1971 Gibson SG Restoration
The guitar had belonged to a punk/hardcore musician from Boston in the 90's who traded it to his best friend before passing away at a young age. The friend stripped the finish at some point while the guitar was in his possession.
The previous owner's sister managed to convince the friend to sell it back to her and she then brought it to us to restore it to the state it was in when her brother owned it.
Part of this process included doing a refret. After removing all of the hardware and electronics, we then pulled the old frets and sanded the fretboard.
The new frets were then installed. Where this guitar has binding on the fretboard, the tang of the frets has to be trimmed back to it within the edges of the binding.
The frets are then trimmed to size, beveled, crowned and polished. In keeping with the owner's request, we are using the original nut that came on the guitar.
We then went through the process of sanding the body down to fresh bare wood for the refinishing process.
In order to get the most accurate finish on the guitar, my own SG was used as a reference point for the classic Faded Cherry.
To ensure an even surface on the guitar we dyed some pore filler to match the faded cherry red finish and applied it to the guitar.
After the spraying is done, we now have that fantastic cherry color. Now we just have a few more steps to address.
We then wet sand the guitar to remove any imperfections from the spraying process and get the finish as smooth as possible.
Due to the unique shape of the SG, we can't get to the cutaways with our buffing wheel so, we handle those spots by hand with buffing compound.
The guitar is then reassembled after the finishing process is complete. In addition to the original nut, we also reused the wrap-around bridge that came in with the guitar and left the neck pickup installed backwards.
We then complete a setup on the guitar and once that is done, this beauty will be ready to go back to the owner, looking much more familiar and ready for the years to come.
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