Project Refin: 1961 Les Paul

montesada · Mar 25, 2017

The photo of the heel makes it look like there's about a 3/16" thick piece of mahogany over the whole back...

CBRmatt600 · Apr 2, 2017

The plan of attack- I am going to route away the areas I marked in black, set a new piece of mahogany in once the hole is square, and then re-route the portions of the pickup routes that I've filled.

Its a bit nerve wracking to take a router to a vintage Gibson, but so far, so good. Clean cuts on both sides and with a little sanding we should be perfectly flush

A little yellowed lacquer on the headstock to make this thing look like it's from 1961

CBRmatt600 · Apr 2, 2017

Got on a roll tonight so I made some good
progress. Here is the piece of wood that I settled on

I taper cut the new block lock so I could get s good seamless pressure fit. I've seen people throw a straight block in for a repair before and it never looks right to me. It's fine if you are finishing in a solid color and can use some filler, but since you will see every bit of grain in this finish, the only right way to do it in my opinion is to take the time and shape a tapered block so that you can apply some pressure and have a seamless fit.

A channel for the neck pickup lead....

Test fitting after several rounds of sanding to get everything just right.

And a seamless fit. Once the glue dries I'll plane and sand the extra wood on top and I should be left with a real nice match with no gaps to be filled. After that it's on to routing the pickup cavities and filling the holes that were drilled for the tail piece with some tapered plugs.

Kris Ford · Apr 2, 2017

Nice!

That reclaimed mahogany is PERFECT for this!

corpse · Apr 2, 2017

Moving right along.

CBRmatt600 · Apr 2, 2017

Got back at it while I was on a roll and got everything leveled and routed. I'll fix the difference in contrast between the different wood with some filling and shading. The join turned out perfect though, completely seamless. I'm real pleased with how it turned out, significantly better than the previous attempt.

Nick-O · Apr 2, 2017

That is a clean and sanitary fit. You're moving at quite a pace!

Kris Ford · Apr 2, 2017

Hell yeah it is a perfect fit!!

Looks great man, just killer..and because of the location, with the rings and PG installed..any witness lines will blend RIGHT in.:applaude

GuitarMikey · Apr 2, 2017

I'm impressed.

CBRmatt600 · Apr 3, 2017

Thanks guys! Kris you're right, between the pickup rings and the pickguard, all of this work will go largely unnoticed. At least the owner will have piece of mind that it is done right underneath.

latestarter · Apr 3, 2017

Great work on that wood insert. Will you adjust the bare wood colour pre finishing, and if so, how? Thanks, and keep up the progress photos please.

CBRmatt600 · Apr 3, 2017

latestarter said:
Great work on that wood insert. Will you adjust the bare wood colour pre finishing, and if so, how? Thanks, and keep up the progress photos please.

Good question. I will do as much as I can to darken the fill wood to match the original before i do any grain filling. It's not an exact science, more trial and error with a mix of oils, a little dye, sawdust, etc. I also use a blade to trace new grain lines that connect to the original body at the edges of the fill. This way when I mix some cherry dye into grain filler, it will sit down in those new lines and make the edge of the join less apparent. I got a bit of a start on this already, actually. Even though I used proper old growth mahogany, the shades of the raw wood will rarely be a perfect match. A little creativity and I can make it much less apparent once the finish is completed though.

Kris Ford · Apr 3, 2017

CBRmatt600 said:
Good question. I will do as much as I can to darken the fill wood to match the original before i do any grain filling. It's not an exact science, more trial and error with a mix of oils, a little dye, sawdust, etc. I also use a blade to trace new grain lines that connect to the original body at the edges of the fill. This way when I mix some cherry dye into grain filler, it will sit down in those new lines and make the edge of the join less apparent. I got a bit of a start on this already, actually. Even though I used proper old growth mahogany, the shades of the raw wood will rarely be a perfect match. A little creativity and I can make it much less apparent once the finish is completed though.

Oh yeah, that is a killer idea..you could also get some checking that offsets it, and breaks up any straight lines, it would be invisible.

CBRmatt600 · Apr 4, 2017

Kris Ford said:
Oh yeah, that is a killer idea..you could also get some checking that offsets it, and breaks up any straight lines, it would be invisible.

Yep, some good checking will hide it as well. I will probably let this cure for a couple of months and use my stand up freezer (and the Georgia summer sun) to get some natural weather checking. I'll use a razor sparingly if I have to, but I don't typically like the results that I've seen from that method. Unless you're really good at it, and I haven't practiced enough to have the confidence to do it on the whole guitar.

ourmaninthenorth · Apr 4, 2017

Just love these sort of threads...

And this is no exception. Terrific work.

Thanks for sharing. :salude

Nick-O · Apr 4, 2017

That is a great idea, using a blade in the grain to blend the seam....I never would have thought of that, but I never would have had the skills to be doing this so....dum dee dum dum.

Zoomer · Apr 4, 2017

CBRmatt600 said:

Awesome work !!!!

CDaughtry · Apr 4, 2017

This is a fun thread to watch!:dude:

StSpider · Apr 5, 2017

Absolutely impressive!

Pellman73 · Apr 5, 2017

this is amazing work! thank you for sharing!

this picture has me a little puzzled. can you not see the joint line just from the process of stripping the paint (has kindof smudged the line?) it almost looks like one piece of wood.

The heel-lees neck on these early ones is real pretty

Project Refin: 1961 Les Paul

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