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How I Learned to Stop Worrying about Original Condition and Love refinished Norlins

Progrocker111

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 10, 2003
Messages
4,013
Ok, here’s the story.. I got this piece off ebay for several hundred dollars half year ago – it was a sunburst custom with serial 101653. I don’t have any clue why, but on the former owners spraypainted it gold – probably in glamrock fever. Next guy bought it as a renovation project, and stripped all paint. Unfortunatelly, he didn’t used paint remover but sandpaper and removed paint, also binding and most of the serial number. Thankfuly there were no breaks, except for mini switch holes. These pictures were taken at my friend’s luthier workshop before any work was done..

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There are some pictures, from binding applying..
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This is after spraying with base black color and artificial aging with shellack
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After several months of waiting and drying of nitrolacquer and the D-day finally came and this is the result.
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It seems it was worth to save it, it turned out to be very nice guitar even though it’s not a collectors dream. So if any of you guys got any old gibson, I’m willing to buy it cheaply from you and refinish it. :salude
 

fast ricky love

In the Zone/Backstage Pass
Joined
Mar 27, 2002
Messages
3,458
Awesome! I love these early '70's Norlins... they deserve a better rap than they get.
 

Billy Porter

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 16, 2005
Messages
1,129
Really nice work :salude

I’d have left the front natural but then, I am a big Ronno fan

Must feel great to bring it back to life
 

Progrocker111

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 10, 2003
Messages
4,013
Well you know, I would love it in tobacco sunburst, or wine red finish but fixing those mini switch holes was bit tough.. expecially that hideous square hole. What's great about refinishing or shall I say saving old guitars, is that satisfying feeling that I would sound and play well as long as you'll rebuild them in proper way.
I'd like to get this SG and "save it" but seller refuses to send it to Europe. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190261301666#description Probably not the nicest SG you've seen, but I guess it could be helped :salude
 

cuthbert

New member
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
155
Well you know, I would love it in tobacco sunburst, or wine red finish but fixing those mini switch holes was bit tough.. expecially that hideous square hole. What's great about refinishing or shall I say saving old guitars, is that satisfying feeling that I would sound and play well as long as you'll rebuild them in proper way.
I'd like to get this SG and "save it" but seller refuses to send it to Europe. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190261301666#description Probably not the nicest SG you've seen, but I guess it could be helped :salude

that SG needs a LOT of love...
 

frank thomson

New member
Joined
Oct 1, 2003
Messages
1,500
sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet :biggrin:

I-LOVE-NORLINS-!


did i already say sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet? :biggrin:
 

ajchance

New member
Joined
Jan 13, 2006
Messages
166
Prog - great to see the guitar in its refinished glory! I'm the one who sold it to you. When I bought it, it had been refinished by an autobody shop in what I like to refer to as "pimp gold" with an unbelievably thick poly clearcoat on top. I started to try to take off the paint, but got nowhere with a viscous paint stripper. I turned to a heat gun (yeah, I know, not the best idea) to get the finish off. In the process the binding came off as well, but it needed replacing since the first refinisher must have used a power sander and sanded down the cutaway horn and top of the headstock down to nothing. They had actually painted a white stripe where the binding was supposed to be on the horn. When I finally got the finish off the top, I realized that it had all the holes for the mini-toggles filled with bondo! There was a large crack between the holes that disintegrated where you can see the rectangular defect in the original photo. At that point I resigned myself to refinishing it as a black beauty, but I just didn't have the time to tackle such a monumental task. Just out of curiosity, did my binding channels work out on the horn, or did you have to recut them?

Sorry about the loss of the serial number - when I stripped the finish you could barely make it out. One light pass with sandpaper and it was gone forever. The prior refinisher had sanded it down quite a bit. I took pictures along the way to try and document everything, but I had a computer crash and the pics disappeared along with the serial. The guitar didn't have it's original electronics in it, so I didn't have any way of dating it. By the serial and the characteristics of the guitar, I guessed it was mid-70s.

I played her for a few months before starting the refinish project - she's a great player. It seemed like a light guitar, too - what did the final weight turn out after all? Glad to see you completed the task in such a stellar fashion! Funny thing - right after I sold this one to you, I bought a '74 black LPC! Guess I had to satisfy that itch.
 
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ajchance

New member
Joined
Jan 13, 2006
Messages
166
Here's a few more before photos:

You can see a little of the green bondo filler in the toggle switch hole.
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Serial's gone!
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Binding sanded down...
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Here's where they had paint to cover up the sanded away binding channel on the horn.
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