Here’s a project with humble beginnings that grew into a full vintage restoration. The owner picked up this very old Epiphone Devon at an estate sale (along with several other groan-worthy items I won’t even tell you about.) It had been rather sloppily stripped and refinished and the binding had entirely peeled off. Initially, we planned only to add the binding to the body and unfortunately didn’t bother to take pictures. So the photos here begin after the new binding was already in place, when the owner decided he’d like it completely refinished to look like it did originally. It was a good decision.

Here, Dan prepares the body for finishing. The previous finish job was topped off with some white paint or nail polish inside the F-holes, an apparent attempt to make the holes look bound. Based on some good photos of a Devon in its original condition, we decided to clean off the white paint and leave them unbound. After sanding away the old shellac or varnish, Dan sprays a sealer coat, taping off the fretboard.

Next comes the sunburst on the top. Below, he scrapes the dark brown finish off the white binding by hand.

Then full darkening of the back and sides and a vintage amber top-coat.

Once finishing is complete, the new binding blends in and looks beautiful.

The final product fully assembled.

Originally, a Devon would have had a thick and fully-bound tortoise-shell pickguard. Since a hand-made bound guard would have cost $300-400, we opted for a more affordable 3 ply tortoise reproduction. The shape is right and the white middle layer gives a satisfactory illusion of binding.

The original tailpiece and bridge and some period tuners made the whole thing look just right.  The thin lacquer finish helps bring out this guitar’s full, rich tone. A real beauty.

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!

This 1960 Gibson Les Paul Jr. is a terrific playing and sounding specimen. But it sure didn’t come in looking this great. After the owner picked it up in an auction, he emailed us some rather scary pictures of some truly scary looking “repairs” he hoped we could correct. We assured him we could make it look great and, more importantly, play great again. When it arrived from Florida, we took some deep breaths and assessed the damage.

The first thing that jumped out was a nasty headstock break with an awful looking mix of glue, epoxy, and maybe some bondo caked around the outside. Yuck.

Next there was a deep crack in the neck heel…

…and a large chunk that had broken off and been glued back onto the lower bout.

Finally there was an odd look to the ends of the fretboard. Can you see what’s wrong?

The fretboard has been removed and re-glued – in the wrong spot! That gap between the fretboard and pickguard (above) tells us that the previous repairman slid the board to the back of the nut shelf rather than the front, leaving A) no place to put a nut and B) a scale length that is off by nearly a quarter of an inch. So we knew the fretboard had to be removed and re glued in the right position.

The dots come out and the board comes off. The rather stingy amount of glue residue under the fretboard is yet another mark of the sloppy work that was done before.

At this point, we noticed another problem; the neck itself was loose where it joined the body. So we steamed it off the rest of the way and reglued it properly.

Once the neck and body are properly joined, we can move on to leveling the gluing surface between the neck and fretboard materials and gluing the fretboard on again.

With the fretboard in the right spot, there is once again a nut-shelf.

Now we can start cleaning up the messy headstock. We begin by smoothing away the rough globs of paint and glue from the previous work and using a leveling compound to make the surface level and smooth.

We do the same for the back of the headstock – which already makes it look much better.

It’s still an ugly looking repair, but to make sure it would hold, we put strings on and applied even more clamping pressure (to see if it came open.) It surprisingly held fast and strong. So the previous repairman avoids the shutout and manages to at least get this part of his repair right!

After applying some red finish to match the original color, Dan draws in grain lines by hand.Then he shoots clear top-coats of nitrocellulose lacquer, blending it in to the original finish. He does the same for the crack at the neck heel.

For the body crack, we wanted to take a minimal-impact approach. So we used a colored filler to level the area around the break and again sprayed a light coat of nitrocellulose to blend it in.

Once the new nitro finish is cured, we can level and prep the fretboard and hammer in new frets.

Finally, we go back to the crack repairs and distress the new finish to make it look like nothing ever happened.

This classic guitar looks great again and is ready for many more years of music.

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!

A common problem on vintage Gretsch guitars is the decay and crumbling of the outer celluloid binding strip. Sometimes, owners will opt to leave the cracked binding alone, but in this particular guitar’s case, the owner wanted it repaired. In areas, it was loose enough to be scraped off with a fingernail and in others it needed to be scraped and even chiseled off. We ended up replacing the outer layer entirely, then touching up the nitrocellulose finish.

Here, Dan chisels away the cracked and loose old binding.

After cleaning and smoothing the binding channel, he glues the new binding into place.

Then he touches up the area with ambered lacquer to better reflect this vintage guitar’s age.

Final buffing…

Shiny, clean, and looking great.

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.

For a variety of reasons, some folks just prefer old guitars. Maybe it’s the neck, worn smooth by years of handling. Maybe it’s the checked and cracked finish that looks like granddad’s old tube radio. Maybe it’s just the charm of something that’s played some music in its time. Or maybe it’s the fact that vintage guitars’ values are reliably and steadily rising – making them a good investment. But some of us can’t find or afford our real dream guitar. So at Chicago Fret Works, we’ve developed a relic process that will simulate aging in a guitar, giving it the look and feel but not the pricetag of a genuine vintage piece.

In this case, the dream guitar is a 1952 Fender Telecaster; the actual guitar is a 2008 Fender 52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele. That guitar looks something like this when brand new:

The Seymour Duncan mini-humbucker notwithstanding, this guitar is made to the specs of an original 52 Tele, including a nitrocellulose lacquer finish, nickel hardware, maple fretboard, and “ashtray” style bridge. These features make it an ideal candidate for a relic job because we don’t really need to replace any parts or completely refinish the guitar before we get started. A poly-coated guitar with modern chrome hardware can be distressed and banged up, but not with the authentic look of nitro and nickel. (If you’re not sure which variety your guitar is, don’t worry. We’ll help you figure it out.)

Here’s how it looked when we were finished:

What’s the opposite of the Fountain of Youth?… We think we’ve found it here.

This 1956 Les Paul Junior belongs to a friend who, yes, found this guitar in her dad’s closet. But she couldn’t play it because there’s a pretty obvious piece missing: the entire headstock! This isn’t your average reglue job. This will require building a new headstock, replacing the truss rod, and making it look as if nothing ever happened. Read on to see how.

Our friend Laura told us this guitar had been in that closet in this condition for more than 20 years before she brought it to us. She recalled that the headstock had broken off years ago and had been repaired, only to break off again. You can see why; the repairman sawed off the end of the neck, cutting straight through the truss rod and creating a very small and unstable gluing surface that was never going to hold under the tension of guitar strings. One flying leap off the drum riser and it probably popped right off!

Look closely at the angle of that cut. If you can imagine, the string tension was pulling the headstock in a direction that would encourage that glue joint to open up. We’ll be cutting a new angle that points the other direction. This will have the strings pulling the joint closed rather than open.  Before we can do anything else, we’ll have to remove the fretboard. We start by removing the inlay dots and heating the fretboard.

Once the fretboard is off, we removed the remnants of the old truss rod. This took some serious negotiating with rusted metal that had fused itself into the wood over 52 years.

At this point, we need to create a scarf joint (aimed in the right direction this time) and graft on a piece of mahogony from which to carve the new headstock.

Next, a new truss rod is installed that matches the look and function of the original one.

Now it’s time for this angel to get it’s headstock “wings.” Gibson headstocks have 3 pieces of mahogony that are joined together, then shaped by hand to form the profile that’s become so familiar to us.

In the background you can see a 1959 TV yellow Les Paul Jr. we used as a template to match all of the dimensions of a 50’s Gibson headstock. Once the neck shape is correct, we apply stain to match the color of the new wood to that of the old.

Next comes the Gibson logo using a waterslide decal.  Just like the original.

We apply a top coat of traditional nitrocellulose lacquer and distress its appearance to match the original finish on the rest of the guitar. While we were working on this job, the owner found the original tuning machines but with their white plastic buttons dry and crumbling. We replaced the buttons, allowing us to keep and use the vintage tuners.

Vintage Gibson fans will notice that the serial number we stamped does not begin with a “6″ as a 1956 model would have. The truth is, we aren’t trying to fool anyone with this repair. Anyone who knows what to look for will recognize that the headstock is not part of the original guitar. To make up a correct-looking serial number might bring it a little closer to what an original would look like, but it wouldn’t change the fact that the headstock is a replacement. So we decided that since the number could be anything at all, it may as well be Laura’s father’s birthday. It’s just a little tribute to the man who first bought this guitar when he was 20 years old in 1956.

What a great guitar!

If your 1963 Polaris White Gibson SG Junior had a broken headstock, you wouldn’t throw it in the garbage would you?  Well the lucky new owner of this guitar found it sticking out of a Chicago trash can with all of its original parts! He brought it to us to repair, still amazed by his fortune.

After the head shaking and jaw dropping was finished, we got down to making this gorgeous vintage piece look and sound like nothing happened.

While you and I would never throw a guitar like this away, you can certainly understand why someone might have looked at this break and said, “Well, this old guitar is finished. Toss it.” But we’ve seen and repaired worse breaks and we knew we could make it sing again.

First, we glued the pieces together, making sure the fit was precise and that the two sides came together perfectly.

Then we filled the pits and gaps, matched the color on front and back and aged the new paint to blend in with the old. All of the original parts went back on the guitar with a fresh set of strings and… Voila!

If you’re thinking of throwing away your broken 1963 Gibson SG Jr., please contact Chicago Fret Works at (773) 698-6246. We’ll be glad to take it off your hands at no charge.

A beautiful Taylor 914CE acoustic guitar came to us with two top cracks that had opened up after being ‘repaired’ by another shop (that shall remain nameless.) The previous repairman made three errors in our estimation: first, he enlarged the cracks with a small router or Dremel tool – removing too much wood in the process; second, he spliced in sitka spruce patches that do not match the original Engelmann spruce top; and third – well he just didn’t do a very good job of either since the cracks opened up again. The owner paid more than $4000 for this guitar and he wasn’t pleased with the look of the previous repair or the fact that it held for less than a year.  We made a decision to not just replace the 2 bad patches, but to replace the entire area between the cracks with a carefully chosen set of Engelmann. That turned out to make this repair less expensive to perform and gave us a much better outcome than just filling the cracks again.

We started by removing the bridge and using a Dremel tool to clear away the original spruce material.

“Wait wait!” you say. Wasn’t the Dremel part of the problem with the old repair? It was. But we’re using it in a different way here. We don’t want to damage the delicate bracing below and by making very shallow sweeping cuts, the Dremel allows us to slowly shave the whole area down a little at a time until the pieces can be easily removed. Take a look:

By dropping an inspection light into the guitar, we backlit the braces and traced them into the top to make sure we didn’t cut into them.  Then we cut the rest of the way through the spruce until the pieces started coming out.

We then bookmatched our patch of Englemann spruce, taking care to match the width of the grainlines in the original top. Once it was joined properly, the edges of both the patch and the outer lines of the hole are precisely fit so there are no gaps.

Touching up the patch alone and getting it to look right would have been nearly impossible, so we stripped the finish from the entire top, …

…then refinished the top, reglued the bridge, and reassembled the guitar.

Beautiful. Compare this repair to the previous one. It’s more stable, much better looking, and much better sounding.

*******

The Moral of the Story: Top cracks like these on an acoustic guitar, are usually a direct result of the wood drying out. This guitar wasn’t dropped or mishandled; it simply was exposed to the extra dry air that we find in Chicago when the weather gets cooler and the furnace comes on. Dried guitars also see problems with loose frets, bridges, braces, and even necks.  We recommend that you store your guitar in it’s case year round – not on a wall hook or stand – and that when your furnace is on you keep a damp humidifier inside the case as well. It’s a cheap and easy way to protect your guitar from the changing weather conditions in our city.