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.

The cracks on the sides are pretty severe. It will take some patching and, okay maybe a little touch-up to get them stable.

Here, Dan gets the side pieces to fit together perfectly before gluing and clamping them back together.

He fills the larger gaps with mahogony and colored epoxy, then files it level.

Some stain and grain lines were enough to make these patches look like they belong.

Next it’s on to the neck reset. This is a well-known and well-documented procedure where the neck is removed from the body and the dovetail joint is re-shaped to achieve correct playing action. More than 50 years of steel strings pulling on the neck has compressed the wood inside the joint and made the strings sit unbearably high.

Not every guitar is worth the trouble and expense involved in a neck reset, but a Martin holds its value very well. Even one that looks old and worn out like this is a no-brainer for this job.

First we use an electric heating element to soften the glue under the fretboard tongue.

Once the tongue is loose from the body, we drill 2 small access holes through a fret slot and inject steam from an espresso maker to loosen the glue inside – the second hole provides a route for the steam to escape. The wooden jig helps push the neck out of the dovetail joint once it comes loose.

Once the neck is off, we quickly remove the old glue residue from both the neck and body before it hardens and prepare both the neck pocket and the neck heel for resetting.

Dan uses a razor sharp chisel to remove tiny layers of mahogany from the neck heel. Then to really zero it in, he pulls strips of sandpaper to make tiny adjustments until the angle is just right.

We like to say that baseball is called a “game of inches” and guitar repair is a game of thousandths of an inch. Each pull of sandpaper changes the angle ever so slightly; so he counts how many pulls he does on one side of the neck heel, then does the same number of pulls on the other side.

When the neck angle is just right, it gets firmly clamped and glued back into place. When the glue is set, it’s time to replace the old frets.

To soften any glue inside the fret slots, Dan heats each fret with a modified soldering iron and carefully pulls it out.

Once the frets are out, he uses a carpenters level and adhesive sandpaper to level the fret board.

Next he cuts each new fret and hammers it home.

The new frets have to be trimmed, shaped, and leveled before polishing.

Since the new frets sit slightly taller than the old worn ones, we made a new bone nut. This lets the strings clear the fret tops without buzzing.

The improved neck angle allows us to get the playing action perfect, with enough saddle left for adjustments over the coming years.

A neck-reset can effectively give an old guitar like this a new life, promising many more years of music. It would have been a shame to hang this guitar on the wall when that 50 year old wood makes such a sweet sound!

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.

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……Strat style tremolo! Not what we’re used to seeing on these guitars at all.

Neither of us had ever seen one of these in person and had to look it up to double check it’s authenticity. But sure enough, Fender made a few of these guitars in the early/mid 1970’s. The flower tattoo is the only non-original feature you see on this guitar. Boy, did it sound great after The Works set-up and a little clean up of the electronics.

Subscribe to this blog or just check back in soon. We’ve got some very interesting repairs happening in the shop and we’ll show them to you here as soon as I get enough time to post them!

The owner of this Regal tenor resophonic guitar is something of a tenor guitar connoisseur. He found this one listed in an online tenor guitar forum with no assurances that it would ever play. He bought it just because it looked so cool, thinking at the very least it would look good on a wall. But when it arrived in decent condition, he decided to see if it could be made playable. We installed a new resonator cone, spider bridge, and saddle and set the action to be nice and easy. It turned out great. I suspect famed tenor guitar player Neko Case would love how it sounds.

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. 

In the early 1970’s, Mossman guitars experimented with an internal bracing pattern that was intended to reduce mass and increase volume. The company’s guitars from that period were built without a large spruce brace or strut that is traditionally placed above the sound hole.  In its place were two tiny braces and a pair of mahogony “feet” that protruded lengthwise from the head block (the head block is a block of wood inside the guitar where the neck is attached.) In the photo below, we’re looking through the sound hole at a mirror aimed up at the feet. Guitar repairmen before us have dubbed this Mossman condition “The Agony Of The Feet.”  The new brace will go between the two skinny ones.

Above, you can see that the two skinny spruce braces that pass underneath the feet are tapered down to almost nothing, then notched in the middle (to accommodate a truss rod wrench.) Not a whole lot of strength there. As a result, once the guitar hits 30/35 years the neck has shifted substantially – raising the action and making a neck reset necessary and long overdue. A quick check of the bass side action shows it to be more than 5/32″ – substantially higher than we’d like. The bridge saddle was too low to bring down any further, so a neck reset is in order.

Like lots of 30+ year old guitars, this one will also need a new pickguard.

First we heat the fretboard tongue, loosening the glue that holds it to the top surface. These guitars used a simple two-bolt neck joint rather than a dovetail, so we don’t need to steam off the entire neck.

With the neck off, Dan chisels a hole between those two skinny braces. Through this hole, he’s able to cut through the “feet,” creating a space big enough to accommodate a custom-made full size brace.

Here’s that new brace being glued into place. Looks stronger already!

After resetting the neck angle and re-installing the neck, it’s time to spruce up the fretboard. After 35 years of wear and tear, it’s ready for a face-lift. Yuck.

Dan removes the old and pitted frets, then levels the fretboard to create a true and even surface for the new frets.

After carefully hammering each fret into place by hand, he trims and shapes the fret ends and dresses the new fretboard.

Here’s a look at the new bone saddle – tall enough for many more years of playing.

Playing action for both guitars is now low and comfortable.

Both of these Mossman guitars sounded truly great when the work was complete. They required an extensive restoration, but the owners both agreed it was worth the trouble and expense.

Another Mossman attack averted.

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.

Here’s another couple of shots of that crack along the fretboard. This is a common spot for humidity cracks because it falls along the edge of rigid areas like the fretboard and head block and runs parallel to the grain of the top.  Most often, we see these cracks soon after they occur, unlike this one that went untreated for years.

Closer inspection reveals yet another crack along the edge of the pick guard – another common spot for humidity cracks. This repair requires removing the old pick guard, gluing a spruce splint into the crack, and making a new pick guard. (The old one is usually so dry, shrunken, and caked with old glue that to reuse it is rarely worth the trouble it would take to make it look right again.)

It wasn’t until this repair was complete that we realized we hadn’t taken pictures of the process. But thanks to the owner, we have the before shots above to compare with the after shots below. Looks like a new guitar!

That’s a protective film on the new tortoise shell pick guard giving it a dulled appearance here. It peels off easily to reveal  a shiny surface and a fit that perfectly matches the old pick guard’s “footprint.”

The newly leveled fretboard and new frets, reset neck, and comfortable playing action.

Thanks again for the before photos Ronald!

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.