Triolion ‘paint’ job and restring

[pete1951]

Here is one of my often viewed guitar repair people,

Some good advice ( though don’t cut your strings off as he does if using Newtone strings!)



Pete

[Michael Messer]

I can't believe he would do that terrible paint job on such a beautiful instrument. Triolians in clean condition like that are a rarity and to paint the fretboard would be considered sacrilege by any collectors I know.

Shine On
Michael

[bonzo]

I'd tend to look at the scratched on numbers as part of the guitars history.
But if I did 'touch up' the fretboard I wouldn't do it with enamel model paint!

[Michael Messer]

I shouldn't have looked again. It is heartbreaking to this guy painting the fretboard with Humbrol enamel paint. It should have been left in its beautiful original condition. Another one that is no longer original and there will never be any more of these made.

Shine On
Michael

[Stevie]

Some folks confront alopecia with wigs or snake oil, others like myself (after a brief spell of melancholy) understand that one cannot resist the inevitable and rely upon hats to screen the melinoma rays and frost. In the same way, guitars like everything and everyone else without exception learn to appreciate that entropy is ineluctable. Canute like, we can only ever do our best to accelerate it in a negative fashion. I wouldn't criticise anyone who deploys a syrup, after all- there will never be any more fecund follicles found beneath their titfers. The YouTuber did state that his efforts were at least reversible and displayed relatively greater understanding of tin cans than yer garden variety "luthier". That guitar was in such good condition that one has to wonder exactly how much playing it had been exposed to. For a lap style instrument, the back was in extraordinarily good shape. I wonder why?

でつ e&oe ...

[slide496]

Done by two, maybe three people it looks like from the perspective of a valued collectable instrument from 1930.. That's really well preserved except for the fretboard which you can see first someone wrote numbers on the frets (blagh)- stop the video at 1:00 and you can see a 2 and 3 down the side. Then someone tried to remove them in a crude way leaving bare spots all down that side. Then this guy cosmetically camoflaged the damage ....

Harriet

[Pickers Ditch]

Claptons Fool SG was painted with Humbrol model paint.

...I'll get my coat.

[Michael Messer]

It really would have been better if the instrument's history was left in tact and not erased, especially the way it has been done. Triolians like that don't turn up every day. I know because I have a very clean one that I got from George Gruhn 31 years ago.

Shine On
Michael

[rbe]

As someone who does restoration on Nationals. I had to try to take an honest look at this repair. First, I rarely come upon guitars that look like this. If I did, I think my first responsibility would be to talk the owner out of doing anything to that guitar but properly set it up, enjoy playing it, and marvel a how beautiful it is. If I couldn't convince them, I would probably pass on doing the work. Putting numbers on the fretboard was not an uncommon thing back then. It is an honest alteration for that era. Would it be better without them? Yes. Can you make them go away? Probably not. But as soon as you take on that repair, the problem is yours and the outcome is associated with you and your skills and abilities, not the customer. To be honest, I'm not sure I would have been this public about this. Let the customer post what an amazing job you did instead of you posting the details of how you did it. But that is just me.

Faced with a customer who insists on repairing this, I would see it as I have two choices. One is to say no, and the other is to see if I can find a way to do the repair so that my work is not readily detectable. I would tell the customer that I might have the guitar for a very long time and, it won't be inexpensive. This might discourage them, too. Good!

Even though the work the individual in the video does may be very good, I think that it would take an amazing amount of skill and luck to spot fill that finish and have it be unseen. So in theory the repair would not really improve the condition of that guitar or change its value or desirability. It would just add another layer of unintended damage to that fretboard. If the repairer's skill is so good that the repairs are almost undetectable. Then have at it. (Not sure you can do that with model enamel, though.)

[rbe]

I went back this morning and looked at the video. In some of the shots, it looked like he had blended the colors quite well. Then, there was a shot in the setup portion of the video where you could easily see each repair. It is not my goal here to rip on someone's work. He was careful and thoughtful about his approach and had some understanding of National instruments. I'm just not sure I agree with doing this at all.

On another note. I do not agree with the approach he took to resolve the action issues. He made a tall saddle taller. There is way more to this then the height of the saddle.

Just my thoughts.

[rbe]

Was the last post deleted?

[Michael Messer]

Oct 31, 2022 21:20:17 GMT rbe said:

Was the last post deleted?

I have not kept up with this thread, so I don’t know what has or hasn’t been deleted

Shine On
Michael

[slide496]

I deleted amy post, as it was an opinion that I was not sure was correct, but maybe someone else deleted theirs.

It was in effect that I was of the opinion that although masterful initially I didn't think the paint job would be undetectable if the fretboard was oiled, and I didn't think it would be durable if there was alot of finger contact but I'm not an authority on vintage national fretboard repair.

I'll get my hat.
H

[vastopol]

Looks like a rare three piece body ?...what's happen to the original cone?...this thing haven't been abused for 80 years as the painting let us know, so no reason to see a damaged cone in there...that's more sad than a small cosmetic job.