Official Luthiers Forum!

R.I.P.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

From Hummingbird to Roast Turkey.

Sometimes you do a closer inspection and it's not as bad as you thought, sometimes not.....

Too bad.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Ouch! Looks like you could save the pick guard and fretboard!

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Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

Bummer. Did they indicate the heat did all that damage on the inside too? It looks like they used it to beat down the door to escape the fire. Not trying to make light of the situation, but would all that splitting come from heat only with no impact?


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Good question, I also think some of the damage was before already happening. like the cracking of the Bridge and the damaged bridge pin holes of course, too. Maybe even the cracking of the X bracing happens before. But unfortunately I do not have more information.

No way to make money off it - but still could make a really fun/interesting personal project.
I love challenges like this.

So...I just bought it....payed two Franklins and a Seymour Dumcan SH4 Humbucker

Somehow I could not resist and my wife fell in love with the Hummingbird and said it is such a beautiful guitar and I should move my ass and repair the instrument...

How am I to talk against my wife....

Ha ha - must go with the wife. Everyone who knows me knows I have an old Gibson J45 in the shop that was in similar shape; finally it is ready to refinish. Totally not a good business transaction but it is almost a cool guitar again after 7 years of off and on again work.

Please open a thread and share the journey with us as you bring this one back to life.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Take good care of the label - it might be the most valuable part!
I (semi)remember a thread on the MIMF of someone who found a Martin guitar that was completely apart in a trash can. There was some debate about how far a rebuild could go and still have it be called a "Martin". Since he had the original neck block with the stamped Model and serial number on it , I think he felt that was enough.
I look forward to seeing the finished product. Although it will take a complete rebuild with renewing some parts, it looks like most of the guitar is still there and relatively intact (not missing sections of wood). Maybe not a money maker but certainly something to test your chops on.

Hi everyone, Happy New Year!

Thanks Clay for sharing the perspective. It's not just a matter of more money and my point really was not that there is more money in set-ups, fret jobs etc.

What my point was is that any successful business is going to have an eye on avoiding unwanted liability in what they agree to take on. Remember repair folks are legally private contractors and have every right to be selective of the work we take on AND if appropriate who we take it on for.....

More specifically if you have experience doing certain operations and you receive consistently excellent results these operations may be far lower risk in terms of liability to your business than things that are new to you. My personal belief is that the valuable personal property of others should NEVER be used for the learning curve of a so-called.... Luthier. Not intending to be insulting here but I take this very seriously. Screwing up other people's stuff is nothing short of criminal to us and we have zero tolerance for it.

Some disclaimers and forgive me please if there is anything here that sounds arrogant. The intent is always to provide the highest quality work, the greatest value for the clients, and of course keep promises regarding expectations, ETA, pricing, etc.

With these things in mind how the heck do you do this with an operation that you have never done prior and may not have any knowledge what to expect along the way? You can't and it's basically irresponsible to take these jobs on unless you own the instrument or have basically the permission of the steward to try as you may and even perhaps fail. We call these "project guitars" and suggest that folks sell them on line as such clearly indicating that they need lots of work some requiring experience to do.

Ann Arbor Guitars is very successful and again this is offered in the context of how I describe our business model not to brag. I'm not here for that and instead here to hopefully impart in an experienced, thoughtful and factual manner what works for us.

Four times last year we stopped taking in new work. I'm about ready to do it again too..... we are so very busy. We are no longer teaching classes either. The saddle mill has been discontinued and we no longer sell any of the lots of wood we have here.

Why? We don't have to....

Our business model of serving the most people we can with the types of work that 1) has a defined beginning, 2) has a defined ending and 3) has a mutually agreed to with the client in advance definition of success has served us and our clients very well. No regrets!

We are more profitable than ever, we have grown every year, my personal experience continues to morph into the most enjoyable work I have ever done in my entire life and our clients, many of them are such a pleasure to deal with I can't wait to get to work every day.

I'm 62 and feeling it... but I can go to work and spend 5 - 6 hours and personally produce over $600 of revenue every day without breaking a sweat. I can't say that if I am all tied down with some basket case POS that suffers from massive scope creep.... and when completed the economics in terms of the value of the instrument and what the work should charge doesn't match......

We've seen a number of repair shops and people come and go in the last 12 years and read horror stories about people being pissed off and unable to retrieve instruments from failed businesses. Garage shops go teats up frequently and learning to make a living as a repair Luthier OR builder is NOT easy.

But for repair Luthiers the ones who do what they know how to do and have experience with AND are at least somewhat self limiting in what they take on are who do best by all measures required to keep the lights on.

We do all manner of jobs every day and not just set-ups and fret work. We still do neck resets but we self limit ourselves to a few a quarter because they suck the life out of our time and can be a slog in terms of remaining interesting and rewarding.

OTOH just today, yesterday actually we repaired and replaced electronics in a Taylor, installed three new pups in a Floyd Ibanez, did a fret dress on an Eric Johnson strat, set-up a Tele, set-up a Les Paul and installed Faber bridge and tail piece, continued to work on two Martin neck resets, paid the rent for next month (February I pay our bills a month in advance, always) paid for our reserved parking spaces (2), watered our 12' tree....., ate brisket sandwiches that Hesh made over the weekend and had to walk to the bank because of the cash payments received when we prefer plastic to save time for us..... There was also a 1939 D-18 that we turned away after evaluating because it looked like the guitar pictured in this thread and we didn't want to get any on us..... The owner, from Italy even emailed us afterward and thanked us for the honesty.

When you take on basket case work..... nothing in terms of revenue comes in for a very long time either and that just does not work unless at least combined with a mix with other shorter term work.

Oh did I mention that much of what we did today, completed and delivered back to owners, many professional musicians also came in this morning, it spent less than a day in our shop. We are famous for same day work AND a satisfaction guarantee. We have lots of protections for our clients but remain selective in what we take on so that who we do help actually receives the promised value.

If you try to be all things to all folks you will surely fail in this business and no I am not calling your Shirley

The first duty of any repair Luthier is to do what it takes to live to play another day so you have the time and resources to deliver on your promises to clients AND protect their valuable personal property.

So with all this said... running a Lutherie business in an ethical, expert and successful manner is in our view a requirement to participate, successfully in the trade.

Lastly we turn away these days around 40 - 50% of the stuff that comes our way for one reason or another. We often try to head it off at the pass too meaning on the phone when someone calls.

So take it for what it's worth being successful in what you repair if you are going to participate in this trade not only depends on your skill and experience it greatly depends on your judgement.... and ability to keep that ego.... that you can do anything in check and make appropriate decisions for your business in respect to limiting unwanted liability. If you receive nothing else from this post but what I just shared in this paragraph it's the money shot so-to-speak.

Hope something here helps and wishing everyone the best.

Hello, first step....get the Label out. I have to do lots of glueing work inside the box. I am not going to open the complete guitar. So I want to take off the label and glue it nice back in when the repair is done. The label is already for about 60-70% loose.

My ideas are:

Hot water steam, with a hose from a boiling water tea cup....like you loosen stamps in the old days....btw...is anybody still collecting stamps?

Or

Take a wet hot piece of cloth or a sponge, put it on the label for a minute or so....

Sorry for this dumb question, but in doing repairs for about 20+ years I never had to loosen a label, and I am not sure what kind of glue Gibson used...

Thank you, I also promise I do not have any other stupid questions about the repair...

Cheers, Alex

"Thank you, I also promise I do not have any other stupid questions about the repair..."

That is certainly not a stupid question, and one I would also like to know the answer to. Vinegar will loosen most organic based glues but I don't know what it might do to the ink of the label or how it might stain the paper. Someone probably knows a good way to do it and will hopefully post.

Someone should come up with virtual stamps for emails so the Philatelists don't go the way of the Dodo.

Nobody....somebody....anybody....???

Might help to start a new thread in the repairs section. Most of the folks that participated in this one may think the issue is resolved.

As far as the label goes the first two things I would try are Naptha and steam. I would try a very small amount on an edge to see if it looked like it might work. In any case I would go very slow and take my time. Good luck with it and let us know what works.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

FWIW . The glue on the back of envelopes is a vy thin type of hide glue. Back in the 80/s and 90/sI would hold the back of the letter over the hot tea kettle , and steam it slowly, very slowly, peel back the back . the envelope. This worked about 90 % of the time. If I was too eager and pulled the back off too quickly it would tear

Denatured alcohol does a great job of breaking up glue. But if you want to get a label out I'd just heat it up a bit with a hair dryer to soften the glue and then carefully peel it out.

Herr Dalbergia. If you start a little repair journal in the repair subforum it would help us help you alot if you REALLY want to do this. But having had dozens of these era Gibsons in my shop, I can tell you without hesitation or misinformation that unless you make some major changes to the instrument itself there is a very high chance that it is not going to sound very good even after all your work. Keep that in mind.

Hesh , FYI an ego is like a dinasaur on your front lawn if you keep feeding it .It wont go away

Dinos ????