Recently added to the shop, our state of the art airflow spray booth is custom designed to overcome the challenges of spraying old school, unplasticized lacquer guitar finishes. It represents absolute state of the art for refinishing guitars. We precisely control humidity and temperature for vintage correct application that will naturally age and check like an old guitar. The result is not “like new” perfection, but a finish with the character and nuance of vintage Gibsons. Inside our spray booth, conditions are always perfect so we never have to wait and you get your guitar back sooner.

Color is critical, so our painter hand mixes pigments to match vintage guitars. With a state of the art lighting system we can see colors accurately as they go down on the guitar to make vintage correct sunbursts, goldtops, and custom colors. And we hand scrape the binding, just like Gibson did in the 50’s.

We have a wood shop with an air filtration system and downdraft sanding tables to remove dust and improve quality control. This is where we re-carve tops using a custom set of contour gauges we created from real vintage ‘Bursts, to ensure your Makeover has the correct vintage top carve. We cut our Brazilian rosewood fingerboards to vintage spec with correct inlay depth and radius, and correct binding edge.  The wood shop is also where we do neck resets, neck profiling, binding and inlay work, along with vintage restorations.

All glue up is done with hot hide glue, using a glue pot and brush just like the old Gibson factory workers.

The guitar arrives at the setup station during the final stages of the Makeover process. At this juncture the guitar nears completion receiving both a fret dress and our exclusive 6/6 nylon nut. Great care is given to each setup, ensuring optimal comfort and play-ability. After the standard appointments and setup are addressed, each guitar is played for an extensive period of time. This allows us to gain a more personal understanding of each instrument, making this a truly unique and custom experience.

Controlled temperature change is just one technique we use to age guitars.  Our commercial grade freezer is large enough to house multiple guitars at one time, and our custom built dry box is specially designed to control condensation as the guitars are brought back to room temperature.  Our aging methods predictably and consistently produce real checking in our non-plasticized lacquer finishes. We find that our method of cold checking looks more authentic and pleasing than razor checking.