We recently had this guitar in the shop for a stainless steel fret job. It’s a real honor to work on these old guitars, especially one in as good shape as this was. We discovered after examination that the bridge plate was shot. It is owned by a professional keyboard player who played with John Michael Montgomery for a number of years. He plays guitar as well as the ivories and needed this guitar restored to playing condition for studio work. The frets were definitely shot and we replaced them with 6105 Stainless steel for better playing, long life and great tone. Then we replaced the bridge plate and oriented the grain of the replacement in the proper direction. That is important to minimize tear out from the ball ends. Many guitars are made with the plate grain in the wrong direction causing premature failure. This guitar will last another 59 years and someone else can put the next plate in it, if it ever needs one!
Here area few pics from the refret and bridge plate replacement.