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I got hold of a fairly beat up 1960 Ramirez classical at the recent Brompton's auction which included the sale of Gwyn Davies' guitars - quite a large number of flamencos and a few classicals. Some Reyes and Condes seemed to go pretty cheaply.
Anyway, the one I bought has a few problems according to the auction notes (I haven't seen the guitar). It has a horrible replacement fingerboard with a 670mm scale. I would like it replaced with a 650 or 655. There are also some cracks in the back that need sorting out. And finally some general tidying up and french polishing.
Anyone able to take this on? There is no hurry to get the work done.
There are many Luthiers in the UK some even specialise in guitar repair. Where are you in the UK I'm sure there will be someone fairly local to you if you don't want to ship the guitar.
Kevin has done a truly outstanding job of repairing the guitar. It had been bodged about quite bit by the previous owners so a rather extensive overhaul was required. Here's the list of the repairs:
1 Removed old fingerboard and metal insert, cleaned up slots and replaced with wood
2 replaced some soundboard wood beneath the f/board and added a small reinforcement beneath soundboard in f/board area
3 Fitted new 660mm f/board and refretted
4 Removed old bridge, cleaned up, and replaced with new bridge
5 Reinstated headstock veneers to original then added a small extension to enable scale length reduction
6 repaired two cracks in back with cleats and and another small crack in centre decoration near end block. The cracks are now stable and barely visible
7 Some refinishing of soundboard, neck and back, just enough to make an acceptable compromise between complete refinishing and doing nothing, bearing in mind the age of the guitar.
So far I've only seen photos (and a skype video) as I'm away from the UK but my sister tells me that the cracks really are invisible and the instrument looks in excellent shape. And most importantly we've replaced the old fingerboard with a more manageable 660mm.
Back and front before repair:
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Posts: 597
Joined: Jan. 14 2007
From: York, England
RE: Any UK guitar restorers? (in reply to koenie17)
The original scale length had been 665mm and the headstock had been cut back to accommodate a zero fret.
The f/board was not original, was very thin and with a curved profile as you see on a steel strung guitar. And it had the extension too. There was a longitudinal crack along the whole length of the f/board which puzzled me until I found the angled metal underneath, all glued into a crude slot with some horrid black resin. True bodging!
The bridge was in a terrible mess. Usually its possible to repair a bridge, but since i needed to re-position it anyway, I decided to replace it. The new one has a slightly bigger footprint which hides previous damage.
Its tricky to decide how much refinishing to do on an old guitar. In the end I did what was necessary only.
This guitar was a big challenge because all the previous work was so poor, but I always take the view that every problem has a solution.
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I´m sure you´ll have lots of fun 
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