JOHN BROWN
‘ 55 Gibson ES- 125
On our workbench this month is a Gibson
ES- 125, which came to us with a collapsed
top. It had been this way for years but, as
of late, had increasingly gotten worse.
Our first step was to inspect the inside
structure of the top by removing the two
screws that held the P- 90 in place, then
wrap a protective foam cover around
the pickup and place it inside the body. I
purposely do this so that the solder joints
won’t be altered by desoldering the hot
and shield pickup wires for a complete but
unnecessary removal.
Inspection
With the pickup removed, I was ready
to go through the top pickup route to
get inside the body cavity with a flexible
inspection mirror and work light. Once
inside, the first thing I noticed was that
the parallel braces were loose midway up
toward the neck. At this point, I realized
there would be a few steps to this repair
before any gluing began.
Re-warping the Top
The first step to this repair was re-warping the top to its original uniformity. Adam
Meyer assisted me in the shop with
designing this radius clamping call. It was
basically one of our BGF Brace Repair
Jacks with a radius maple wood block
attached to one end.
70 PREMIERGUITAR NOVEMBER 2007
Wax paper was placed inside the guitar to
protect the back from any glue or water
stains. Over a period of three weeks the
inside of the top was moistened with a
damp pad and expanded with our custom
repair jack. It required expanding the clamp a
total of four times, each time adding slightly
more pressure, to achieve a uniform top.
After weeks of work and patient waiting,
we’ve managed to fix up this old Gibson.
As you can see, Harry Straub quickly had
his restored ‘ 55 Gibson ES- 125 in hand
and ready to be plugged into that sweet
amp of his.
Parallel Braces
Thanks to Harry Straub of Straub Amplifiers
( straubamps.com), and thanks to all you
Restoring an Original readers. We’ll see
you next month.
After re-warping the guitar’s top, I used
a thin and long spatula to work a small
amount of water between the brace and
top. This preps the area and gets the
Titebond II premium wood glue to flow
in between more smoothly. Since this top
wasn’t going to be removed, we chose not
to use hide glue, as the glue’s workability
properties would make the process more
difficult and give us sloppy results. The
Titebond II premium wood glue sets up
quickly with very strong properties.
After the glue was in place, I used our
BGF Brace Repair Jacks to clamp up the
parallel braces, using damp cloths to clean
up the excess glue and leaving the clamps
on for no less than 48 hours. After investing a few weeks of time, why rush the end
of the repair by taking the clamps off too
soon – just to save on a few sitting-on-the-shelf hours?
John Brown
John Brown, of Brown's Guitar Factory, is the inventor of the
Fretted/Less bass. He owns and operates a full guitar manu-
facturing and repair/restoration facility, which is staffed by
a team of talented luthiers. He is also the designer of guitar
making/repair tools and accessories that are used today by
instrument builders throughout the world.
brownsguitarfactory.com
email: info@brownsguitarfactory.com
www.premierguitar.com
