Gibson SG Special — Beardsworth Guitars

Skip to Content

This left-handed SG came to me in a pretty sorry state with poor paintwork, no hardware and a strange sticky residue where the pickguard used to be...

The abuse extended to the wiring which was very questionable.

...and it had a headstock break. Obviously. The saving grace here though was that the break was clean with no prior repair attempt.

The crack was flushed out with water first to clean and lubricate the break before glue was injected.

The crack came together nicely with just a few clamps.

The finish was then stripped from the whole guitar.

Here we see the walnut stain from the oil-based grain filler Gibson use.

Screenshot+2025-10-31+at+6.45.55%E2%80%AFam.png

Screenshot+2025-10-31+at+6.48.01%E2%80%AFam.png

Screenshot+2025-10-31+at+6.49.04%E2%80%AFam.png

The guitar was then sanded back in preparation for re-finishing.

Grain filler was then applied to fill the mahogany pores.

And finally a walnut stain was applied as a base colour for the Heritage Cherry Red.

The headstock repair was now practically invisible.

The guitar was then sprayed in the class SG colour of Heritage Cherry Red nitrocellulose.

The new paint was left to cure for several weeks before being sanded up to 2000 grit.

The paint was buffed to a mirror finish.

The guitar was finished off with a new bone nut.

Screenshot+2025-10-31+at+7.09.56%E2%80%AFam.png

Image courtesy of Found Sound

Image courtesy of Found Sound

Image courtesy of Found Sound

Watch this restoration in full on YouTube

1953 Gibson L-50