A long-leg was finished. A huge (in my eyes) Epiphone Texan 1964. A bit of a cult guitar when many famous artists play on one such, including Paul McCartney. This particular vintage is sought after and costs a little extra.
From what I heard, Gibson bought the Epiphone in 1957 and got a pile of finished necks with the Epiphone logo. The neck with longer mens watch was glued to a regular Gibson body and flip flops had a sellable guitar! A more connected history can be found in this excellent article.
This copy was in less good condition. Someone had tried to get the drawbar loose (I think) and half the grip board at the bottom was loose and in two pieces. The head was also carved out under the drawbar door in a failed attempt to pull the drawbar. The head had been knocked off and glued together without much finesse. One of the X-ribs was loose at one end. The original was missing and a clumsy loose replica came along, too poorly made to be used. The rest of the guitar was in good, albeit used condition with nice patina.
Loosened the last bit of the grip board and removed the drawbar. By the way, it looked like something the local blacksmith had welded together, not beautiful. Suggested it be replaced with a carbon fiber rod and so it got. A 1 x 1 cm solid carbon fiber rod. The hole in the drawbar door was filled with mahogany and a lid in black painted maple was glued on top of half the head. The old repair was nicely done. Probably it is stronger than ever now.
The fretboard was in the finest BRW, saved it by gluing the three pieces on top of an approximately 2 mm thick shim of Madagascar rosewood. The placement of the straps was doubtful, the 1st strap was about 2 mm misplaced. All notches were filled in with thin rosewood moldings and the strip notches were sawn in the right place. The two top inlays in mother-of-pearl had to be remanufactured after face-grinding of the board as the originals were leaf-thin. 12 ″ radius on the board.
A new replica stall was manufactured. Got to think several times so as not to make mistakes when the stable was of the upside-down type!
Over-saddling and segmented stall legs were ordered. The collector value was more or less gone already, so why not make it as good as possible. Also fitted plugs. The stable plate was boring biscuits made of cut string sticks, large and made of plywood. Didn't have much hope that my inventors would come to their own with a pallet in plywood. The steel plate became a bit like a Swiss cheese of all drilled holes. The original stable had the usual 6 holes for string pins, but also 4 extra holes probably for an adjustable stable leg. Moved the string pins on the stable so that there were a total of 22 holes with the turbo plugs! Plugged all holes except the ones I drilled for the string pins.
The loose bar was glued and also a small crack in the lid of the shrunken plectrum cover. The neck got nickel bands. The neck was replaced without any major problems.
Stringed up with 0.12 Newtone Masterclass strings. Two G-strings and an e-string went off during the work with the intonation. Never happens with a notched head… The new jig to intonate at the stable works very well!
The upper saddle did not need much adjustment, however, the stool leg must be 5 mm thick to reach all intonation points.
The neck was lacquered with alcohol to hide the wounds after the repair and gluing of the grip board, the body only received a treatment with Fulgentin which concealed the worst things and gave the guitar a pleasant and deep color.
It turned out that this guitar sounds very good despite the plywood plate. In fact, one of the best full-sized dreadnought I've worked with. Balanced and creamy tone without excessive bass and good volume. Very marrow and definition. Very narrow grip board otherwise, 40 mm at the upper saddle. You get used to, have played a lot on it without getting tired 🙂
