Finish Checking Direction

bharat.k · Jan 17, 2008

I heard there was a guy in Spain who's burst checked in the pattern of the face of the Holy Virgin Mary!

zorglub! · Jan 17, 2008

bharat.k said:
I heard there was a guy in Spain who's burst checked in the pattern of the face of the Holy Virgin Mary!

That's gotta be me! :rofl

keef · Jan 17, 2008

j45 said:
Checking is virtually inevitable on all vintage guitars, played or not. Even my cleanest, unplayed examples have minor checking. It would be considered unusual to find a 40-50 year old guitar without checking. I have a couple but out of the 180 in my collection last year, 99% were checked.

I've got a few vintage guitars with no finish checking. Some of those are mint or close to mint, a '64 Jr and a '61 Special and a '68 D35, but others have been well played - a '56 Jr and a '61 Jr. Many dings and dongs, scratches, but again no checking.

Maybe certain countries in Europe have a more stable climate or humidity percentage during the seasons than in the US. I never have to use a humidifier here - I ran those all the time in the US. I also believe that ACs are a major culprit. You won't find hardly any of those in family homes in Northwestern Europe.

That 99% of your vintage guitars display checking may also have to do with the fact that you are a working musician and take your stuff out a lot. Just theorizing...:2cool

buyusfear · Jan 17, 2008

keef said:
I've got a few vintage guitars with no finish checking.

Take this '57 for example, Remeber when this was posted...

Dutch53GT · Jan 17, 2008

keef said:
I've got a few vintage guitars with no finish checking. Some of those are mint or close to mint, a '64 Jr and a '61 Special and a '68 D35, but others have been well played - a '56 Jr and a '61 Jr. Many dings and dongs, scratches, but again no checking.

Maybe certain countries in Europe have a more stable climate or humidity percentage during the seasons than in the US. I never have to use a humidifier here - I ran those all the time in the US. I also believe that ACs are a major culprit. You won't find hardly any of those in family homes in Northwestern Europe.

That 99% of your vintage guitars display checking may also have to do with the fact that you are a working musician and take your stuff out a lot. Just theorizing...:2cool

Same experience here, but I bought a 1990 LP Classic that looked new and it cracked within 2 months in my guitar-room. This is the room where I have all my guitars in and never had this problem before. Could be the finish?

j45 · Jan 17, 2008

keef said:
I've got a few vintage guitars with no finish checking. Some of those are mint or close to mint, a '64 Jr and a '61 Special and a '68 D35, but others have been well played - a '56 Jr and a '61 Jr. Many dings and dongs, scratches, but again no checking.

Maybe certain countries in Europe have a more stable climate or humidity percentage during the seasons than in the US. I never have to use a humidifier here - I ran those all the time in the US. I also believe that ACs are a major culprit. You won't find hardly any of those in family homes in Northwestern Europe.

That 99% of your vintage guitars display checking may also have to do with the fact that you are a working musician and take your stuff out a lot. Just theorizing...:2cool

....just a matter of time. :jim
"64 - '68 still have plenty of time to check. It will eventually happen. When my collection at was 180 guitars last year, the majority really weren't guitars I took out and played. I still use the same 3-4 that I like best. Even my guitars that are virtually mint have minor checking if you look closely. I have seen vintage guitars that have not checked but they will in time.

I also remember a PAF goldtop that was posted here with no checking. I don't know if the one above is the same one but I knew the buyer and he returned it to the dealer because the finish ended up being suspect.

buyusfear · Jan 17, 2008

j45 said:
I also remember a PAF goldtop that was posted here with no checking. I don't know if the one above is the same one but I knew the buyer and he returned it to the dealer because the finish ended up being suspect.

The one above is from the one popsted here not too long ago by someone selling it for a guy who inherited his house and the guitar was in it in the closet since his from a young age.

In regards to the finish being suspect, interesting, it is rather clean, and I always thought it was too clean, because if you look at the taipiece, you can see evidence of topwrapping, and the story was that the guy took lessons as a kid and then put it away. :hmm

j45 · Jan 18, 2008

This must not be the same one. The Forum member that posted it bought from a dealer. Looks just like this one, though. Not saying that one isn't legit, it could very well be. We did find out not long ago that sometimes granpa's old guitar in the closet isn't always what it appears to be. Remember the lady who was in the mid-west that sold the "mint" 1956 Stratocaster for $76,000. Made headlines in the newspapers and everything with pictures of her holding "grandpa's treasure". The dealer who bought it discovered it was an old factory re-fin when he got it back to California.
:bug

Mainah · Jan 18, 2008

buyusfear said:

Man, look at how white that plastic is! :bug

keef · Jan 19, 2008

j45 said:
....just a matter of time. :jim
"64 - '68 still have plenty of time to check. It will eventually happen.

Not that I would mind if my old guitars would suddenly start to check...but I find it hard to believe that my unchecked '56 Jr would start checking suddenly after fifty years...a guitar that has spent most of its past in Germany BTW.

This morning I picked up my '64 335....a much played guitar that has seen many stages in England and Scotland in the decades when it belonged to the previous owner, a pro player. Same recipe - many dings and scratches, an area where the red paint has gone due to arm wear, chips off the back of the neck, gouge in the headstock, you name it....but NO checking. I strongly feel that this has to do - like on the other guitars I mentioned in my earlier post and for vintage guitars in general - with the European climate/humidity, or with the lack of A/Cs here.

Just my experience after 30 years of checking (no pun) out guitars on both continents.....I hope other EuroPFers will chime in.

curt · Jan 19, 2008

keef said:
with the European climate/humidity, or with the lack of A/Cs here.

Not to mention that you don't freeze and bake your guitars a practice that I will never understand, maybe...

Tom Wittrock · Jan 20, 2008

curt said:
Not to mention that you don't freeze and bake your guitars a practice that I will never understand, maybe...

Who the heck does that!?! :bigal

curt · Jan 20, 2008

TW59 said:
Who the heck does that!?! :bigal

http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137288&page=2

fretwire · Jan 20, 2008

I wonder if resonance frequencies play any part in the direction a finish will check. :hmm

j45 · Jan 20, 2008

keef said:
Not that I would mind if my old guitars would suddenly start to check...but I find it hard to believe that my unchecked '56 Jr would start checking suddenly after fifty years...a guitar that has spent most of its past in Germany BTW.

This morning I picked up my '64 335....a much played guitar that has seen many stages in England and Scotland in the decades when it belonged to the previous owner, a pro player. Same recipe - many dings and scratches, an area where the red paint has gone due to arm wear, chips off the back of the neck, gouge in the headstock, you name it....but NO checking. I strongly feel that this has to do - like on the other guitars I mentioned in my earlier post and for vintage guitars in general - with the European climate/humidity, or with the lack of A/Cs here.

Just my experience after 30 years of checking (no pun) out guitars on both continents.....I hope other EuroPFers will chime in.

In about 1996, I opened the case of my 1959 L5-CT "George Gobel" model to take it out to play. It was truly a mint guitar. Bought by lady in 1959 and she not once played the guitar. It really was flawless, as new. It had been in the same climate for nearly 40 years and in my ownership for several. Always kept in controlled indoor climate that never varied more than a couple degrees. That day when I turned it over to look at the back and the binding had shrunk and receeded away from the cutaway, leaving a nearly 1/4" gap. Only a week before there was no gap. Hard to explain why after 40 years of stabilty such a drastic change would take place. We have no hard winters in the south and the guitar had been here all its life anyway. I certainly didn't expose it to anything that wouild account for this. It's just a matter of time before nitro starts to break down on it's own, climate or not. It may take another 20 years, maybe 100 but even the best preserved artifacts show the effects of time over the ages. It'll check. You may not be around to see it but it will happen.

RickN · Jan 20, 2008

Funny how differently checking occurs on the same guitar. These two pictures are of the same instrument. My camera skills need some tuning up to capture the checking well enough, but this gives the idea. I can't help but think that the difference in the dye/tint from one area to the next my have something to do with the difference in the patterns of checking. The whole guitar has obviously been exposed to the same 'elements'.

DANELECTRO · Jan 21, 2008

Dr. Vintage said:

That reminds me of the old Formica Boomerang pattern

keef · Apr 2, 2008

I just took a few guitars down from my unheated attic to my living room. I forgot to let them warm up in their cases.

I noticed when I was restringing my 02 R8 that it now has weather checks in a few areas (switch tip, knobs, upper half of body) on the top only. All lengthwise.

No problemo....but I WAS very disappointed though to see that my gold HLE Strat - the only 'collector guitar' I have as it was dead mint - now also has a few large checks on the body, top and back...and also lengthwise.

My 330 also has lengthwise checking. Nothing unusual I'd say.

Mark · Apr 2, 2008

Here is my 54/57 conversion.

Mark · Apr 2, 2008

Here is one of my horse checking out the top carve of my goldtop

:lol

Finish Checking Direction

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