A Sentimental Guitar Repair
Work Order- Make this budget LP copy playable again, not perfect just playable. Most people would agree that this guitar is not worth fixing at all, at least in terms of money. But this guitar has sentimental value and is going to surprise someone this Christmas and that's priceless.
The Story Behind the Guitar: A good friend of mine, Roy Jackson of Learn to Burn School of Music and guitar player for the Cronkite's handed me this guitar asked me to make it playable by Christmas. The guitar belonged to a childhood friend of Roy's and they grew up learning to play guitar together and both became accomplished musicians. When they were younger they modified the guitar a few times, even going as far cutting out a piece of plastic bucket and using it for a Strat style pickguard.
The Story Behind the Guitar: A good friend of mine, Roy Jackson of Learn to Burn School of Music and guitar player for the Cronkite's handed me this guitar asked me to make it playable by Christmas. The guitar belonged to a childhood friend of Roy's and they grew up learning to play guitar together and both became accomplished musicians. When they were younger they modified the guitar a few times, even going as far cutting out a piece of plastic bucket and using it for a Strat style pickguard.
The guitar was made of plywood and since the owner only wanted it playable and didn't care about the looks too much, I didn't worry about the wood used to make the repairs. First I squared up the edges of the cut out areas and then filled the major voids with plywood scraps and plugged the holes with hardwood dowels. Any remaining gaps in the wood I packed with fine sawdust and then soaked it with water thin superglue.
After everything dried I sanded it following the contour of the body......
...and then filled in any low spots and gaps with bondo epoxy. I had planned on painting the repaired area black since the pickups going in it were black but after sanding it smooth it looked so interesting I decided to leave it the way it was.
All in all I think it turned it pretty well and the customer is happy. FYI the Bigsby was actually a longer one that should have attached to the end of the guitar. Unfortunately while I was trying to bend it a little to get it to fit the contours of the top it snapped in half so I decided to cut it and shape it to look like a B5 style Bigsby.
FYIReal Gibson Les Paul Guitars are usually made of solid mahagony and many times have a figured maple cap on top. Though there are some Les Pauls with chamberd bodies for weight reduction, no Les Pauls were made of plywood.
