Sometimes signature guitars are pretty rad: the Sting P-bass, the Geddy Lee Jazz bass, the Les Paul, the Billy Gibbons / Bo Diddly Billy Bo. But what if you love the guitar, but hate the artist? Or worse, what if you hate the artist, and they’ve put their signature right on the guitar?
Our pal Mike (from Mesa Boogie) owns a Gretsch Bono Irish Falcon, which he really likes, but doesn’t care for the Bono inlay at the 12th fret. We have to agree – it’s a really cool guitar, but the signature looks out of place. Our task: to remove the inlay and replace it.
We forgot to snap a picture before we pulled the inlay, but you can get the idea of what it looked like in this shot:
Our man Aaron scored around the inlay with a razor blade, and removed the inlay with a small chisel:
Then cut out a new inlay out of mother of pearl:
Here’s the new inlay, ready to go:
Aaron made a paste of ebony dust and super glue, to fill in around the new inlay and help make a seamless transition into the ebony fingerboard:
Sanding it level – note the dust mask. Ebony dust is TOXIC stuff, and not to be fooled with unless you’ve got proper protection. Do NOT try this at home:
And it’s done! You can barely tell that it’s not original. Ladies and gentlemen, Bono has left the building.
