1930s Gibson Century of Progress (Hawaiian Conversion) Guitar

I wrote about this guitar both back in 2015 and then in 2019, but as long as I've known it, it's never been quite "right." This time around it was here in the shop for a longer stay and it really needed it -- the top had bellied-up into a "fault line" under the bridge again and the bridge was coming-off the top and the neck had warped a little more. Suffice to say, it was in rough shape yet again.

I think almost all of the problems with this guitar's stability are due to the fact that it was refinished. I'm thinking the top must have been sanded a lot thinner than it was originally as it's very, very fussy about tension and paper thin in places. When I got the bridge off I also found that a section under the bridge had been replaced so I needed to replace the torn-out bits of replacement material as well before fitting a new bridge. I also added a "bridge plate extender" to reinforce the behind-the-bridge area to help keep it from warping again. It has a little curve under tension but has remained stable since stringing-up again post-repairs. I used a non-correct belly bridge to give more "grab" for the bridge on the weakened top.

The other side of its problems were due to a poorly-done neck reset (too low an angle) and frets that were not ideal. This is the Hawaiian version of the CoP model and thus started-off as a 12-fret guitar intended for raised-string, slide playing with the guitar face-up in the lap. Thus, Gibson didn't bother to fit a truss rod to the neck in this one and only had a truss cover fit at the headstock instead. The neck wasn't the happiest with heavier gauges and continued to warp every time I'd seen it.

To solve these problems, I gave the neck a reset and then refretted it with jumbo frets with a deep and wide tang. These "compression-fretted" the fretboard and added a lot more stiffness to the neck -- now under tension the neck remains straight and stable.

With all of this stuff reconciled, the instrument now sings like it should and is a pleasure (rather than a bear) to play. It was nice to be able to finally get this to a place where it's nice and respectable.