Partial Restoration
1942 Gibson ES-350

This old Gibson came in with serious issues. The trapeze tail piece had broken off at the hinge. The cellulose pickguard was disentigrating and causing the metal parts to corrode. It had left sort of a halo around itself where all the metal was rusting and the finish changed colors. The frets and the pickup poles were both a mess.

Unfortunately we misplaced the 'before' shots, so we can only show you the finished product.







We welded the tail piece back together preserving the functon of the hinge.
The owner chose to have it nickel plated to restore its original shine.
The pickguard was beyond saving, so it was placed in a bag for safe keeping.
We had to carefully recreate the pickguard, its support, and bracket mounts.
We found a new-old-stock (NOS) pickguard bracket on Ebay and added that.



The pickup was in rough shape to begin with. The cover was seriously worn,
and the pole pieces were corroded along with all the rest of the metal parts.
We pulled it apart and cleaned each pole piece, polished them up and coated
them to hopefully prevent further corrosion.
The cover was cleaned up and polished to a high shine.
It came out looking many decades younger in the end.


The neck needed a lot of attention as well.
It received a light fret level and complete deep cleaning, polishing, oiling, etc.. until the frets and fingerboard looked almost like new.
After a good setup, this thing played beautifully and still intonated like a champ.
It's a wonderful example of old Gibson craftsmanship.
Now it should keep playing for many decades to come.