1953 Gibson Fire Damaged Guitar Repair-ES-125 Repair

While every guitar has a story. The story can almost be read through the surface scratches, dings, dents, missing hardware and worse. This Gibson found it’s way into the Haywire Custom shop. It came to us for fire damaged guitar repair. Most noteworthy, it was discovered in the attic of a house after an intense fire. The smoke and other particles had settled on top of the finish where it stayed for years. It was almost tossed but the owner decided to bring it in to see what could be done to make it playable again.

Because, in the eyes of its owner, an old guitar is a trusted musical partner, consequently, it is full of questions which are never fully understood. Over the course of time, most musicians develop a deep and intuitive kind of interaction with their instrument  As a result, as soon as a decision has to be made about repairing their favorite guitar, there are more questions. For many years we have helped musicians around the world as they look for ways to improve their guitars or fix a problem or restore it to an earlier time.

Furthermore, the “Patina”  or top thin layer on the surface is considered valuable by many guitar collectors if left completely alone to age naturally. When deciding to help a player restore an old instrument it’s probably, best to try and take that into consideration. Because,  the least “invasive” way of repairing it is always a good first choice. The decision was made most noteworthy, to start a fire damaged guitar repair on this old Gibson.  The owner wanted to maintain the original patina also preserve what was left.  Most of all, after the fire damage ash “cloak” was removed a beautiful sunburst was revealed an old trusted friend and the value was restored.