Restoring A Vintage Gibson SG Deluxe
In this video, a 1972′ Gibson SG is going to be fully restored to a proper,
era correct factory standard, from a bare wood body/neck base!
It’s a very interesting process and it’s incredible what the end result became!
I mean, Look!
So lately had my 1972 Gibson SG Deluxe restored by Gary De Clercq, a luthier based in Utrecht. An amazing end result, figuring this guitar was a bare body/neck, without frets and a damaged fretboard. It also had a glued neck-crack, but which SG doesn’t? The one that’s not been played, I guess. Anyway, we used a 1971 Gibson SG Deluxe as a donor guitar for a good era-correct fretboard.
Refretting was needed though. The donor guitar was so butchered that it wasn’t worth saving as a restoration object, but perhaps as a ratty rebuild into something else.
Luckily I had all of the other parts needed to bring this guitar back to specs. That includes the Gibson branded Bigsby B5 style tremolo, a nice set of 1978 T-Top pickups and the hardware. The deluxe from the 1970’s is quite weird and has this pickguard next to the control plate on the front of the guitar.
In this video, Mr Gary de Clercq himself shows how he worked on the restoration, covering all the details involved in such a project. Inspection, working on the fretboards, refretting, leveling, sanding, staining, proper nitro laqcuer, polishing, the lot!
Check out Gary de Clercq’s own build high quality guitars featuring unique and custom designs, both in body shapes, neck profiles and electronics.