Hello, hope everyone is fine and safe.
While sitting at home and going through this all madness for almost 2 months now I thought I need some thrill in my life and got into this trouble
I accidentally found this matsumoku LP from the around 80’s for a very reasonable price. It was sitting in some guys garage for around 30 years after a neck crack and thought I’d get it for the parts or so. After short inspection I thought this little peace of history will go as a wall hanger. But when I took it home and dropped on strings just to check if electronics are fine I was blown away how nice this guitar sounds even in this state of wreck. So I thought I’ll give it a shot to make it playable as I’ve got a little experience in wood working and small repairs.
Now the good news are that the state of this sad Paul is all original, the wood looks of a decent quality, it is heavy as hell (id say around 10kg’s), all of the electronics are working just fine. The finish is nitro and the sound is sweet.
The bad news is that it has this long crack running down the back of the neck. I suspect dry environment and overtightened trussrod, but might be a bad fall aswell. In this case if it was a gibson the headstock would of snapped emmediately however this Les Paul has a strengthened headstock which might had helpped. The fretboard got separated at first few frets.
The second bad thing is that from poor humidity the 3-block body has cracked at the bottom where the blocks were glued together.
So I know that this old fellow is in a poor shape but what do I have to loose.. My plan is firstly remove the nut, heat up the fretboard a little and remove it. Check the trussrod. Glue the neck crack using Titebond Hide glue. Only need to figure how do I clamp it well so the both sides would sit even. And glue back all together.
The next problem that I’ve never met before is those two cracks between body blocks. I do not think that there’s a way to glue ‘em back together. So I was thinking about filling the cracks with some epoxy maybe..
So this is an educational project for myself nothing to ambitious but I’d like to get this guitar playable again.
I’ll gladly take your advices guys
The pictures I’ve taken are just as it arrived and dust blown.
Cheers
