[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

First post on here, so I figured I might as well make it good.

A customer brought in an awesome '68 J-45 for some repairs last week and it was in one of the coolest cases ever. It's in great shape, definitely been played a bit, but sounds amazing and has that vintage worn-in feel. One of the previous owners had the original adjustable bridge replaced with an ebony one, had the first 3 frets replaced (with incorrect fretwire, probably by the same person that replaced the bridge), but still had the original Kluson deluxe 3 on-a-plate tuners with a lone bent button. I always love working on old acoustics like this, mainly because of the challenge of making it look as though you were never there and it never needed any work.













The bridge was lifting pretty bad when it came in and the guitar was super dry so I immediately put it into emergency humidity for a week, here's what the bridge looked like when it first came in and then after the humidity:





And the incorrect frets, then after they were pulled and the board cleaned up lightly:








I'll be pulling and re-gluing the bridge this weekend at my secondary shop as well as replacing the 3 frets, so more pics to come next week. Hope you guys enjoy!

[retrorod]

I, personally, enjoy very much, these types of posts and pics. I enjoy seeing a well-played guitar with 'good repairs' being made.....righting the wrongs, etc.
I assume that you do repairs for Music Zoo of New York?
If so, while I have never visited....I had 'dealings' with the late Andreja Makovitch...(sp) of Serbia (great guy) who (if he purchased my guitar) wanted it sent to Music Zoo who would send his 'bulk shipments' to him and save on freight charges.I was very saddened to learn of his passing.
Again, I enjoy these photo-documented repairs and please keep it coming! Whats your first name?
I am guilty of doing a few repairs myself....
Rod
That case is worth the 'price of admission'....Jes Sayin'
....You 'done good' ....for a Newbie.....

[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

retrorod, on 17 January 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

I, personally, enjoy very much, these types of posts and pics. I enjoy seeing a well-played guitar with 'good repairs' being made.....righting the wrongs, etc.
I assume that you do repairs for Music Zoo of New York?
If so, while I have never visited....I had 'dealings' with the late Andrea Makovitch...(sp) of Serbia (great guy) who (if he purchased my guitar) wanted it sent to Music Zoo who would send his 'bulk shipments' to him and save on freight charges.I was very saddened to learn of his passing.
Again, I enjoy these photo-documented repairs and please keep it coming! Whats your first name?
I am guilty of doing a few repairs myself....
Rod
That case is worth the 'price of admission'....Jes Sayin'
....You 'done good' ....for a Newbie.....

I'm glad you enjoyed them Rod, I'm Travis, and yes sir I do the all the fixin' here at the Music Zoo. I also work out of a shared home shop out in my hometown on the south shore where I do all of my bigger repair and restoration jobs as well as build from scratch. I try to document my work as much as I can (especially the really cool stuff), and I've been lurking around the board here for a few weeks before I joined and started posting. I knew this one was too good to share, and there will be more of it to come after the weekend.

[retrorod]

Good to meet you, Travis. Just curious, will you be replacing the ebony bridge with a rosewood? Or just re-glue the existing re-placement?
The guitar has some nice wear. Its hard to concieve that someone was O.K. with putting those narrow frets on there....
Rod

[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

I really wanted to replace the bridge, as this one still has some rough carving marks in spots and the saddle slot was cut kind of shitty, but the owner wanted to keep the cost of the repair as low as possible (of course). And I agree completely on the narrow frets, I'm going to assume whoever replaced those is also guilty of the ebony bridge, as well as a single MOP dot inlay on the fretboard (all the rest are yellowed pearloid) I noticed after the pictures were taken. Not sure who would do such horrible things, or how long ago it was done, but at least they didn't mangle it too bad! I'll be back with more pictures Monday, so stay posted.

[retrorod]

Waiting.....!

[duluthdan]

On the fretboard, from the nut up to 5th fret, are those divits in the wood?

[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

Sorry for the delay, been pretty busy lately. Here's a few pictures of the progress made over the weekend, still need to finish up the fretwork and some other little things.

I used a 100 watt light bulb in a regular work lamp to heat up the bridge and loosen the glue up, then use a palette knife and a smaller spatula I made to separate the bridge:



After the bridge was removed, then sanded & cleaned up, and glued back down:







First 3 frets are in, just need to be leveled and whatnot:




I have it strung up and tuned a step down sitting for now to make sure the new bridge bond will hold, will update with more pics once it's all done up and ready to go.

[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

duluthdan, on 23 January 2013 - 08:18 PM, said:

On the fretboard, from the nut up to 5th fret, are those divits in the wood?

yessir they are, not sure how long they've been there, but I'm guessing Worthy Duncan loved him some cowboy chords.

[retrorod]

MusiczooRepairs, on 24 January 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

Sorry for the delay, been pretty busy lately. Here's a few pictures of the progress made over the weekend, still need to finish up the fretwork and some other little things.

I used a 100 watt light bulb in a regular work lamp to heat up the bridge and loosen the glue up, then use a palette knife and a smaller spatula I made to separate the bridge:



After the bridge was removed, then sanded & cleaned up, and glued back down:







First 3 frets are in, just need to be leveled and whatnot:




I have it strung up and tuned a step down sitting for now to make sure the new bridge bond will hold, will update with more pics once it's all done up and ready to go.

Just looking at the last pic and it 'appears' that Worthy had a death-grip on them first three frets! Not sure how to 'blend' them more, but.....they do stand out!
Actually the board rather than the fets themselves.....and that could be the lighting effect.
Good going...
Notice a couple extra holes under the bridge? ....oh yeah....ADJ, I forgot! What kind of shape is the bridge plate in?

[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

retrorod, on 24 January 2013 - 06:04 PM, said:

Just looking at the last pic and it 'appears' that Worthy had a death-grip on them first three frets! Not sure how to 'blend' them more, but.....they do stand out!
Actually the board rather than the fets themselves.....and that could be the lighting effect.
Good going...
Notice a couple extra holes under the bridge? ....oh yeah....ADJ, I forgot! What kind of shape is the bridge plate in?

Yea they're pretty deep, but since I wasn't going for a full refret I figured would stick with making it look as un-worked-on as possible. You're right about the extra holes under the bridge, I left them on the off chance that the owner or future owner ever decides to have the bridge replaced with the correct type. And the bridge plate was in good shape. Will update more when the fretwork and everything else is all done with.

[1934 L00]

I'm wondering if the bridge is original. I had a '68 and thought the "ADJ" next to the J45 indicates it had the adjustable bridge - and there are two holes for the adjusting screws under this bridge.

It will probable sound better with this bridge. Looking forward to seeing (and hearing?)it finished.

[Mustache Guitar Repairs]

1934 L00, on 20 February 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

I'm wondering if the bridge is original. I had a '68 and thought the "ADJ" next to the J45 indicates it had the adjustable bridge - and there are two holes for the adjusting screws under this bridge.

It will probable sound better with this bridge. Looking forward to seeing (and hearing?)it finished.

It's definitely not the original bridge. It has a rosewood board and would have had one of the oversized, rosewood saddle, adjustable bridges with the threaded bushings being in those extra holes. If your guitar had this, it most likely had one of them at some point too unless they stamped some ADJ and put the "wrong" bridges on them.

Definitely plays and sounds better between the bridge re-glue and the fretwork, I just haven't gotten around to taking more pictures of it. I do still have it here so I'll snap a few and try to get them posted later today.\

Travis