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.