Repair And Restoration
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Gibson ES175 Bracing Issues…
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Gibson ES175 Bracing Issues…
Hey Looth Group,
A customer brought me a Gibson 2015 59′ Reissue ES175. In addition to the normal setup/maintenance that needs to be taken care of, the customer complained about an issue with the bracing. The three pictures below are what he was referring to. There’s obviously a break in the wood and appears to be some separation in the glue joint. This is located right underneath the edge of the bridge on the bass side.
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9 Replies
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OMG did Gibson go back to kerfed tone bars ? If so, there’s not much to be done. I took apart a late 40s L-something and fit new bars. Total bill on it was over 3 grand.
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Hey Ian, thanks for getting back to me on this. Unfortunately as I was posting this last night the website went down and I was only able to post the first half of what I intended. Could you take a look at the rest of what I wrote and give me your thoughts? I’d very much appreciate it!
-David
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Just looked at the remainder of the post. This guitar should be left as is. You are 100% right about taking it apart. It would be less expensive to buy a new guitar.
EDIT : You could glue something over the break and try to glue the tone bars back down. I would issue a ton of caveats with this move.
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Are you sure? The customer paid about $5000 for the guitar back in 2022 and while I think this would be a very expensive repair, I don’t know that it would be more than the value of the guitar. These have apparently shot up in price over the last few years and I’m seeing a mint condition one on Reverb for $6000. Regardless I think that this one is beyond me so I’m going to be leaving it alone. Keeping that in mind, is there anything which should be done? How much worse is this likely to get?
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Current market value of Gibson guitars being in a bubble not withstanding, one of the things that the top I removed had going for it was that the top was glued on with cascamite and came off super easy. Modern construction means modern adhesives. Chances are really good that only way to get the top or back off of this guitar is to take the binding off. This means, at least for me, finish work and some kind of apparatus to get the plate back on and the sides lined up.
Even with the ability to roughhouse the finish on this guitar because it isn’t vintage, it’s a ton of work. I’d still bid this at $3500-$4000 and then when I was finished there would still be an ill-conceived modern Gibson at the end of the project. It’s hard to overstate how dumb kerfed tone bars are even on laminate instruments and it’s an indication of how bad things were at Gibson around this time. 2015 is also in the sweet spot for truss rods that don’t work.
In a side observation, one of the main problems with high dollar turd painting projects is that when the shit eventually squeezes through the cracks in the paint, all the customer know is that the bill was high and now the guitar doesn’t work again. Like when the windshield wipers break after my wife gets an oil change. The first thing she thinks is, “the windshield wipers worked before I got the oil changed.”
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This makes a whole lot of sense. I hadn’t taken the year (2015) into account when examining this guitar. I believe that was the same year as the infamous robotuners were put on. It seems that the issues at Gibson ran up the ladder. Thank you very much for the insights Ian!
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Hey @ianhatesguitars one last question on this. I was reading through an old Frank Ford article where he reinforced the bracing on a 175 and it got me thinking. Would it be feasible to reglue the bracing on the treble side by dropping out the bridge pickup, applying glue to the bracing and clamping it in place? I know that this would be less than ideal and may ultimately be futile with the inability to clean the glue joints properly, but I figured I’d ask because I’m getting quite a bit of sympathetic buzzing when I play the A string, or the 5th fret on the bottom E string, and I believe this is not an issue with the bridge but rather the interaction between the note, the top, and the loose bracing.
Link to the article:
http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier/Technique/Guitar/Structural/ES175Top/es175top.html
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I decided to take a look at the rest of what I
could see through the F holes and I noticed something far more concerning. What
the customer was unaware of perhaps was that the bracing on the treble side,
from about the neck pickup volume control, all the way back to the strap
button, has completely delaminated and there’s about a 1/8″ gap at the
very end (which I couldn’t easily photograph). I’m wondering how to proceed
here? My initial feeling is that this is beyond my current skill level and I’m
inclined to not attempt to tackle this. I’m not experienced with archtop
guitars in general and I could use some advice on the procedure to fix this. My
best guess is that this would involve removing the back, cleaning up the glue
joints, regluing the bracing, and then reapplying the back and possibly doing a
partial refinish. Does this seem logical?
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Last couple of questions, given the state of the guitar, should I take the strings off to alleviate the pressure on the top? Also, I noticed this nylon strapping material throughout the guitar body. What’s the purpose of this?
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