1955 Gibson ES-130 - "Guitar Rescue"

[DMgolf66]

Holy cow, looks SO much like the Japanese-made Epiphone Emperor "F" model!
My favorite burst!
Goes without saying the level of repair and finish is just something else. What a guitar you made!

Sorry for crappy pic

[MCampellone]

Holy cow, looks SO much like the Japanese-made Epiphone Emperor "F" model!
My favorite burst!
Goes without saying the level of repair and finish is just something else. What a guitar you made!

Sorry for crappy pic

wow, remarkable similarity - though unintentional

[darkwaters]

Have to say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

The guitars start out as something that make me sad and then are transformed by you into something of great beauty. Remarkable!

[george4908]

I may never get to play one of these beautiful restorations, but I have to say thanks for doing this. What a great read.

[mvp019aa]

The end results are truly amazing...

[MCampellone]

I've always noticed this very obvious change in finish just around the time when Gibson was taken over by Norlin. They also stopped buying figured maple, the shape of many models was altered, the dot on the Gibson "i" was lost, the guitars became ever more heavy, it went down hill all through the 70's and 80's ....
This type of finish and how the color penetrates the bare wood underneath can also be found on certain cheaper PRS guitars and IMHO it looks cheap and an totally un-appealing.

My congrats to you Mr. Campellone : you're immune to the wide-spread "save-the-vintage-original-look" mantra and you successfully ignore the quasi religious belief that it's a sin to
alter an instrument in order to make it more playable/affordable. Your work helps people get their hands on good instruments without having to pay the outrageous/inflated prices on the "vintage/collector" market !

Just wanted to take note of your comment regarding the changes in shape of some Gibson models - it's pretty obvious with models like the 330 series, when the original "Mickey Mouse ears" were made more slender and pointed - also obvious are the changes Gibson made in peghead shapes. Maybe a little less obvious are the changes Gibson made in the body shapes of their 17" and 18" archtop models - if you compare L5's from the 50's, 70's 90's and current models, you'll find differences in the shape of the overall outline or the shape of the cutaway - I find that a difference of even just 1/4" in the width across the lower bout, waist, or upper bout can give the guitar quite a particular appearance.

[MCampellone]

Here is the last guitar in this group of restorations I've been working on - a 1984 Super 400CES, likely among the last to come out of Kalamazoo. This guitar had only some relatively minor issues, but it interested me because it also had the potential to become very close to "perfect".

The biggest issue was a cosmetic one - a noticeable dark streak running from inside the bass side f-hole down towards the rim (see first two "before" pics). I guessed that this could be related to the finishing process Gibson was using at the time. Like the 'ice-tea' finish of the 70's, the color on this '84 appeared to have been applied directly to the wood. I assumed that this streak appeared because the dark shading color applied to the perimeter had "wicked" into the spruce in this one spot and traveled up toward the f-hole. The solution involved stripping the entire top to bare wood and trying some touch-up tricks - I'm actually not sure which of the tricks worked, but eventually the dark streak had all but disappeared. There were also some areas of finish damage on the top, and the refin took care of those as well.

The neck had a fair amount of its finish worn off, so the neck was also completely refinished. The back of the guitar (really nice flame maple) had a fair amount of buckle rash and some deep indents, so the clear coat was sanded back and a light nitro overspray was applied. There were also some cracks around the jack - they were repaired with internal reinforcement and finished over. There are some dark streaks in that area of the rim, too, but they appear to be in the wood itself and unrelated to the cracks in the rim.

One other small issue that gave me a chuckle - a problem with the location of the pickup routs on the top. This wasn't too surprising, since once the neck is attached, its center line doesn't always match up exactly with the center line of the body. On this guitar, it looked like after the initial routs were done, they had to be shifted slightly toward the bass side to line up with the center line of the neck. In the close up shot of the bridge pickup rout, you can see a small patch was glued in under the original finish - I also had to install some new wood where the factory patch work got a little messed up by the screw holes for the pickup ring.

The frets on this guitar, low to begin with, were very worn, so a complete re-fret was also done and a new bone nut was installed. The pickguard is a repro - the original had deteriorated - gas-off from the original guard also ruined the pickup covers, so they have been re-plated. The pickups, pots and wiring harness are all original.

The result of all this, a 40+ year old guitar looks almost brand new : )

[John Owen]

Glorious! In addition to all your other amazing capabilities, you really know how to spray a sunburst!

[cmguitar]

Woohoo!

Amazing work....and a ton of it!