1947 Gibson J-45 Slope Dreadnought Guitar

It's a shame that there wasn't time to snag a video of this beastie. It's owned by friend of the shop, Brandon, and he sent it in to us because several repairs to the bridge plate area never held pat for him. It's a tremendous-sounding guitar and has a good, comfy neck so I can understand why it was a priority for him to get it done. Also -- do you see that wear and tear?

Ancel did all the work on this one save for some fussing over the saddle slot recut work that I did to get it dialed-in perfectly. It's so resonant that you can hear every flaw in setup the moment you pick a note so fussing was needed.

The bridge had been reglued a couple times over a damaged bridge plate and fault-lined, damaged top. Let's face it -- it was not a good repair. I managed to get our heating pad wedged nicely-enough to get the original bridge plate out and then Ancel had at it. He replaced the original plate of maple with one in slightly thicker mahogany that extends further towards where the X meets in front of the bridge. This gave him enough structure to then fill-in missing sections of top under the bridge and then get the bridge reglued. The rest of the work was normal stuff -- leveling/dressing the frets, filling/recutting the saddle slot so it would intonate correctly (Brandon asked for a drop-in -- GOOD MAN!), and glorified setup work.

The end result is a guitar anyone would be proud to own. And... it looks good, too!