Here we have an Orville Les Paul that will be getting a
resto-mod type of a job. These were made in Japan in cooperation with Gibson in
the 90’s. This one has been around, used, abused but not ready to be firewood
yet.
It has no real structural problems but has lots of cosmetic
issues and some playing wear. First the neck looks like the finish was striped
by the angry chipmunk…….The entire neck was chipped up like this. I don’t know
how you could play this and not get splinters in your thumb.
There are bashed out chips on the top, the back, the rims
and a few extra strap button holes too.
But despite all this it will still be better to touch up rather than
re-finish as the rest of the black poly finish is fairly good and this stuff is
thick and tough.
There is also some fret wear present that would need
addressed and that was the original reason the owner contacted me. He had an
idea of what a re-fret would cost and he also wanted the worst of the finish
damage repaired. So he figured he would get an estimate on replacing the
existing Rosewood fretboard with Ebony at the same time. This would also
include replacing all the hardware, rewiring and setting up the instrument to
play. So after stripping the guitar it was time for the fun to begin.
First up I will remove the fretboard. There are many ways to
do this. I don’t like a clothes iron as it does not sit well on a curved
fretboard and to actually get the heat into the wood and eventually the joint
you should pull the frets. I dislike a heat lamp because it is slow and I am on
someone’s clock here. The fretboard is a relatively thin piece of wood and the
joint underneath can be softened rather quickly with a heat gun. Normally there
would be much more prep work but since there is no finish on the shaft of the
neck anymore I only need to deal with the fish between the Fretboard and the
body. I heat up my exacto blade on my heat gun and make a cut through the
finish around the end of the fretboard. Heating the knife will allow me to cut
into the thick poly finish as cleanly as possible.
Once that is done I lay out my heat shields on the top.
These are nothing more than thick corrugated cardboard wrapped in aluminum
foil. They will shield the top from the heat. Underneath I have laid out some
blue tape around the perimeter of the fretboard extension. I have my heat gun
set on low fan at 550 °F. I hold it about 2-3“ from the surface and start
working it up and down trying to heat up a 6” or so section of the fretboard.
The Rosewood will start to sweat oil as it heats and that’s how you know it’s
about ready to start to work on the joint.
Then I start to work into the joint with a stiff putty
knife. Being very careful to stay in the joint and not bite into the mahogany
of the neck. The best way to do this is to constantly work completely through
the joint from edge to edge. It is much harder to catch the grain of either
piece, but still possible so care is needed. I work slowly up the neck heating
a section and working the knife through behind. As I approach the other end I
must be extra careful as it is easy to snap the last few inches off rather than
separate the joint and cause damage to the neck.
I select a new Ebony fretboard blank and slot it. The inlays
chosen are the SG supreme style in gold MOP so they are cut and then
transferred to the blank to be cut in.
The fretboard is then radiused at 12” and tapered. The
inlays are glued in and then the bindings are applied. I have a simple little
jig that allows me to glue both sides of the fretboard at once.
The bindings are scraped flush and then the side markers are
installed. To drill the holes square to the tapered edge of the fretboard I
save the little wedges I cut off when tapering and tape them to the other edge
of the board. Now it is square with my drill and I can drill the holes and glue
in the markers.
The inlays are
scraped and sanded level with the surface and now I am ready to install the new
board. I align and clamp my ends with a few small F clamps and then use large
rubber bands to bind down the rest. I used a few temporary clamps lightly in
the middle to be sure the board was fairly tight to the neck before clamping
down the ends to insure the joint will be as tight as possible.
The big finish dents are prepped and filled. I used a black
burn in stick because sometimes you get lucky…..not here. This is not basic
black, this has a touch of violet to it. It also has a yellowed and aged post cat
lacquer of some type over it adding to the color. To get a good match I will
need to mix up some paints and make some spot repairs.
I prep the neck with a few coats of high build sealer/filler
and sand it out. I apply a coat of black with violet to each small repair and
the neck. I then go over that with a yellow amber toner to replicate the aged
finish on the surrounding area. Blending the toner over the spot repair and
into the surrounding finish is a critical job. Do it wrong and it will look awful
after the clear coat. I also apply this toner to my new bindings and blend them in
with tall the originals. Then I give the neck a few coats of acrylic urethane
and also apply some over each spot repair again making sure to blend out the
edges to help avoid halos in the finish where the new poly meets the old. Here
is what some of those same areas look like after the repairs.
The fretboard was finished off with gold EVO frets that
really set off the new inlays and go well with the gold hardware. A new bone
nut and some Seymour Duncan’s set up for coil taps and this axe is ready to
rock some more!
If there is ever a project I can help you with feel free to contact
me, Thanks for following along.
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