What a beauty! An all original '73 Gold top Les Paul... However she needed some serious love to get back into good playing condition.

The frets were so worn as to be virtually non-existant. In addition, the neck had a moderate twist and more bow then the truss rod can compensate for. However all of these issues can be fixed with a well-executed refret.

Using a combination of heat and moisture, the old fret are carefully "walked out" of the old fret slots to avoid chipping the fingerboard.

The old celluloids inlays were thin to begin with. The fingerboard required significant leveling. In order to avoid sanding through the inlays, I carefully removed them, slightly deepened the cavites, and finally reinstalled them.

The fingerboard after its has been leveled

On bound fingerboards each fret has to be custom made for each fret slot. The owner opted to have the frets overlap the binding. This allows for more playing surface on the fingerboard and is significantly cheaper.

The frets have all been custum-made for each slot and are ready for installation.

The new frets have been installed, leveled, and recrowned. A new bone nut was also custom-made. Unfortunatel the client needed the guitar back for an important studio session before I was able to take any pictures of the guitar after the final setup. Hopefully soon, I'll have a shot or two of the guitar in action.