Kevin Guerin’s vintage Gibson B.B. King Lucille broken neck restoration. I posted pics of the patch work back in September and finally finished the restoration. Kevin was playing a fundraiser and when he put his guitar on the stand a gust of wind knocked it down and it resulted in a bad crack in the neck. After re-gluing the neck back together on the correct angle I then inlaid into the neck a piece of very hard American maple to patch the crack. I leveled the piece flush to the neck and the final step will be to lacquer the neck red. The red is solid in some places and translucent in other areas, so the solid red will hide the repair and the fade technique will leave the rest of the neck lighter while being able to see the grain through the red glossy finish. The glues I use stop the patch from shrinking and coming through the finish. In this process I also saved the original serial number and Made in USA stamping. In some light reflection you can see the wood grain underneath the red lacquer. In this process I darkened the red to cover the patch completely and faded the red into the area of the serial number to keep it visible. Another Gibson trademark is the factory lacquers over the bottom edge of the nut and I made sure that the masking of the tape did exactly that to mimic that factory look. Please check out the pics of all the before and afters to see the process. Lacquering is a difficult process of chemistry and when the new red lacquer blends into the neck where it meets the body the finishes have to melt and fade together, especially where the white cellulose nitrate binding meets the red.

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