OMG. I couldn't be more happy with the new tone and play-ability of this guitar. I must have learned a thing or two coming to this site. Thank you all.
It isn't ready for a photo shoot, still need to put the pickguard and truss rod cover on, plus a little more buffing. A little background. I bought this guitar new somewhere around 1969. It had one those crappy adjustable bridges on it. That was the first thing to go. I brought it to someone to do the work. He basically just put a solid piece of ebony in the slot and removed the adjustment. I liked it. I also had him put a new rosewood fretboard on for some reason, I don't have a clue. I still didn't like the guitar so around 1980, I started doing the sanding the top thing and trying to refinish it in my kitchen with rattle cans. My wife never lets me forget the outline of the guitar I left on the table. What was I thinking. Hand me down furniture and I was young and only cared about my guitar. It was awful. I needed some instruction.
Around 1995 or so I decide the guitar needed a neck reset. The action was awful and I'd run out of saddle. Along comes the internet. I read up on how to do a neck reset and felt pretty confident so I went ahead and did it. I made a mess of it and removed too much wood from the end and I would have to move the bridge or fix the neck. I moved on to building F5 mandolins. I had good success with that so after finishing my 3rd mando, I felt it was time to fix that Gibson.
Brings me to a couple of months ago and this guitar had spent most of it's life between 1975 and now, under a bed in a closet or out in the garage in pieces. Are you still with me? Anyway, I took the neck off again and built up the end so it was the correct length again. I got it back together and it is set perfect now, yay! At this point my wife decide that she would like to have the guitar and could I make it black and put some fancy inlays on it. I said sure. I plan to make a new one for myself anyway.
I finally strung it up today and was amazed at the tone. One of the things I forgot to mention is, I had removed the back and shaved the braces at some point. This guitar now sounds very much like an old Martin and I'm loving it.
Thanks for helping me and letting me share in my triumph!
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This form is great, isn't it?!
Actually, she's been a good sport about it, but she was all for it when we decided to moved my lutherie stuff to a dedicated room in the basement. 