Job Description
After doing several jobs on this customers other guitars he had often spoken of a vintage Gibson that he had purchased as a investment he told me of how he would love to be able to play it but this was not possible as the instrument was unplayable and if he changed it in anyway it would lose value.
I suggested that i would have a look at the guitar for him as there was certain things you can do without loseing value. On inspection of the guitar i found that there was a large number of reasons why this guitar was not playable :-
1/ Firstly the laquar had become soft and would rub of to the touch.
2/ The frets were so low that it made it extremly differcult to play. (fret measured at 0.2mm)
3/ The tune o matic bridge had lost its radius. This is common with vintage gibsons as the bridge is made from soft metal (brass) and over the years of string pressure goin over them it causes the brigde to level.
4/ The truss rod would not pull the neck out of a up bow of 0.6mm.
5/ Electrics had oxidised and were feeding back badly.
I advised the customer that to make this guitar playable that it would need a full restore and reasured him that it would not lose value in doing so, infact it would add value. When restoring vintage instruments you need to know what will and wont de-value your instrument for this reason always have this work carried out by a proffesional.

Remedy
Firstly all original hardware and electrics must not be messed with (even screws). For this reason all hardware was removed, cleaned and stored in a air tight container to avoid further ageing. The guitar was to be fitted with all new replacement parts. (The oringanal parts could be refitted in the case of a resale)
The paintwork was sanded down, being carefull not to sand in to the colour just removing the laquar. Then 2 coats of nitro cellouse was applied and allowed to fully harden, Then a further 6 coats was applied restoring the guitar to its origanal paint finish. After a 4 week hardening process i could now start repair work to the guitar.
Firstly i addressed the fret problem this was to be remedied by a re-fret, (A re-fret will not de-value a vintage instrument as long as it is done proffesionly) This is extremly differcult on a aged ebony fingerboard as the timber is very dry / brittle, and fret wire is glued in. A new vintage bone nut was also fitted to allow for extra fret height, at this point the truss rod was repaired by adding a wooden washer allowing further ajustment.
The guitar was then fitted with all new Gibson replacement parts, and had a full set-up, clean/polish.
As you can see from the photo the guitar now looks like it has just come of the Gibson production line,  As for sound and playabilty this guitar is truely a dream guitar.

"I first approached DL Povey Guitars after having a custom built PRS style guitar which had a few issues with frets and board radius. After receiving a great serviceI was willing to trust Daz with my vintage Gibson Les Paul. I asked Daz to restore the guitar to the original state as it was unplayable and suffered from a lot of wear and tear. When I picked up the guitar it was as new and played mint.

Much work was undertaken on this guitar and I was impressed on how quick I received the guitar back. As a result I will only use DL Povey Guitars in the future.