Guitar Reviews 4U Gretsch Guitar Strap Button replacement and wood repair
Here's a quick guide on how to fix your Strap Buttons if the wood is damaged.
A Bigsby upgrade on my Chinese made 5420T led to repairs needed
and to the replacement of both of the strap buttons with Strap Lock Buttons
The Chinese made 5420T is supplied with spin-on Strap Lock Buttons
These have LEFT HAND threaded screw posts into
the body unlike the Korean and Japan guitars
that feature normal right hand threaded parts!
Gretsch nice quality Japan Strap Buttons R/H Threaded posts!
The unique threaded Strap Buttons an innovation Gretsch Guitars are very good, but have a drawback that if the button gets dropped and lost on a dark stage you are in trouble! As a consequence, many owners fit strap locks for speed of strap removal and guitar safety.
On a recent Bigsby B6C upgrade on my 5420T guitar, the Strap buttons were replaced, but the screw post threads that go into the guitar are left hand threaded on this Chinese made guitar, unlike the Korean and Japan guitars which have right handed thread units.
Holes can 'tear' out - like on this 5622T -
This is a fairly easy to repair.
Removing the button screwposts from the Chinese made 5420T guitar led to some damage at the neck end of the guitar and here's a quick article on how to fix a Gretsch that has damage here. The threads on the Chinese posts were left handed!
On the hollow body guitars fixing enlarged holes is fairly straightforward and this method I used actually strengthened the guitar in the button area.
Neck area Strap Button repair - hollow body Gretsch
The button post nearest the neck damaged the wood on removal as it was very tight. The wood here is quite thin and to avoid more damage I devised a simple way to reinforce the wood when fitting a new strap button to that area. The body in this area is not completely flat, so I cut a small block of hardwood - Maple is best, but I used a Mahogany substitute block around 1/2" by 5/16" approx. for the job.
I sanded by hand the top of the repair block away from the centre of it in all directions to give a 'contour' shape to match the guitar interior body profile curve - not much wood is needed to be removed here. (A plastic contour gauge will aid you in this job.) Then I drilled a hole through the centre of the block to aid the installation.
Showing how to pull up the repair block into place -
this block provides a good base for the post to screw into.
To instal the block, drop a piece of string or thread through the old button hole and catch it with a crochet hook or a piece of bent wire and pull it out through the F hole below the strap button hole. I then put the block onto the string and left plenty of spare string outside of the F hole. You'll see why shortly!
I tied a piece of match to the string under the block and applied some PVA wood glue to the top of the block, then holding the lower end of the string to keep the whole string taught, pulled the block up and through into the guitar body, so it glued into place under the string post hole.
I taped the string out of the post hole over onto the body to keep the string taught so the wood glue would bond the block to the inside of the body. It took this particular glue 24 hours to dry out.
A day later, I removed the tape and pulled the string back through the F Hole and removed the match, then pulled the string back through and out of the guitar body. Now I had the wood reinforcing repair block right under the place I needed. So when I redrilled the hole to the final size I would be drilling into much deeper solid wood than just the body side.
Next I needed a Dowel peg to repair the oversized hole left, a BBQ Skewer fitted the hole well so a short length of it was cut off and readied to fit. Get it as flush as you can before fitting so your work to level the peg dowel is reduced. This helps reduce damage to the body when sanding or finishing.
The Peg Dowel was then glued into place with PVA Wood glue and left for another day to cure. Once that was done I used more PVA glue to fill the recess around the peg and again left it a further day to cure. This PVA glue can be sanded and painted over so it was simplest to use this as a filler and it goes hard when cured.
Schaller Strap lock Button installed and damaged paint touched in
Once this glue was cured I carefully sanded the peg back with a Dremel Hobby tool using a fine sanding band. During the string post removal the green body colour was marked by the grips used on the reluctant string post so i had now to colour match the green paint.
I used a UN1963 resin paint to do the paint repair - Ferguson Tractor light Grey and tinted it with some Fraser Green Tractor paint to the correct shade. I did this under artificial light which is not ideal but as you can see from the above picture, you can't see where I touched in the areas so that was successful. There is some light flare above the selector switch, so that is not a defect area.
Paint colour matched for the damaged area on the guitar -
Ferguson tractor Grey base with Fraser Green added to suit
Once the paint had cured I sanded it back using wet and dry paper with water and washing up liquid carefully. I used a 1200 grade fine grit on the job using light pressure. This did scratch the surrounding paint area so I used Farecla G3 fine rubbing compound to remove the scratches and a wax polish to finish off.
Next up was to drill the blanked off hole to take the new Strap Lock screws. I decided to use Schaller Strap Lock Buttons rather than the Gretsch screw on button posts.
A Drill Block Guide - this keeps the Drill bit squarer
when drilling using a cordless drill
To drill the holes I used a Cordless hand drill. I predrilled the Drill Block Guide from a piece of Pine Beading wood on the Pillar Drill. I used 1.5, 2 and 2.5mm Drill Bits as you can see on the Block here.
The way I used it was to put the drill block guide on the 1.5mm drill bit and start the drill bit carefully, then slid the block down flush with the guitar body top and then carefully and slowly drilled through the dowel peg repair. I then repeated the process with the 2 and 2.5mm bits to open the holes out enough for the new screw.
When doing this drilling job - check your screw sizes against your drill bits before doing any drilling. I would suggest that you use a scrap piece of wood to drill and try your screw into that to get the right size for the job before going to do the job on the guitar.
Once drilled to the right size, I fitted the Schaller Strap Lock Button and felt, over a stainless steel washer which sat on the guitar body top to provide more area for mounting. I gave the screw some wax sparingly and screwed on the button, job done.
Looks great and much stronger than originally made.
Bigsby area Strap Button repair - hollow body Gretsch
Strap Button hole enlarged - a fairly easy repair to do
Some guitars may have a wood block in this area inside the body so all that is required is a dowel peg repair. If one is not present then use the wood block method used on the neck end to do the repair. The advantage is here the Bigsby tail plate covers the repair area over so paint colour matching is not so critical here.
Be aware that some guitars run a ground wire through the end of the body to sit under the Bigsby plate so do ensure this is in place and making contact after doing your repair.
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