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A gold-speckled electric guitar lies on a dark carpet, neck extended to the right; it features two humbucker pickups, a tremolo tailpiece, and large block inlays on the fretboard.
  1. Fixing Broken Stuff
  2. Weird & Wonderful
  3. Musical Instruments

Guitar Hero

By: Epoxyworks Community

Fall 2010

Curt Wilson Loves Guitars

And to many others who love guitars, especially classic old electric guitars, Curt Wilson is a hero. Curt combines his knowledge of epoxy and guitar anatomy with acute attention to detail and the skills of a surgeon to bring back to life guitars that should have played their last note.

This Gretsch Billy Zoom Silver Jet (above) is one good example. It had suffered a broken headstock. After meticulously cleaning and aligning fibers in the exposed end grain, he coated the ends with WEST SYSTEM 105/206 Slow Hardener®. By slowly adding clamping pressure he was careful not to squeeze all the glue out. He let it stay clamped for about twelve hours at 70° and then let it sit a couple of days over a heater duct before re-stringing the guitar. The Billy Zoom lives on.

Two broken electric guitar necks with peeled brown veneer, exposing pale wood and chipped edges. They rest on a light, textured surface.

Among other repairs to this ’67 Rickenbacker, the sheet inlay material on the neck was damaged and needed to be replaced. Curt used 105 Resin with 207 Special Clear Hardener™ mixed with natural mother of pearl shells. After cleaning out the cavities, he applied three layers of shells and epoxy followed by a clear coat. Curt covers many more repairs with lots of photos and videos on his Facebook page, Old School Guitar Repair & Lutherie.

Guitar neck is clamped in a vise-like tool, with a red circular ring around a metal fastener; the instrument rests on a workbench with white paper and dark tools nearby. A hollow-body electric guitar lies on a wooden floor; the orange-brown body features a white pickguard, two pickups, and multiple knobs, with a long neck extending to a six-tuner headstock. Wooden guitar fretboard lies horizontally; metal frets run along its length with light rectangular inlays. It rests on a white support on a dark workbench amid cardboard boxes and tools. The object is a long wooden strip covered with green masking tape arranged in repeating triangular patterns along its length; it rests on a cluttered wooden workbench in a workshop. An extreme close-up of a guitar neck: strings run along a wood fretboard over metal frets. The grainy brown wood and gleaming wires dominate the frame, suggesting a crafted instrument.

 

 

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