This well-worn 1957 Martin 000-18 has definitely earned some ’spa treatment’ – a neck reset, refret, and side crack repairs.

Guitars are meant to be played and enjoyed, so it always makes us smile to see one that has clearly been doing just that. This 1957 Martin 000-18 wouldn’t color its hair to hide the gray; it wears its age proudly.  So we put away the airbrush and the buffing wheel  and focused on getting it structurally stable and playing better than ever. It took a neck reset, refret, and some sealing of cracks to get it there, but the results were worth the effort. Continue »

A great reason to check out estate and garage sales. You never know when you’ll find a 1950’s Epiphone Devon archtop for a song!

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.

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Sometimes we have to get a little creative with refinishing. Here’s what happens when someone wants an unusual color for their guitar.

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. Continue »

In this post, see how we made some ugly previous “repairs” look right and brought a great vintage Gibson back to life.

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. Continue »

Okay Tele Deluxe fans, what looks different on this guitar? And no, we don’t mean the flower tattoo.

That’s right! It’s the… Continue »

Sometimes the guitar itself is more interesting than the repair.  It would be a shame not to share some of those instruments. So with that in mind, presenting our first “Featured Guitar.”

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Two more vintage Mossman acoustics get the superhero treatment – a neck reset, refret, custom pick guard, and a new brace.

Not long after posting photos of our previous Mossman neck reset, we received two more Mossman guitars that needed the same treatment, but with an extra necessary step. Since they received identical work, the photos in this post will jump between the two guitars. You’ll see them receive neck-resets, re-frets and that extra step – the addition of a brace that was missing in the original design. The guitar in that previous post was made a few years after these and by that time the design flaw had been remedied.  After years of not seeing this company’s guitars, it was interesting to see a number of them arrive so close to each other.  Continue »

A family heirloom gets a new life for the next generation of strummers.

We weren’t sure we believed a phone caller who said his vintage Gibson acoustic guitar had a crack in the top that was open more than a quarter inch. But when he brought it in, sure enough that crack above the sound hole had buckled and bent until it was open wide. This crack likely started out as a hairline split on a guitar that hadn’t been sufficiently humidified. It wasn’t repaired right away and over time the top wood curled up and almost completely separated from the brace underneath. It’s a tricky repair that came together quite nicely. While we were at it, we reset the neck, planed the fretboard level, replaced the frets, and replaced the dried and curling pickguard with a custom-cut new guard that fit right in with this old beauty.

See how you can properly humidify your guitar to protect it from damage like this in our recent special post on guitar case  humidifiers.

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Here’s an early 1980’s Greco Super Real Goldtop as it arrived in our shop. Take a look at how we gave it a more authentic and vintage appearance.

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. Continue »

When it rains it pours, and my partner Dan has been up to his elbows in binding repairs this year.  Here, he replaces the dried and crumbling binding from a vintage Gretsch Country Gentleman.

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.

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