At Ed Roman's custom shop we have fixed more than 1500 broken Gibson necks. In fact at any given time, there are usually at least 2 Gibson Les Paul's in the shop for headstock or neck replacement. Does this mean that Gibson neck designs are bad ??? The only guitars that we repair more than Gibsons would probably be Taylors.

Gibson ES 295 Rebuild and Restoration

When Mike Oatman shipped me this guitar it was a total disaster.  This guitar was approximately 43 years old and it looked it. The binding was all coming off, the frets were worn to the neck and the body itself was cracked in several places.

I took some photos of it when it came in but I think they got misplaced. When and if they turn up I will post some before pictures here.

This early 60's 355 has belonged to Mark Hitt of  "Ratrace Choir" for almost 35 years. If you lived In New York, New Jersey or Connecticut over the past 30 years you probably remember seeing Mark playing this guitar. (it used to be sunburst). This Guitar was played very hard 7 days a week for over 30 years and if you ever saw Ratrace play you know what I mean.  

Some of the greatest music I ever heard in my life came out of this guitar.  In fact seeing Ratrace was one of my life's major inspirations and a large reason for me getting into the music business in the first place.  I remember hearing Mark play Hammer-ons in the early 70's long before I ever heard of Eddie Van Halen. I'll bet this neck saw more beer bottle slides in it's life than most people can drink.  I can remember guitar players stacked 6 deep standing in front of Mark with their Jaws on the ground staring at his fingers (I was one of them).

I swear to God!!! I once heard Mark make this guitar sound exactly like the Hammond Organ solo on Deep Purple's "Hush".

So when Mark asked me to repair it I was flattered and honored. and a little scared.

The condition of this guitar was nothing less than totally horribly atrocious, The neck had been repaired twice from two separate breaks the repairs were done well but they were 100% visible. There was literally no binding left on the guitar, the wood on the top was worn almost through in several places. The electronics were rusted out and a total mess the frets were played down to the wood and the fingerboard was almost scalloped by Mark's fingers. Mark uses very heavy strings. The body had major cracks in the wood and the seams. The guitar was just about ready to literally come apart top sides back and neck joint.  Mark had resisted fixing the guitar for so long for the simple fact that he used it daily and simply could not make a living without it.

Fixing this guitar required a new fingerboard, frets, totally rebinding the body & neck and some serious surgery to the top, back, sides and neck.  Mark was not in the least concerned about originality he was not worried a bit about resale value. What he was concerned about was reliability and functionality and tone.  I installed a Mike Christian Piezo System and reworked the pickups that were custom wound for Mark by Larry Dimarzio In 1980.  (Today Mark is using Seymour Duncan's)

When the guitar was done I was very worried that Mark might be displeased.  I was quite nervous because I had been tampering with black magic. You always hear about guitars getting redone or re-fretted and losing their tone and or magic. When a man and an instrument are as close as Mark and this guitar I knew I was seriously playing with fire. I'm sure that Mark knew every centimeter of that guitar, I am sure he knew every dent in every fret and every divot on the fingerboard well enough to give them all separate names.  Here I was making  literally hundreds of changes to this guitar.

I delivered the guitar to Mark one rainy night at a gig in Mahopac New York. I don't mind telling you I was a bit jittery. I asked him how it looked and he seemed quite pleased. (I wasn't worried about how it looked I knew that was cool) I also knew it would be at least a week before I would find out what he really thought.

To make a long story short  Mark loves the guitar and takes it with him everywhere he goes.  Most guitar players carry several picks in their wallet. Mark carries his guitar (this guitar) everywhere. Mark was given many new Gibson 335's by the Gibson factory,  He doesn't use them. He has tried to get a Heritage endorsement several times. Heritage just doesn't give away guitars.  Heritage quality has fallen off even worse than Gibson !!!!

See The new Blues Deluxe which is made from real wood !!!!!!!

Today Mark Hitt uses A Quicksilver Guitar. Occasionally he still pulls out the 355 but the Quicksilver smokes it, Ask him he will tell you !!!