Wayne Newton, Elvis, and a Gibson Dove

Pretty cool picture!!!!

Sometimes we receive some pretty cool pictures in with repair requests.  Check out this one from Tony Arcuri and read the back story that goes along with it.

“Long story short, Started playing guitar when I was 5 years old. Went to the 1966 Allegheny Guitar and Accordion competition and did not place. Pretty bummed out. My dad said that if I won 1st place overall in 1967, he would buy me any guitar I want. I spent 1 whole year practicing 1 song. Malaguena. Lo & behold I won. So, at my guitar teachers I was going through the catalogs and saw the firebird. The only reason I wanted it was because of the cool firebird emblem on the pickguard. Guess I lucked out! Gibson took a year to make this for me. ($50 up-charge!)”

Martin 00-18 Bridge Rebuild

One of the cool things about this job is that although we are Gibson, we do take in repairs from any manufacturer.  We recently got a Martin 00-18 in that had the portion of the bridge in front of the saddle broken off completely.  The remainder of the bridge was still well adhered to the top of the guitar but we decided it would make for a more stable repair if we were to remove the bridge in its entirety.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the ‘Before’ pictures but I did think to take some pictures of the repair in process and also the final product. 

It was sort of a challenge finding the most suitable way to repair the bridge.  Once it was decided that reattaching the front with epoxy was the best route, the issue was how to properly clamp everything up for the best end result.  The larger portion of the bridge was mounted to a flat piece of wood via two screws in the outer ‘E’ pin holes. 

Once that was secure, we mounted some small clamps on the front side in which we could place adequate pressure on the front of the bridge as it was being reattached. 

We had the setup on top of wax paper to prevent the bridge from being glued to the work surface.  After everything was glued up, we did a little bit of sanding to get rid of the excess glue and then it was ready to put back on the guitar with the help of some good old hide glue, just like it was originally. 

Once everything had dried, we put the bone saddle back in and threw on some strings.  It’s now ready for many more years of play. 

Kix Brooks Goldtop J-200

Earlier this year, one of the B&D crew dropped off one of Kix’s main stage guitars.  This thing has been around the world several times and has the road scars to show it.  If you’ve ever seen Kix on stage, you know he can put his guitars through the wringer.  We’ve had this guitar in the shop before for a 1,000,000 mile tune up, but that wasn’t the case this time.  This time it was in need of repair to some serious side cracks, complements of careless airline baggage handlers.  Sometimes, not even a hardshell case can protect your guitar from a good toss.  Here’s a look at the damage:

  

Yup, those are some pretty serious side cracks.  This was going to require a repair that was done in a few stages rather than all at once.  Here are some pictures of the clamping process:

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After everything was all glued up and back in place, we had to remove the finish from that area as the original was cracked and chipped pretty bad.

Now we were faced with touching up the finish in a way that would blend nicely with the remaining finish and would make the repair least visible.  Here’s the final product:

All the cracks are stable and the finish looks great.  You really have to look to tell that it had been mishandled.  It’s now ready to go back in the hands of Kix. 

Here’s Gibson Repair Luthier, Dusty Lummus, showing off his fine craftsmanship.

Repair Bench Oddity #1

• Welcome back to the Gibson Repair and Restoration blog. From time to time, we get some really cool instruments in that are not your typical Les Pauls or J-45s. Today we will feature a Gibson HG-24 (HG=Hawaiian Guitar). A couple of cool features of this guitar include the "inner walls" and the 4 f-holes on the top. There is no serial # or factory order # on this guitar, but we can speculate that it was likely made between 1929-1933. It features some beautiful Brazilian Rosewood back and sides with the inner walls being made of mahogany. The headstock is inlaid with a pearl Gibson logo and a pearl fleur-de-lis. A very interesting guitar. The pictures show the guitar in the condition that it arrived and the 'in-progress' condition.

From the Repair Archives...Kings of Leon

Here's a story from the Gibson website from a few months back. The story of Caleb Followill garnered lots of attention when he smashed his "beloved" Gibson ES-325 on stage at the T in the Park Festival in Scotland last year. To read the back story on the fiasco, click HERE.

After the incident and some cooling time, the KOL camp approached the Gibson Repair shop to make the needed repairs to his guitar. For the complete story with photo slide show, click HERE.

Welcome

Welcome to the new Gibson Repair and Restoration blog. The purpose of this blog is to let you know what is going on in the repair shop. You'll see information on cool/unusual instruments, repairs, artist instruments, and we'll even throw in the occasional "What's on our mind" post. Be sure to check back often for updates and feel free to contact us any time. Be sure to visit www.Gibson.com!