1974 Gibson Dove Dreadnought Guitar

This gorgeous old '74 Dove is owned by a consignment customer of mine who's been downsizing his collection a heck of a lot through the shop over the past year or two. However, this is one he had me fix-up for his own use rather than for it to head out into the sunset on resale.

It arrived quite clean but with a cracked (and repaired) bridge and ill-fitting saddle. The action was too high and it needed a neck reset badly. I wanted to save the original ebony bridge despite its old hairline crack repair, so to make sure it didn't become a nuisance, I filled the pinholes, recut the saddle slot so I could get the intonation on-the-dot, and then moved the pinholes farther to the rear of the bridge. This means that the tension put on the front of the pinholes helps pull the back of the bridge towards the hairline repair (that was along the old pinhole line) rather than pulling the front of the bridge along the "fault" away from the rear of the bridge. At any rate -- it's a solution I've used in the past and it works nicely, here.

The neck reset went smoothly and after leveling/dressing the frets I also made a new bone saddle. The last bit of repair was "extra" -- he had me shave the bulky double-x-bracing a bit to get a little more fullness out of the instrument. I removed as much as I felt comfortable with and I'm happy with the result -- it is, afterall, a maple-backed, long-scale, dreadnought guitar. It's not going to sound like an old J-45 or J-50 no matter how much we try.

Gibson acoustics from the '70s get knocks from the collectors, but I've always found them fun instruments that become ace players after ironing-out their setup qualms.