Blog Elements – Page 3 – Mallia Lutherie

This 80’s Les Paul had a hard life. It’s white finish has worn to a really appealing aged look. Unfortunately along the way someone has added an extra coil tap switch, strap hole and done some less than neat repair work to the head binding.

The new owner wanted to get this back to a respectable original looking state.

Dowelling this hole with a simle round plug is fine, but ultimately eventually no matter how nice the finish work is, the round shape will reveal itself in the shine of the finish.

To avoid this happening the shape is changed so that a well mating piece will be more like a laminate than a plug. To do this the hole is “countersunk” and a mating piece is fitted using a technique known as chalk fitting. This allows an irregular shaped piece to be made to fit with 100% good contact. The result is a filled hole that will remain undetectable in years to come.

The ugly head binding repair was removed and new binding laminated up to match, and bent to fit nicely. The strap button holes were filled in a similar manner as the top hole.

Using lacquer to build the finish in the same layering as the original, the continuity of the aged clear over white look is maintained and distressed ot match the overall look. Also touched up was the finish overspray in the control ocavity to hide the repair internally.