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Restoration of a 100 year old parlour guitar
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Firefrets
Posts: 122
Joined: Mar. 22 2023
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 Restoration of a 100 year old parlou...
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I was asked to share some repair / restoration work, but recently it's been steel string guitars and vintage mandolins, and any nylon strung guitars have mostly been run of the mill stuff which you've all seen before. Rather than wait until I get something more interesting, (there's a lot of antique stuff in the queue) I'll share a job I did on a 100 year old parlour guitar ...
This is a guitar that was at death's door, far beyond economical repair.
She was in a heart breaking state, both inside and out.
During her life, she'd been repaired before, probably many times, and was terribly distorted. The internal bracing had completely failed. The soundhole had collapsed. The fretboard extension dived in to the top, and the neck angle obviously gone. The neck itself was like a banana. The frets were falling out. The bridge area of the soundboard was also caved in.
The shape of the guitar was badly distorted, as who ever had been inside before had clearly struggled with the reassembly, and so both the top, and back would have to come off, and the connection between top back, and sides improved, as currently looks ghastly. The pickguard was a sorry mess, the binding around the soundhole needed repairing, as did the body binding, and the tuners needed attention. Action was around 8mm and the paintwork is so dry, it's almost falling off... did I miss anything out? Ah yes, it's a dove tail joint, and needs a neck reset, but other than that, what's not to like?
So, why bother?
Well, sometimes you have to dive in to the deep end and do stuff for the learning curve.
Sometimes you have to test your abilities to solve problems, and sometimes taking on the most difficult jobs makes future work less intimidating. If you can fix this, you can probably fix anything logic. It doesn't always work like that, but it doesn't harm to have a go either.
Let's get started then ........
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Date Jul. 14 2023 12:56:05
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Firefrets
Posts: 122
Joined: Mar. 22 2023
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RE: Restoration of a 100 year old pa... (in reply to Firefrets)
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I needed to come up with a repair plan ...
Both the back, and top, would have to be removed, but it would need to be done at different stages, as opposed to simply dismantling the whole guitar, otherwise trying to get it back together would be a nightmare. I figured if I took the back off first, dealt with that, then try to get it back on, it will give me a more familiar starting point, and help to preserve the shape, as what lies ahead will be much more challenging, so that was my decision. I already knew what was awaiting me inside, so no reason to show pictures of a mirror inspection etc, as all will be revealed in due course.
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Date Jul. 14 2023 13:01:23
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Firefrets
Posts: 122
Joined: Mar. 22 2023
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RE: Restoration of a 100 year old pa... (in reply to Firefrets)
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Putting the back on again wasn't easy. Ideally, in hindsight, I should have put the back on 'with' the binding, which would have helped press down the little ledge underneath the binding, but because the guitar has lost shape, I wanted to glue it back on in sections, so I can manipulate everything, and the binding would have been a pain in the ass to deal with at this stage, and being old, would likely have not survived the ordeal, so I'll come back to that later.
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Date Jul. 14 2023 13:14:48
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Firefrets
Posts: 122
Joined: Mar. 22 2023
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RE: Restoration of a 100 year old pa... (in reply to Firefrets)
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I didn't take too many pictures during the top replacement, as it's a very busy period, but I started with the back, just up to the mid section. Then once dry, I'll then twist and squeeze the guitar some more, with the idea that if I can get it close enough, then I can tidy the rest up with a bit of restoration.
While that was drying, I put the neck back together.
I first taped it roughly where I wanted it, and drilled 2 holes, so I can pin it together. Normally this is done in the fret area, but I will be adding some ink to the fingerboard, and the holes will be very easy to hide on this particular guitar.
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Date Jul. 14 2023 16:24:10
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Firefrets
Posts: 122
Joined: Mar. 22 2023
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RE: Restoration of a 100 year old pa... (in reply to Firefrets)
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Earlier, I'd mentioned that the back of the guitar had to be fitted without the binding, which left me a bit of work to do on the binding channel. So, basically it's a case of trying to get a clean channel using a chisel etc. If the binding is sticking out proud, I'll widen at that point.
In this picture, you can see how delicate the paintwork is. The threaded rods of the spool clamps have left a scar. Had this been a customer's guitar, I'd have been pretty angry with myself, but I'll buy some straws, and protect for future use. This restoration is being done for the learning curve thankfully, and well, I learned something by making a mistake. I'll not make the same mistake again, and if I choose to hide the scars, it will be more learning, so all good.
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Date Jul. 14 2023 16:35:40
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Firefrets
Posts: 122
Joined: Mar. 22 2023
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RE: Restoration of a 100 year old pa... (in reply to Firefrets)
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That's the easy stuff out of the way, but a long way to go.
Now that the body is all back together, I'll have some snagging to do around the edges, which I'll get to, but for now, I'm turning my attention to the neck reset.
Off camera, I'd removed the neck earlier.
It's not a dove tail joint in the same way you might see on a Martin guitar etc, where you have a leading edge to pull sandpaper through. This particular joint has no edge, so to reset the neck, I'm going to have to cut some material from the neck joint, and this will cause a shift, in how it grips inside the block, so I'll need to shim, and chalk fit, and basically just give it a go, as not done this kind of joint before.
The fretboard extension will need a shim underneath, which I'll do with a veneer. It will be tighter than it looks in the picture. At the moment, I'm basically clamping down, looking for chalk, and removing a bit of material as I go, in order to make a better fit.
Joints are something I need to learn more about, but as long as I take my time, I'll be ok.
I fit 2 strings during the process, as I want to make sure I'm putting it back on straight, and then I'll mark the lines with some tape, allowing me to establish boundaries.
I'm dealing with a floating adjustable bridge, on a guitar I've never played, and I need to land the angle in a good place, so more thinking time was needed, and double checking I was happy before gluing up.
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Date Jul. 14 2023 16:58:18
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