Graham Parker Luthier

Here’s a rare oldie in the workshop. A lovely old Gibson L 75 acoustic archtop made in 1932, one of Gibson’s rarest archtop models.

It has a body size at the lower bout of 16″ and a scale length of  24 3/4″ also a nut width of 1 3/4″. It has a hand carved book-matched solid spruce top, solid mahogany neck, back and sides and a Brazilian rosewood fingerboard. The hardware includes a compensated Brazilian rosewood bridge, trapeze tailpiece and Grover nickel-plated Sta-Tite open back tuners.

It’s in very good condition considering its age. All is as it should be apart from 1 missing and 3 loose back braces.

This is an ideal opportunity to use my new scissors jack

Inspecting the inside of any old instrument is an interesting prospect, you never know what you may find. In this case it was an old beer ring-pull and quite a lot of vintage fluff and dust.

Typically the furthest back-brace has become detached at one end

A magnet on the outside is used to manoeuvre the jack into place

The scissor jack makes an easy job of it

The other braces are much easier to access

A new matching brace is made and installed

A new set of strings, a bridge position/intonation check, a

truss rod tweak and its ready to go

Hey I sound just like Robert Johnson says Glenn of Glenn’s Guitar

Enlarged photos on Flickr

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who has used this workshop and website this year

May I use this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Graham