Ted pays his respects to we Brits by pronouncing "de-solder".....lovely ! What astounds me is that he opines that he's not the best of luthiers.....how humble is this bloke ?
"Sodder...or soulder..." is something of a meme on this channel. I wouldn't be surprised if some viewers have incorporated it into their drinking games.
There are a lot of good luthiers out there. Some are not so good, but the good ones are out there. You don't need to ship your axe to Canada to get this quality of work done. Ted's awesome, but he's not alone. The others just don't make videos like this. I think Ted's gift is being an awesome luthier while also being very good at sharing how this kind of work is done. And he makes everyone who watches his videos feel good!😊
My father-in-law was a WWII vet and guitarist with a big band that played swing and jazz mostly from the '30s & '40s. He had an L-5 that was gorgeous. He played with that band until he was well into his 80s before he finally couldn't schlep the thing plus an amp around anymore and retired. IIRC I think he told me his was a '68. My wife seems to remember it being a '68 as well.
Ted, I can't thank you enough for these videos. I do a bit of my own guitar repair, and for friends, but I'm no luthier. Somehow, and I don't really know why, I find your videos incredibly relaxing. Your work is inspiring, your history informing and entertaining, and you voice soothing. I really look forward to and enjoy your videos. They are a positive contribution to my life. Thank you, really, thank you.
Watched you enough to say, "If I were and an Angel with a harp to repair... you'd be my guy!" Don't get a big head... you're cool. and I'm 70." But seriously Ted, amazing work and empathic decisions for the care of the L5. Dude!!! I actually pray for you. Consider that brother! Your are the right stuff to preserve he quality of Communion. That's a true believers post.
I find myself watching many of your repair videos over again. This is one of them. Such stellar work, such patience,such knowledge, such wonderful delivery of the experience. I’ve heard you say that you’re not found of praise. But you Sir are awesome…!!!
They don't make em like you anymore Ted ! I wish we had just 1 Luthier like you anywhere near me .Happy thanks giving to you and your family and thanks for showing us what and how you do what you do
Nice to see you putting it straight from the butcher that abused it before. I'm currently working on a Hondo L5 Fatboy which I know isn't a mark on a Gibson but I must say for a guitar that's nearly 40 years old it's pretty solid & well crafted. Great work Ted ❤
I have an L-5CES ('68, as I recall) that's cosmetically worn out. I paid like $400 for it in the early 80s and it was 'the guitar immediately available' for a lot of years. It has a bunch of wear. I do not plan on having it repaired. It plays fine. It's just worn and flakey. I no longer play it often. It is more a testament to time.
Thank You Ted! I had the same lacquer problem on a 1972 L-5 S! Cherry Sunburst, solid flamed Maple, and gold plated Low Impedance Pickups. I'm a Doyle Low impedance luthier (huge smile). With mostly LUCK I was able to match the cherry Red Sunburst over a cigarette burn in the upper bout, but the Lacquer was just weird, and wouldn't cure. 6 months later it was hard enough to polish, and looks great..from a galloping Horse. After the color tinting into a french Laquer Stew Mac Lacquer clear gloss and made the mistake of Not testing it on scrap first. I think that Gibson used a different formulation in their finishes. For me it was a very expensive mistake for not TESTING the Lacquer on scrap before spraying a rare $7K L-5 S with gold plated LP Low Impedance Pickups.
The part you refer to is named the string spoiler, made by Vibramate. Just to clarify. Vibramate manufactures a range of Bigsby adapters allowing no drill installations.
I can't begin to tell you Ted how much I've learned from you over the years. I appreciate your insight and knowledge as well as your technical sharing.
*MAJOR* sympathy on the destruction noise next door... I had to move 5 years ago, and from the day I moved into the place I moved into, there has been condestruction all around me. even the lock down didn't bring peace, because deconstruction was considered essential...
I appreciate that you even put a video out with all of that going on - we do appreciate it with a watch and thumbs up. The guitar does look pretty sexy and sounds pretty good too. Great work Ted!
I would suggest soliciting repairs on a Dimebag Darrell Explorer that you can blast through a Marshall stack at the construction crews next door, but they love that sort of thing and would be asking you to play it during their lunch breaks 💀
What a beautiful guitar and excellent repair work as always. I used your dental floss method to fish the pots, switch,and output jack in my 2 latest builds of the Gibson Birdland guitars. Needless to say it worked very nice, it was much easier than I thought it would be. I love these old Gibson Archtops, They are a lot of fun to play, and the tones are just fantastic.Thank you for sharing your talent and skills. Please keep them coming, I can hardly wait for the newest post every week, your channel is my favorite out of all of youtube land. Peace to you and all the viewers out there.
I know they likely picked those Duncans for their sound, but if they'd just got the 'ear-less' versions they could have 'notched out' the corners of the 'bucker openings to fit them. Sure, you'd need to glue a couple of blocks to the back for the P-90s' mounting screws, but that's easy enough and then you don't even need spacers! 😁 You'd also want to hide the 'buckers' mounting holes to make it look nice, but a little doweling and some touch up lacquer would hide those pretty well, being so close to the pickups and also black. If they'd done that, swapping back to the PAFs would have been a simple 1 hour job (ten minutes of which would be waiting for the soldering iron to heat up, lol)!
Such a beautiful guitar Ted. Well done on another guitar rescue. I don’t understand how people can ruin something that valuable and butcher it with non original parts, especially the original tailpiece
Nice guitar and repair. I'd suggest Flat Wound Strings for that real Jazz tone. I use D'Addario Chromes ECG25 (12-52) on my old ES-175, and they sound quite good. I tried Wound strings on it, and all the Jazzy tone went away, negating much of the reason for having a Jazz Archtop.
I love that guitar, but those black knobs are offensive. [ WTF?! ] OK...a bit of comments click baiting. Personally, I think that a set of gold top hat knobs with the silver inserts would look very classy, indeed. Those black ones are so...proletariat. The gold ones would better suit the upper class royalty of the guitar. Well, I'm being a bit facetious here, but that is one gorgeous instrument. The gold plating was sanded off because - drunkenness? Insanity? Ignorance? Possession of an evil paranormal entity? It kind of boggles the mind, doesn't it? I actually winced when I saw that scoured tailpiece. Horrors! Great video, as usual. I am now going back in time to see any of Ted's videos that I might have missed.
Don’t apologize for your playing, I love what you do to expose us to the sound. And truth be told wish I could play like you. I watch every video and love every minute of dialog and find myself nodding in agreement. Many thanks for sharing your time, knowledge, and work with us.
On one hand, I do appreciate someone who throws "collector's value" to the wind and purely uses an instrument as a musical tool. On the other, did the owner have to pick an L5 to be their modding platform?
oh man... them staple p90's though, I do wonder if they will be on the Reverb? The L5's are skookum fo sho, not really my playing style but a very special guitar, If you get the chance Johan Segeborn pushes one through a full marshal stack... epic to say the least.
This is one guitar, that I liked how it looked like before. Ill bet those Seymour Duncan custom shop pickups were EXPENSIVE. But as always, it sounded awesome at the end.
I grew up in the jewelry trades (my grandfather was a horologist and owned a small jewelry shop on Jeweler’s Row in Philadelphia). It can be replated by any jewelry finisher. I’d expect $100-150 USD
"with the simple acceptance of some contusions..." Everybody is always praising Ted's brilliant work, and justly so, but the bone-dry humor is what keeps me coming back!
So seeing this, and having thought recent thoughts about archtops and hollowbodies, where are the Gretsches? Don't remember them ever coming up, and don't hear much about them anymore, but at one point in time they were, like, real cool weren't they? I used to fawn over them watching old recordings of 80's rockabilly revival stuff and they've been on my list of "some day, hopefully" guitars, but they seem all but lost to the discussion nowadays.
Exquisite guitar, exquisite craftsmanship (of course...) but (not questioning the owner's choice) all in all I liked the P90's better....and black is my fave finish too. Thanks Ted!
Ah, the things guitar owners get up to! Humbuckers without polepiece screws. Mmm, okay. 😸 I do hope the owner is happy. Fantastic work, as always. Thanks!
Excellent video Mr. Woodford! Much thanks for many pieces of your work. The main being the cutting of the pickguard. For I am putting together a StewMac mini-T kit and putting a blue mother of toilet material and mulling over the best way to cut it to shape, all that for a grandniece, with the guitar itself in pink. A beautiful job on the L5! Thanks so much!
This is easily one of the most beautiful guitars I’ve ever seen in my entire life! ❤❤❤ Actually, I have a black ES-347 that has the same classy vibe, but nothing beats a big old jazz box for that extra bit of sheer class. 😊
I liked it the way it was. Staple P90s are so lovely and rare. It may have been bright for jazz, but it would have been a very classy country guitar. Nice work, but it's just like everything else now.
