Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everybody,
I have a 1960 LP Junior Double Cutaway. It is a "player" and has been abused some by a brainiac or two over the years. It was turned into a 12 string at one time and had a broken peghead which was reglued OK. All the holes have been repaired. Upon repairing the peghead,the person removed some mahogany on the bass side of the neck near the nut and also sanded down the fingerboard in that area. The frets are in need of replacement, and the fingerboard has the traditional wear at the first 5 frets.
       Now I'm not a repairman, but I have done a fingerboard replacement about 20 years ago. I'm thinking about some options.

A. replace the fingerboard with a stew mac Indian Rosewood pre slotted and arched board. I would replace the mahogany before re-gluing by routing out some of the old wood creating a straight surface to glue the new wood to. I'd carve the new wood into the old.

B. I have a Braz. RW board here, I can arch and slot it myself and do the rest of what I described in A.

C. Take it to a Gibson authorized repair facility and have them do it.

Guitars come and go here, so I have no permanent attachment to it, but with the current rise in value of LP's in general, I am in a quandry as to what the best option is. Any logical ideas would be helpful. Am I missing something that I could do?

Option B

Option B

Option B

It's a little more work, but it's true to the period and should looks sweet
and be worth the trouble..

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Yup .

Al

You need to be a little bit careful with this. All Gibson 24.75" scale lengths are not the same. Gibson used several different scale lengths over the years but marketed them as 24.75. You will probably have to slot the board based on the original.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

hi there,

maybe you should send it to Ed Roman, i hear he is a really great guy, and i'm sure he would do a great repair for not much money.

































YEAH RIGHT, PLEASE IGNORE ALL PREVIOUS SUGGESTIONS!!!!!!




i would go with option B definitely, but i would still maybe see someone who is used to doing these kind of operations on a daily basis, one slip up and you have a guitar which is worth zip, its not like its a squier or something...... its a gibson, one of the finest handcrafted electric guitars ever made!!!

One more thing about this guitar. Was recycling a fingerboard to replace another one ever a popular option in the 60's or 70's? I swear part of this fingerboard was grafted on to the original because I believe I am looking at filled fret slots at the edge from about the 12th fret to the nut. The filled slots do not line up where the frets are. If it weren't for this strangeness, I'd just add a section to the edge of the fingerboard, but I just think a total replacement is necessary.