Shadow in finish. What to do?

[Patrick Quinn]

Hi I picked up a 63 Gibson J 50 as a project guitar.   The guitar has various cracks and loose bracing, but most of this I can handle. The question I have has to do with the finish. A previous owner apparently had glued a piece of wood in the area from the bridge to the end of the guitar.  Some of the finish is off all the way to bare wood.  Of even more concern is the shadow left. Is there any way to minimize this?  I don't mind the guitar looking old and weathered as long as it's in good stable working condition but this shadow will be really noticeable from across a room. thanks to anyone with suggestions

Pat

[Christian Johnson]

I can't open your file

[William F.Eden]

Patrick try another picture.

[Patrick Quinn]

Sorry about the bad picture. I hope this new one works better.

[Kerry Krishna]

 It opens for me. What an absolutely stunningly horrid repair that the guy did! If this is the guitar right now, I would be bringing this into a Luthier for complete checkup and all the work necessary. It looks like it needs a lot of work too! 

[Mark Pollock]

AIEEEEE!!!

That - is - gawdawful.

Are you SURE that it is stable? That looks like a trainwreck just waiting to happen.

But, if you are sure - wow, I dunno. The problems are really tough here. I would be hesitant to do any dying of the top, given the size and ugliness of those cracks. I'm not sure you could expose it to the sun safely for long enough to even the shadow out either.

And your bridge is worrisome. That looks like one really lousy glue job, and the saddle is deeply notched too.

If you don't intend to do any other repairs, than don't do anything. Play it until it falls apart, and love it the whole time. That shadow is really the least concern of anything in the picture.

If you intend to do repairs, then really do them. Replace the entire bridge, gets the top fixed if possible, with all the braces double-checked and properly reglued, and get the neck reset. Half measures will just result in greater messes as you go along.

But, please, PLEASE, get a mirror on a stick and really look around inside that body. I don't know what your skill level is, but you need to look inside and see what the heck else is going on.

[Patrick Quinn]

Thanks for the response. I have the back off and there are loose braces that I'll clean out and reglue after I close each crack.  Although I am an amateur I've worked on violins for 20 years and have repaired cracks on them  as well as several on a handful of guitars with good results.  I've cleaned out the cracks and will be able to close those quite well. The neck angle is correct. It will need a refret by pros and I'll probably have them redo the bridge so the action will be right. (I live 40 minutes from Charlie Hoffman's and they are geniuses there.)  I want to do everything I can do and then leave the rest to Charlie's staff. Of course in an ideal world I'd have Hoffman do all of it but I enjoy the work and if I spend too much on pro repairs I could just have bought a 2500 dollar guitar.

More ideas?

[William F.Eden]

 Patrick if it, were me I would get the bridge off and refinish the top after you get the rest all fixed up ,and be carfull as i have found the j- 50 is very thin .You will do just fine good luck Bill...............

[Mark Pollock]

Oh heck, disregard a lot of what I said, I'm impressed. Taking the back off sounds a LOT harder to me than replacing the bridge!! Correction - putting the back ON correctly afterwards sounds a lot harder.

You could replace the bridge plate while you are doing all this, plug the holes for the pins and screws, and then make a really excellent, well-measured out bridge for replacement. It sounds like you have the talent, I imagine you could have a great learning experience making up a bridge and getting it all dialed in perfectly. And you could take the time to get that intonation NAILED down to perfection. Paul Hostetter has some great info on saddle and pin placement on his website - http://www.lutherie.net/saddle_angle.html .

That shadow - ugh. Refinish the top? You could really improve the looks while you are at it, plug those screw holes with matching wood, and then do a nice refin. You could even go sunburst to cover some of the damage.

[Ned Knepp]

Hi Patrick, I'm another amateur so you can take this how you want.

  I'm not so sure I would refinish the whole top unless you have greater damage that is  not pictured or you just want to have a newer looking guitar.  I think I would clean up all the old glue then prep and refinish the shadow area then leave it alone. It's part of the history of the guitar and it will darken on it's own over time.  In the mean time, you have something to start the " see how I brought this back from the dead" conversation. 

  The bridge doesn't look too damaged to me either. Looking at it in the picture, I think I would clean up the old glue, and replace the adjustable bridge with a fill and a new, fixed, bone bridge. I don't much like these bridge saddles and think a bone replacement is both lighter and better sounding.  All in all, I think these old Gibson Jumbos are great old guitars and it looks like a fun project.

[Patrick Quinn]

I'm appreciating the feedback. I'm getting lots of good ideas. I definitely want to reglue the bridge and replace the adjustable saddle with bone and I'd probably have a pro do that too. I have a Gibson B-25 that had that sorry plastic bridge that was adjustable. I had that whole bridge and saddle replaced at Hoffman guitar here in Minneapolis with a new wooden bridge and bone saddle and it sounds amazing.

Keep the ideas coming.

Pat

[William F.Eden]

I don't quite understand why you would not refinsh the top when you have the think all apart anyway and it sure needs to be refreshed?????????????? Is it that valueable ? Bill..............

[Kerry Krishna]

 William and Patrick, about the actual 'shadow' part of this post, I'd like to say something. Year before last I had to re lacquer a MORGAN spruce guitar top.

After all the lacquer was off of it, the guitar (It belonged to 'The Wailing Jennies ' guitarist Nicky,) had seen hundreds and hundreds of hours of direct sunlight from all the Folk Festivals they had played over a decade.  The surprise for me  was this. It was NOT the lacquer that had yellowed significantly,, (though it certainly was not clear anymore!)  it was the spruce top wood  itself!  

It could not be scrapped off/sanded because doing that would have significantly compromised the top thicknesses.

 I expect that if you want a top that is all one colour Patrick, and you are willing to strip it, that you will have to tint the lacquer that goes on the centre section.  There are better folks here that can help with this problem, and it certainly is not insurmountable...