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This was a fun restoration showing the before, some of the during and the after. This 1964 Gibson Firebird under went drastic changes through out its life. The head stock had been broken in three different places. The peg head had additional set of machine head post holes drilled. The mini humbuckers were at one point fitted for full size humbuckers. The top shows mounting holes for various styles of bridges. The definition of the body contours and head stock had been sanded away, not to mention the multiple hand painted finishes. We were commissioned to bring this once great guitar back to its original stock condition.
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Here is a close up of how bad things were with the head stock. As you can see the original banjo style tuner post holes werere poorly doweled, grovers added on the head stock treble side and the head stock contours sanded away.
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Back view of the head stock. If you look closely you can see some of the breaks.
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Poorly routed for full size humbuckers. Boy did we have fun filling these rough holes.
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A closer view of this guitars traumatic make overs.
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This is what we meant earlier about multiple hand painted finishes, what a disaster!
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There were so many steps in the restoration process we chose not to show them. But to simply show the before and after. Let's start at the head stock. We plugged the Grover post holes, fitted a matched grain graft and inlayed the stepped layer that is painted black.
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Obviously the back had to be fitted for a graft as well. We chose to darken the edge to not draw attention to the graft's joint line. The reinforced headstock cracks have also been hidden.
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We managed to salvage the original stamped serial number. Look at the glow of the nitrocellulose finish.
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The top looked like a thin slice of Swiss cheese when it came through our front door. Look at the results after adding a beautiful piece of Honduras Mahogany to the 3-D like stepped top.
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Ah yes, the head stock with the original banjo style tuners..."How God intended it to be."
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We saw a diamond in the rough and here is the finished product. A great playing guitar that is chock full of tone; a restored classic. We use old aged woods and original formula lacquers of the original manufacturing era.
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The proud owner of this masterpiece was overwhelmed and speechless , as it surpassed his expectations of how this firebird blossomed, and became a Phoenix that rose from the ashes.
