Joined the Gibson family today...

[The Guitar]

Scored an 82 LP Studio from a Craigslist ad.(Seller turned out to be an acquaintance) Bought it for $100!! The only snag is the headstock has snapped twice. First snap happened due to the case w/guitar being thrown in a van by someone loading it. The case was already putting pressure on that joint. That was luthier fixed, while the 2nd snap was caused by his cat knocking it off a stand. That break was glued by him. The break happened just under the first fix. I'm going to string it up as is to see if it can handle the tension. If not, its going to that luthier. :laugh: Its got some cleaning up to be done and some other work, but I finally managed to get a birth year Gibson! I plan on rewiring it back to 2 hums, 3-way, and 4 pots, Tusq nut, better knobs, and possibly replacement tuners(SG ones on it now) and TOM/stop tail. Not sure what route I'll go on pickups yet. Been sitting on a Kahler TOM unit for a few years now, just need locking tuners..... :firedevil Onto the pics;

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

I dunno dude... that break looks pretty gnarly maybe its just the pics. But to fix the luthier is probably going to have to break it again and then do some surgery to really get that fixed right. I get it its your birth year but seems like its could be a viscous project. I wish you luck.

 

[The Guitar]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Yeah. The excess glue makes it look bad, but it's smooth where you can see the supports. I'm thinking of getting high grit sand paper to smooth down the excess glue.

 

[Mr. B]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your guitar here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

Inigo Montoya: What's that?

Miracle Max: Go through its control cavity and look for loose change.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

It was only $100. The bridge pickup, tuners and tailpiece are worth about that. After that, it doesn't hurt to ask if it can be fixed back into a playable guitar. See what you can get out of it. Enjoy the journey.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

IF that headstock is sturdy, this is epic effing win. Strip that pitch, paint her sexy, and tune to Eb.

Otherwise, for $100….if I felt the repair was solid, i'd say it was worth the risk. Date is irrelevant.

 

[J E C]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

The first repair looks like it was very well dun with the two splines. Too bad it broke just past those splines. For $100 bucks I thing you did great. Hard to tell from the pic, but I would venture that it is very fixable. It may be solid enough as is, but it wouldn't hurt to respline it.

 

[BrianS.]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

This is an excellent example of why splines of that nature are overkill/fairly worthless as a repair technique. Glue alone is usually all you need, and if you need more, a back-strap overlay, with the proper glue, is the way to go. It's more work than splining, though.

It looks like the guy who did the second job used Gorilla Glue (polyurethane glue). That stuff is terrible and I would never use it on any project, let alone a guitar repair. If he clamped the repair properly, it might hold fine. If he did not clamp it properly, or at all, then the repair will not last. Polyurethane glue typically expands as it dries, and will actually push a joint apart that is not clamped. I've seen many times where Gorilla glue will even expand into open pores in wood, creating "glue warts" far away from the glued joint. The problem is that the expanded glue is not strong, it's almost like that expanding foam that you use for insulating cracks in a wall or something.

If there were no splines there, it may have either broke on the old glue line, or right next to it. If that happened, then you could do a back strap overlay. As it is,it looks like it's too far down the neck for that.

Hopefully she holds together as is.

 

[chadd]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

I'm lucky to have a top notch repair guy in town, Greg at BCR has fixed some guitars that I never thought would be usable again. The man is a wizard.

 

[The Guitar]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

I'm thinking it's also Gorilla glue. I'm banking on it not holding up when I restring it. Then I'll try gluing it right. Looking up close you can see a tiny gap behind the nut where its pushed out a little.

 

[80's_Metal]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

I had heard that you could get an entire neck put back on it from the Gibby factory.... is that true or false? Price? Just curious.

 

[The Guitar]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

^that sounds interesting. Its possible to replace this neck, its just a set neck. I did string it up and its holding at the moment. Should probably get a proper set and restring it and set it up.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Gibson cost of neck + repair likely > Les Paul Custom new.


Melt that glop out and hit it with wood glue + clamp + patience.

 

[BrianS.]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Melt that glop out and hit it with wood glue + clamp + patience.

Not the best advice. You can't "melt" polyurethane glue out of a joint. In fact, the only glue where "melting" might be an option is hot hide glue, and this guitar doesn't have hot hide glue anywhere near it...well, maybe the spline repair.

Also, wood glue only works well on well-mated wood-to-wood contact surfaces. If the joint is contaminated with a layer of Gorilla Glue, wood glue will not work well, if at all.

Sounds like the joint is holding together as is. That's good! Rock it for as long as it holds, which may be for the foreseeable future.

If the Gorilla Glue joint fails, work hard at cleaning it out/off and then reglue with a high quality cyanoacrylate glue. I like this stuff. I use the thick variety. This glue will not set up instantly, but it does set up fast. I don't use the accelerator, so full cure time is 24 hours. I use clamps/cauls on the joint.

You could also use epoxy, but I had one failure with epoxy a couple years ago and so abandoned it. With epoxy, your mix ratio has to be spot on for the most strength. The titebond CA glue is super strong, has good shear strength, as well as high heat resistance.

Anyway, enjoy the guitar!

 

[The Guitar]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Cool! Since it's working out, going to sand that mess smooth.

*edit* He used titebond, not gorilla. If that helps.....

 

[The Guitar]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Moving on with the project! Found a store on Amazon that sells the Voodoo styled top hat knows and got a toggle selector washer from Izzo via the karma thread on its way. Still undecided if I should stick with the chrome hardware or go black. Then there's the neck pickup, not sure on that yet either. Cross that bridge when I get to it.

 

[Lucid_Lunatic]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Even if it can't be fixed it is still a great deal at $100 clams!

 

[The Guitar]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Verily! This is the second best gear score I got next to the $7 Epi Sg Special I flipped for $80.

 

[The Guitar]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Got this up and running. Unfortunately, this is a 92, not 82, but that doesn't bug me. The serial was hard to spot on the back of the head. The CTS serial is a match to the guitar's. I smoothed the repair on the back of the head and just need to oil the bare spot. Dropped an EMG 60 and a DD(J), Voodoo bell knobs, and pointer washers. Had to Jimmy the pickup screw tabs on the DD with toothpicks since I don't have m3 screws to fit, yet. Now onto the pics!



Just some setup tweaks I need to do to it to polish the job off.

 

[That90'sGuy]

Re: Joined the Gibson family today...

Aw heck, I'd buy that for $100 all day long. Good grab! Even if the headstock breaks again, I'd re-do it with Titebond and call it a day. Cool guitar!