Check out this relic checking job......

I always knew there had to be SOME purpose to those cold Eastern winters...

Is that the Monty, the Guitar Clinic, or some newly discovered treasure?

Whatever it is, it's gorgeous.

 

Ha! I feel fine, my wallet feels nervous, and we'll talk soon!

 

Looks a LOT like my '41 L-50...!

 

More pics please..............

 

Mmmmm... I always loved nitro checking

 

Just curious... does anyone know what it is about the finish or wood of vintage guitars that causes 99+ out off 100 old guitars to check across the body, not longways like this replica?

 

U-

I was thinking the same thing.

 

Interesting question. I don't have an answer, but I dug out some vintage pieces to look at how they checked and Ulysses is partially right, although I think "99 percent" might be an overstatement. My Fenders are checked across the body as he suggests would be the norm. You'll see the same thing on slab-bodied Gibsons like Les Paul Juniors and Melody Makers. But a couple of my Gibson archtops look more like the Les Paul replica shown here...the checking goes lengthways. Finally, a mid-’60s Trini Lopez offered a clue: it's checked lengthways on the body but crossways on the headstock, which suggests that the cracking occurs where the most stress occurs on the finish. (Yeah, it sounds obvious, but I had to think about it.)

String tension is pulling the Trini's headstock forward, so it checked in parallel lines across the face of the wood. It's also exerting lateral force on the guitar's body, but the arching exerts a countervailing longitudinal force along the contour lines, which causes the finish to crack in the way shown in Soldano16's pics.

Am I making sense? (Haven't had my morning coffee yet...) Would any of the resident guitar physicists care to comment? John Phillips?

 

i have a kramer that was refinished in clear lacquer 20 years ago...its checked lengthwise across the body. Maybe it has to do with the application of the finish? If it was wood grain related you would expect the checking directions to be more random but it always seems to along the legnth or width axis of the guitar body.

 

That ain't bad. But it needs some dremel sanding on the arm to look like a relic. This looks to authentic.