1911 Gibson A-4 Restoration

[Troy Harris]

1911 Gibson A-4 restoration:

Glued and cleated two top cracks with hot hide glue.

Removed the fingerboard and straightened the neck with heat and clamps.

Resurfaced the neck straight with a slight drop from the 12th fret position to the end over the body. This is important because the neck pulls up slightly from the string tension.

[Troy Harris]

Resurfaced the original fingerboard flat and refretted with stainless steel .040” frets.

[Troy Harris]

Spirit varnish touch-up and French polish around the fingerboard and soundhole crack.

[Troy Harris]

Complete with new Mother of Pearl nut and new ebony saddle on the original bridge.

[Nevin]

Looking good. Question, is that much of a gap at the dovetail common?

[jim simpson]

Nicely documented project, looks great. I'm used to seeing gaps like that in dovetails. It gives access to steam out when needed.

[HoGo]

That gap was the most interesting things on the pics (sorry Troy, I'm vintage Gibson Nerd) adn it shows how the dovetail was cut in the block. Two angled cuts with tablesaw (or router?) followed with third into center to remove bulk of material. I don't remember seeing this on later Gibsons after 1919 or earlier (I only have good pic of early three pointer), those appear to have pretty flat bottom of the cut, I guess the three pointer was cut by hand and the later (inclusding Loars) were cut with angled dovetail bit.

[rcc56]

I have a plain A on the bench right now that used the same tooling on the dovetail.
I have seen Gibson guitars made as late as WWII that had sawn mortises.

If Troy's touch-up is indeed as invisible with the instrument in hand as it appears to be in the photos, my hat is off to him. A dozen times.

[tonydxn]

Nicely done

[William Smith]

Fine Job for sure! Looks great.

[Skip Kelley]

Nice work, Troy!

[Troy Harris]

Thank you. My day job is working as a restorer at a professional violin shop. I get a lot of practice with varnish touch-up. I take a minimal approach to restoration. I want to preserve the original quality of the varnish patina as much as possible. But sometimes I’m required to remove some of the original varnish and build it back up to correct the natural shape of the surface. I had to do that to establish a smooth curve in the top where it meets the fingerboard. It looks terrible during the process but the end result is more convincing.