpected color request, particularly since Gibsons were rarely finished in candy apple red, but one we felt was not out of line given the condition of the guitar. He loves the way this guitar plays and decided he wanted to love the way it looked too.

We began the new work by gluing white binding to the inside of the F holes. This guitar didn’t have binding , but plenty of other old Gibsons do, so it didn’t look out of place. It’s tricky and sticky work that takes time and patience.

Once the binding is in place we can sand the F hole areas level. Next we add a coat of white primer/sealer…

…and a couple coats of the sparkly candy apple red.

Before spraying clear top coats, Dan has to clean the red paint off the body binding and the black paint off the headstock and Gibson logo.

Next it’s time to top the finish with clear nitrocellulose lacquer. To get the finish smooth and glassy in appearance, Dan has to wet sand the clear top coats up to 1200 grit sandpaper before buffing out the whole guitar (hence the hazy appearance in this shot.)

Before final buffing, Steve carefully threads all the electronics back into place. On a hollow body guitar like this there is no easily accessed control cavity (like the back of  a Les Paul) or pick guard (like a Stratocaster) on which to mount the pots and jack. They have to be pulled through the pickup hole using fingers, dental floss, surgical tubing, or all of the above. It’s kind of like building a ship in a bottle.

Then, once the pieces are back in place, Dan buffs out the entire guitar.

Finally, we install  the hardware and a new pick guard to replace the crumbling and decaying original one you saw in the first picture. A fresh set of strings and this red rocket is ready to roar.

Oh, yea, and Dan refretted this guitar too. He worked so fast I couldn’t get pictures of him working! We’ll cover that subject in a future Workbench post.