16" Archtop Guitar Restoration: 1938 Cromwell G4 By Gibson Relic

[Spotcheck Billy]

Thanks for this thread. It is great to watch you bring this guitar back to life.

 

[Manton Customs]

No problem! I'm a big fan of this forum and the nice people here, so like to share when working on something relevant.

 

[mountainwhimsy]

Great fit on the patches! I'm duly impressed having tried something similar in the past. Looking forward to seeing the blending and coloring!

 

[Archer]

Nice work, especially the "jigsaw" work on the side.

 

[Manton Customs]

Thanks both, yep it felt a bit like a jigsaw...well cheating at a jigsaw by filing the pieces to fit!

 

[Spotcheck Billy]

Great patchwork!

 

[bhmcintosh]

Whoa, that's a remarkable bit of cut-and-fit work there. I'd have been tempted to cut away most of the damaged areas, maybe even replacing the damaged side entirely. I like your approach as it preserves as much of the original wood of the guitar as possible. Looking forward to seeing this complete, with the finish restored. So far Siskel and Ebert give it

 

[Paul46]

I love these restoration threads! Amazing work.

 

[Manton Customs]

Whoa, that's a remarkable bit of cut-and-fit work there. I'd have been tempted to cut away most of the damaged areas, maybe even replacing the damaged side entirely. I like your approach as it preserves as much of the original wood of the guitar as possible. Looking forward to seeing this complete, with the finish restored. So far Siskel and Ebert give it

Thank you very much ! Yes, cutting out the damaged areas would have been an option, but like you mentioned I really wanted to preserve the guitar and keep as much originality as possible. The cutting out big sections approach would have lacked sensitivity which I think is important on a project like this.

Thanks for the nice comments everyone !

 

[WhiteEpiLP]

Thats amazing dude. I say dont even colour it, just leave it as is.
Are you going to put a truss rod in it or stay without?

 

[garybaldy]

I just happen to have one of these,near mint with original case and floating pup at my home now. It belongs to a friend.
I first saw it in an antiques market near Cardiff. It was going for 450GBP.
I checked it out a second time and was told I could have it for 400. I went away to think about it and mentioned it to my mate. End of story!

 

[Manton Customs]

Ha, cool story! He got a good deal at that price and condition. Which model is it? They did make a few electrics and they are quite rare.

Thank you, no I won't be adding a trussrod as I want to keep it original. Also after having checked with a magnet (since writing the first post) there is in fact some kind of metal stiffening bar deep under the maple fillet.

 

[WhiteEpiLP]

Cool I like the idea of keeping her as close to original as possible.

 

[RobStark]

This is truly amazing! Sigh.. so depressing when I see the talent of repair/builders out there knowing I have such a long way to go.. but also inspiring! More inspiring than depressing, so I didn't mean to be all negative, haha. Great job man, love this thread.

 

[Manton Customs]

ha ha . No worries and glad you like it. Getting there's is just practice and I'm sure you'll be at a level you are happy with soon, though it's a never ending learning experience really!

 

[Manton Customs]

I've had a bit of a break from this project (working on other people guitars!), but have now made some meaningful progress. This update is all about the fingerboard, so it's more standard guitar building than restoration.

This is the fingerboard I will be using, a preslotted (19 frets) rosewood board with good figure.



The first job was to the taper the fingerboard to the neck. This was done by first making a template then using this template to rout the fingerboard.

Now the guitar earns it's stripes...Literally! The Cromwell guitars often featured a rather attractive touch, having either one or two binding stripes down the fingerboard. For a guitar of this era a single stripe was more common, so that's what I have gone with! This slot was cut in the same way I would a truss rod (though much narrower and shallower!). Please excuse the white double sided tape residue.



Next the board was given it's radius, then the inlay installed.



Before the binding gets fitted I ensure all fret slots are cut to the correct depth after the radiusing. This is done with a saw and depth stop.



Binding glued and being planed to the board using a small block plane.



I now move onto fretting. Tapping them in before the board was glued to the neck made the most sense to avoid hammering onto the guitar and having to support the neck. The wire is pre bent and the tang removed from each end, the section beyond the tang is not yet cut to size (so there isn't as much tang missing as it looks)



The surface of the neck needed planing as previous fingerboards (!) had left pieces behind and a lot of glue. I used the two planes here for this task removing very little material.



You'll notice here there is a fret missing...well actually there are two missing, one towards the heel and the first one (pictured here). These two will be installed after the fingerboard has been glued to the neck so I can utilise the slots for alingment pins, this ensures the neck does not slip during glue up.



Here you can see the frets have been beveled and the side dots fitted. These jobs were actually completed before the board was glued but I didn't get a picture till after. So here the board has now been glued up.



A shot of the fingerboard post glue up!



A shot of the full guitar



The Cromwell in it's natural habitat!



That's all for now, thanks for checking this restoration out More soon!

 

[cjstcustom]

So good! Thanks for sharing

 

[Manton Customs]

No problem, thanks for watching

 

[xroadie_jim]

Thank you so much. Love this restoration!!!!

 

[Manton Customs]

It's been wayyy to long since I updated this, the restoration was completed months ago so here are the final few pictures of the restoration. Then I'll get some decent completed pics up.

Anyway, here are some of the now repaired side. You can still see where the damage was, but it's quite an attractive fix maintaing maximum original material and blending in nicely. Though most importantly the guitar is now completely solid and stable.
The areas were colour matched with tinted Nitro followed by clear, then buffed out to match the surrounding areas.









And for fun a quick before and after shot



Next up I made a bridge for it out of Brazilian Rosewood. I took some progress pictures of this and wrote a bit of a tutorial, so if anyones interested in seeing how to make a wooden bridge, I'll put these up.



Slotting the bridge.



Now the headstock gets some love, replacing the ill fitting piece of plastic with a well fitted Mother of Pearl inlay, which gives the headstock a touch of class!



Next up... finished pictures! Thanks for watching