Monday, July 4, 2016

Tone Wood Epiphone Zenith restoration



Epiphone Zenith restoration


Everything ends to dust. How to judge what should stay a while or what would go forever.


This Epiphone Zenith from 1936 was in a very bad condition. If this was a 1936 Gibson Super 400 in the same condition the luthiers will stand in a row to do the very lucrative restoration. 



For low end archtop models like the Epiphone Zenith, Epiphone Triumph, Gibson L48 and L50 the cost of a complete restoration can be higher than the value of the restored instrument. 


Punto Bawono decided that this Epi should have another chance and he contacted me to do the restoration together with a building course project. 
 
 We removed the top and neck and put a few splines of spruce at the location from the cracks. We did a neck reset and a refret and a complete refinish. It plays and sounds fantastic and it looks like it can go for another 80 years.