This old Gibson LG1 came into the shop with a thick coat of black spray paint over three other layers of paint on it, with the owner desiring a resurrection to the best possible condition. I am always cautious about promising too much when I am confronted with an instrument in this condition, until I have been able to asses its issues with a thorough inspection.
It didn't look too promising at the start. The lower left bout had one area that had obviously been sanded through to bare wood . The binding was shrunken and chipped under the paint.
The black paint had been carried to just above the neck heel and there was an obvious gash in the neck in that spot.
The pick guard came off first revealing what was apparently a natural finish top. That's a rare finish for this model. Someone tried to reglue this once and made a nice mess.
The more of the paint I removed the more original finish I exposed. A mess for sure, but intact enough that there was hope.
The back looked really promising.
After the initial removal. Still a lot of grey primer stuck in all the dings and scratches to be cleaned up.
The back was definitely in better shape but that section with no finish was going to be a little tough to deal with. Mahogany is an open grain wood and grey primer had gotten into the crevices.
The neck had been reset at some point in the past, as was evident from the chipped finish around the heel, and the neck had also taken a fairly hard hit at the gash, evidenced by the compression cracks at the heel.
This guitar would have originally been equipped with a plastic bridge. On this guitar someone had changed that to a wood replacement, which is a common fix on Gibsons of this era. The one on this guitar was not made to the proper size so a replacement would be required. Some work would also need to be done to the spruce bridge plate before mounting the replacement.
Because the original bridge was hollow plastic Gibson found it necessary to use screws, from inside the guitar, into the bridge to mount it. To facilitate that they had to drill four extra holes, three of which are right where the bridge pins are located. All of these holes are through a spruce plate. This picture shows the repair to the plate from the top.
The new bridge next to the old replacement.
Lots of drop filling of lacquer to tone down the dings and scratches.
As much as I could I left a lot of the character issues visible. Hiding them would be impossible anyhow.
Cleaned up for the new bridge.
Mounting the new bridge.
All cleaned up with original pick guard installed.
Finished front.
Finished back.
The restored neck heel.
Great customers write beautiful letters. I'm blessed to be able to make things like this possible.
