Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello, I'm new here so please bear with me.

I have a 1953 Gretsch Jimmy Rogers edition acoustic. It's the treasure of a 75 year old woman. If it has strings she plays it and this is her very first guitar. Lots of sentimental value. Anyway...

The binding was bad, go figure, so I removed it and it came off pretty clean. But! The binding material seems to be an odd size. It's .3" tall and I can't find that size anywhere. I've hit a few supply houses and got the same answer from all of them. Gretsch used weird binding sizes and no we don't have any.

Sooo... I'm looking for lead to a source that might have this size binding. I also need a pick guard and one complete tuning head if anyone has a lead on such.

Thanks in advance. And thanks for letting me join the forum.

Welcome to the OLF. A first name even if it's not your's would be appreciated as well so folks like me who want to be respectful in addressing you have that option. Thanks

Binding you will have to buy something larger and cut it to size. There are various methods and cutters for binding in threads here if you use the search function.

The pick-guard you will very likely have to make from scratch or pay if you can find one exorbitant prices for something that is already deteriorating from age and the instability of the original material.

There are at times folks who purchase the remaining new, old stock and then get on eBay and charge folks $400 for say a Guild tailpiece... That's an option if $$$ are not a problem and if available but again the material at this age is likely falling apart on NOS now.

Tuners are also often if not usually not available in singles and when they are for something vintage you will pay a fortune. We are a pro repair shop doing a very high volume of repairs and we won't source parts like tuners for our clients we are too busy. So we give them some guidance what size, where to look etc and then set them loose on their quest to either find a single that matches or, conversely purchase a whole new set. This happens near weekly and in the last ten years I can't remember anyone finding a single and bringing it to us (which is part of the reason we won't get involved it's a waste of time most of the time). Newer tuners are easier to find in singles but the vintage ones can be a nightmare. So they bring us new sets and we install those.

It's OK on a vintage instrument to install new parts to maintain playability and functionality just select something that is hopefully a drop in replacement with no drilling or mods required so your work can be reversed someday if someone wants to. And of course be sure to save the old tuners preferably in the case so they don't get lost.

Wish I could be more helpful but everything you asked about is problematic and difficult to source.

Again welcome aboard.

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Ann Arbor Guitars