Mid-70’s Gibson Les Paul Neck Repair

Friday, June 2nd, 2017

A customer brought us this Gibson Les Paul he had bought new in the 70's and it had no real issues.

When he had received the guitar, it had a crack just below the headstock, which is common for this type of guitar. However, the crack had not really caused any structural issues. The customer had used it regularly with no issues and it still felt really solid but, he wanted to get it taken care of now to prevent anything from potentially happening as time went on.

All those years of playing had also caused some fairly standard fret wear, so the customer elected to have a complete refret and get a new bone nut as well.

The tough part about repairing a crack like this is that the structural integrity of the neck has not been compromised, meaning we had to find a way to force the crack open enough to get glue into it. We set it up with a few clamps on the bench to force the crack open, while also providing some support to prevent the headstock from splitting off.

Once the glue had dried, we began sanding the neck. In addition to repairing the crack, the customer wanted to be sure that it wasn't showing anymore.

Here, we have the fully sanded back of the neck, ready to be sprayed.

Before we move on the finishing process, we do the complete refret and fashion the new nut. here we are pressing in the new frets.

While working on this guitar, there had been some cosmetic blemishes caused from removing the old nut from its slot. Since we were in the process of refinishing the neck anyway, we extended that finishing to the front of the headstock as well.

We cut some protective coverings for the logo and diamond inlay on the headstock and layered some masking tape inside the truss rod cavity.

Here, the neck has been fully sprayed. we still have some additional steps to complete the painting process

After some buffing and polishing, things are looking a bit better. we will go over it a bit more to make sure it is perfect

After removing the covers for the logo and diamond, the binding on the headstock needed to be cleaned of excess paint as well. We used a razor blade to scrape it off, just like they do at the factory. You can also see the new bone nut and frets in place.

The headstock has now been fully cleaned. We'll get the tape out of the truss rod cavity and then go through the same buffing process that we did on the back of the neck. Once completed, we'll get the tuners back on, do a full set up, and get it back to the owner for a few more decades of use!

Mid-70’s Gibson Les Paul Neck Repair

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