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Gibson J-45 (1944) Banner Year Guitar


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My dad passed away a couple of years ago, and he played guitar all his life too. I have his old Gibson J-45, which I'm almost certain was made in 1944, which he bought new for a little over $300 dollars.. lol Here's a good site on the history of early Gibson J-45 guitars.

Anyway, long story short, the guitar wasn't treated very well, and the neck heel had gotten cracked bad enough that it needed to be fixed. So, quite a while back, before I had even started building guitars, I brought this guitar to a luthier at Batesville, in the northern part of the state, to what I was told, a great luthier. We'll he did repair it, and I payed him $300 dollars for the job, and I figured it was worth it since the guitar meant a lot to me. About six months later, I woke up to some noise, I couldn't figure out what it was, we'll guess what, the neck has snapped at the same exact spot. My guess is that the glue he used either didn't work in this situation, or he didn't steam out the rest of the heel and reattach it to the neck first before gluing it back in. I bought Dan Erlewine's Neck Reset DVD a couple of months ago, and talked to Robert(Soapbar) about the job. Between the both, I figured I was ready to do this. In the picture below you can see that the heel area and fingerboard extension had to be steamed and removed before I could fix the neck's dovetail, check for neck angle alignment, and glue it back together.

gibson04.jpg

The steam can cause some blushing on the finish, but even Bryan Galloup had this same problem on the video. He has a trick to remove it that I'm going to try later on!!! Here's a closeup of the headstock. The other scratch marks on the finish was there before I started.

Headstock Banner Logo.

I'll post more later today... I'm hoping that by posting this, someone might get something out of it.

Matt Vinson

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gibson02.jpg

As you can see from the picture, the dovetail wood where it meets the fingerboard was mostly gone. I don't know if the luthier who worked on it didn't glue the wood back and just threw it away, or some strange shrinking wood took place.. lol It's really no wonder it didn't hold up though, because there wasn't enough glue surface. I'm going to have to add wood to that area and build the dovetail back up after I glue the heel back into place. This should be interesting. Also a quick note, notice this guitar has a truss rod, and was first used in 1944. Also, check out the two walnut strips they used to make the laminate neck stronger.

Body Closeup

Also, you can see that when I heated the fingerboard off the body, it pulled some wood up. I'll have to use Titebond to glue this back down so it will be level again.

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That's a sweet restoration proj, even better because it's a family heirloom. Cool!

Looks like a stacked heel that separated at the glue joint...or did you do the separation?

While you have the neck off, you might check the box to make sure you don't need to do any repairs on IT.

Let me know if it doesn't pan out...I'm in the market for an inlaid 30s or 40's Gibson neck.

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I'd be tempted to dowel that heel - either from the top after removing the fretboard, or at an angle from the rear of the joint. You could also remove the heelcap and go through that way.

That way, even if your glue joint fails down the line, the dowel will keep the joint together.

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notice this guitar has a truss rod...first used in 1944.

Yeah, one look at the size of the adjustment nut and you can see another reason why the joint might have failed in the first place, another factor that reduced the gluing surface. A good reason for moving it to the headstock-end. You've got yourself a challenge there to build up the dovetail again!

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The steam can cause some blushing on the finish, but even Bryan Galloup had this same problem on the video. He has a trick to remove it that I'm going to try later on!!! Here's a closeup of the headstock. The other scratch marks on the finish was there before I started.

I had that same problem while removing a neck today, make sure you post how you fixed it. :D

This project looks cool i love seeing restorations, good luck.

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I'd be tempted to dowel that heel - either from the top after removing the fretboard, or at an angle from the rear of the joint. You could also remove the heelcap and go through that way.

That way, even if your glue joint fails down the line, the dowel will keep the joint together.

A good plan Stech. without replacing the block you're not going to get a nice super-tight dovetail in that again.

Dowels would be a great idea.

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If you feel the dove-tail is too far gone, you could splice on a new dove-tail.

For info on how to do that, see 'vol-13-8' on the CD I made you.

I'd probably want to buy or make one of these in a situation like this :

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Measurin..._Set_Gauge.html

The T-rod adjustment *is* on the headstock, but it looks like they also wanted the other end of the rod to be quite accessible (at least when the neck is off).

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That looks like a real challenge! Make sure the bridge and bracing are perfect before you reset the neck. I would hate to see you spend all this effort and find out you aren't done. What bridge is on it? I am in the process of replacing the adjustable bridge on a 67' J-45 with a standard/reverse and bone saddle. Yours probably doesn't have this drawback! It'll be sweet when you are done, fer shur!

J-45s ROCK! :D

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