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This 60's Gibson LG0 mahogany came in with a little bit of the finish scraped off just to the right of the bridge as you can see. I'm curious if anybody has any tips on how to touch this up? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Folks. I have a new Gibson L-00 retro on the bench. It came in because the saddle had pulled forward and was extremely loose in the slot. the saddle was a narrow affair measuring out at 3/32. It had buzzing issues as well because saddle was low and neck angle is actually high (straight edge is 5/32 above bridge). Previous looth tried to correct by shimming saddle but recommended me for bridge work. I re-slotted the saddle slot wi…

I'm refretting an all-original Gibson L-7 from 1934, and it has a 9.5" or so fretboard radius. However, the bridge, also original, has a 12" radius. I need to flatten the board, as it has a hump at the tenth, but I'm wondering if I go with the 9.5" radius, or try and get it to 12". I'm a little worried about sanding through the Nick Lucas style inlays, so I'd like some input here. If I kept the 9.5" radius, I'd likely have to radius the…

Well, it is what it is, I seem to have found myself “the guy” to bring basket case Gibsons too….. I have the following 55’ J-45. The top has some serious belly, and has had not one, but two different directions of bridge on it at various points. I’m trying to flatten the top out with Thompson belly reducers. I first tried the standard plates used for the bridge plate n the guitar, and although it helped, I still found the top to have a m…

I was finally able to model something like a Gibson L7 top plate! Now I'm trying to build my f-holes... My only reference is the Benedetto archtop book, where it puts a few rules of thumb about how the f-holes should be placed. My question is, how precise are we talking here? One of the rules of thumb is that the bridge intersects at the midway point of the f-holes. Does this imply that the f-holes are at a certain location on the plate,…

Hey all, wondering if any electronics wizards out there might have any insights on an '88 Gibson Chet Atkins. I do not have the guitar in my shop, but the owner has described the problem thusly... "it sounds like it's over driven or the battery is worn out when I plug it in to a board directly and play it with very little output.. and also.. it will not work through a direct box." He has already had it looked at by another reputable shop…

Listening in on the great zoom call today, a question was asked by the Stewmac representative, if the shop in the hot seat was an authorized repair center for any major brands. How many of you shop owners are authorized repair centers for the major brands? Gibson, Fender, Martin, Taylor and so on…. Do you have any wisdom you can share or contacts to get signed up to do work for the major brands? Also do you find doing warranty repairs i…

I’ve got this early Gibson A mandolin that has been separated for a long time. Even without string tension I can’t line the back up for repair. Any ideas? TIA

Good Morning - the guy that runs the GuitarTechWorkstations channel on YouTube suggested I reach out to y’all to find a good luthier in the Houston area. I’m wanting to replace the plastic bridge & adjustable saddle on my ‘64 Gibson B-25. Any suggestions? Thank You! Thank You! I can be texted at 281-784-2306 or emailed at [email withheld]

So this 46' J-45 came to me at a very very low price as it needs extensive repair. Much that I am confident in, cracks, bridge/bridge plate issues, loose braces and the like. There are however a few points that id like the groups opinions on. The neck angle is pretty great and theres a good amount of fret, however, at some point in its past, someone shaved down the neck to a dangerous point, and the back of the neck has toms cracks along…

Getting the fingerboard extension off was the hardest part. It required a 1/2 hour at about 230F (measured on the fingerboard surface). The neck join came loose in about 15 minutes using heat sticks and injecting a few cc"s of water every 5 minutes.

1952 Gibson Southern Jumbo. I drilled 2 holes 1 cm from the edge through the 15th fret slot for the wire heaters. This one didn’t require any steam just a lot of boiling water. Be weary of the celluloid inlays and binding. They melt fairly easily. (Oops) It happened to a friend once! lol

So, I’m a month and a half into this repair business and so far so good. I think I’ve got more than adequate skills to handle the physical, customers have been coming in and balancing a relationship with starting a new business is going well. But…… The scariest thing is how to handle customers and the things they love. So far, I’ve been able to test the waters on repairing fairly inexpensive, not too attached to instruments, easing my wa…

Hi Everyone, I’m working through building my first set neck electric, an LP Jr. I had some build questions… - if you’ve built these Gibson style set necks before, did you cut the neck pocket straight and angle the heel of the neck? Or did you cut the pocket at the angle and keep the bottom of the heel straight? I’m attempting to cut the pocket at an angle, and it isn’t the easiest thing to do, I’m finding out. First, I’ve had some moveme…

Required 30 minutes of heating with the Ian Davlin design heat sticks at 3 amps, periodically removing one and injecting a few cc's of water. You can see from the burn marks I missed the location of the outer edge of the dovetail. When it finally lets go the neck tips up, but does pop out because there is glue under the "tongue".

I have a Gibson Chet Atkins in the shop with a nasty headstock re-break. The headstock was broken off previously and repaired (at another shop). The repair to the front of the headstock has held, but the main break opened back up along the same line. Since the headstock is hanging on by the headstock veneer I can't really open up the crack enough to clean out the old glue residue that's deep inside the break. I'm looking for advise as t…

Hey Looths, I have on my bench a 40's Gibson Banner J-45. At some point someone glued a supplemental bridge plate onto the original plate. I assume this was done in an attempt to reinforce with string balls having torn up the OG plate. My customer would like me to remove this and uncover it's secrets. Client usually brings in very nice instruments and understands the nature of guitars from this era so communication on this is pretty str…

Hi, I am thinking about building a copy of a Gibson LG. I measured an old LG0, that a friend of mine owns. For my own build I want to go for X Bracing. I do not have acces to an LG1, 2 or 3. Does anyone have a plan with measurements for the top bracings you want to sell? Thanks, Jacob