What's on the Bench

Thick lacquer was scraped away. Luckily the colour was in the lacquer and not placed directly onto the wood. This meant less would was removed in getting rid of the colour.

Restoration of a 1921 K2 Mandocello. Part 1.

Once Luke received his new K2 F holed mandocello from me he shipped his '21 Gibson K2 to the shop for a complete restoration. 

The instrument had been poorly refinished in thick lacquer, a purplish colour and some pretty clumsy repairs done to cracks in the body. Cracks were appearing in the rim around the tailblock and this was distorting the top. All signs pointed to a cracked tailblock so it was time to open up the box. I decided to take the top off rather than the back because I wanted to double check the top's structural integrity and to take measurements to make sure it hadn't been thinned down too much in it's prior refinish.

The rim cracks show how the damage ocurred. Too many replacement tailpiece holes weakened the tailblock and the tension from the tailpiece cracked the block. 

Fingerboard, then top off.

New tailblock and ebony filler piece.

Cracked tailblock out

The rear peghead veneer was in very poor condition also and once again there were too many screw holes from various replacement tuners being fitted. These needed to be filled and a new veneer fitted.

Part of the original fingerboard binding had been replaced with 'white plastic' binding. This was replaced with the correct ivoroid binding used in that era.