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!😊
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.
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.
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 ❤
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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.
Admittedly, I’d be the guy doing this in reverse. I’d rather had it with the staple pickups lol. Btw is he selling them and the risers? I just swapped out the filtertron humbuckers out of one of my Gretsch guitars for TV Jones T90s and I love it now. Had to make custom risers and pretty do what you had to fix here lol.
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.
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 💀
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.
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)!
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.
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 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…!!!
Sanded ... off ... the actual real ... gold plate. It's like _Raging Bull_ when LaMotta dug the jewels out of his world heavyweight belt. No, just ... bad.
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.
Thank You Ted. Neighbors...You must have an Amplifier to seek revenge. As the Bible states; "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Marshall, Or Dumble If you Rumble (Huge Smile)
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
Hey hey ... I am no luthier but like to keep my guitars played and loved. Really like your tubes Ted.. I am a UK stressed complex needs teacher and one of your you tubes and a cup of good English tea before I set off to work really works!
Beuatiful work, as always. And the guitar sounds much better with those humbuckers, even though I'm just hearing what the camera mic recorded. The staple pickups definitely did not suit that guitar imo. Jazz ain't my bag, but that sure is a sweet guitar!
*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...
Hand me down electronics on a $7000 guitar are amazing. Why would someone do this? Even in the 90s that would have been a valuable guitar. Just trade it for a P90 guitar!
The more I watch videos of guitar repairs, (I do my own learning on my own guitars right now.) the more I realize that certain people are NOT meant to own nice guitars. They do some of the most ridiculous sh*t to them that makes the next owner and luthier go through 4 phases of loss. Sickening how he sanded that bridge piece down, ugh.
Tragic what was done to this classic. As a luthier, does respect or ethics play when some one comes to you with a valuable and classic instrument they want totally chamged?? I'd tell them I won't alter it. I can't imagine (for example) some one bringing in a Stradivarius and asking it to be modified so they can play the Orange Blossom Special.
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!
Sorry your neighbors are adding unwanted noise probably vibration too? Our add-ons requires that neighbors have sign an agreement to build more before the work starts! I like living here.
I never think of archtops as jazz if they have Bigsbys on them I think the tone changes to that rockabilly style and loses its jazz tone! Just a preference!
What happened to that guitar should be a crime. Yes, I know "the owner can do what they want with their instrument," but just like owners of historic buildings can't do whatever they want, owners of instruments like this should not be able to do what was done to this.
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?
What kind of monster does this level of work on a collectable instrument. If you don't have the skills or the tools to do the job well, tell the client and refer them to someone who can do the work well.
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
