Possible New Repair-job

[Dingus420]

k so a friend of mine has this weathered guitar, id say maybe 15-20 years old its made by LA guitars and hes selling it for $50

the problems are:

the seal from the faceplate and side is seperating at the bottom

the bridge may be busted and need replacing

other than that, the fretboards in good shape, the headstock is fine, and the neck is pretty damn straight

do u guys think this repair is worth doing? i dunno much about LA guitars but i wanna be able to sell it for possibly $150-$200 once im done everything, so should i go ahead and buy it?

[Mickguard]

What's a faceplate? If you mean the pickguard, then that's easy enough, just remove the old one and glue on a new one.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'side' --do you mean the top wood is coming loose from the sides?

Hard to know if the bridge is broken or not, since you don't provide much information. Maybe post some photos.

But I'm guessing that LA Guitars was just a brand name slapped onto an Asian import guitar. In which case, the guitar probably wouldn't be worth $50 in perfect condition.

[Dingus420]

well i dont really know my acoustic terminology that well,

but the flat piece of wood with the hole in it, its splitting from the side of the body, dont got any photos but it sorta looks like this

_________--'''

|___________| <-body

<-neck

i googled LA guitars and it came up with this custom guitar shop in LA and they make some pretty interesting guitars, but im not sure if it came from there, all i know is his dad got it from a work friend...

[Dingus420]

ok well this definatley isnt where the guitar came from

http://www.guitarsla.com/

but check it out anyways, theres some damn expensive, over the top guitars here.

[ihocky2]

The piece coming off is the sound board. And that is not going to be any easy repair, nor one for a first timer. And as said, it is hard to diagnose a broken bridge without seeing it. Pictures speak a thousand words.

[Dingus420]

alrite well i was pretty drunk when i was looking at it so i gotta take a second look at it but i dont think im gonna buy it,

BUT if i do decide to buy it, whats the process of re-attaching the sound board? is it as easy as some glue and some tieing it down to a board with some string?

i dont think the bridge is out of alignment, it just looked that way cuz of how the soundboard is sitting, so if i do decide to buy it, ill post some pics on this thread in the near future

[Mickguard]

Well, if you do decide to buy it, don't pay more than 10 bucks or so for it.

If the top is coming off, chances are it was a really poorly built guitar in the first place, or it was very abused, or both. And if the top is warped, which is pretty likely, I kind of doubt there's a fix for it. I'm not expert at acoustic guitars though, just conjecturing.

[soapbarstrat]

If re-selling is the only goal, you probably should forget it. If you might want to keep it and play it, then try to get it dirt cheap.

Probably the best source for repair on acoustics on the net, is frets.com

I've read at least one article by Frank where he wanted to reglue the top, but the side of the body was out of alignment, so he even band-sawed a bunch of aluminum L pieces, drilled and tapped holes in them for thumb-srews. Screwed all those down onto his pine topped workbench, so they'd surround about 1/4 of the guitar body, then manipulate the alignment of the side of the guitar body by adjusting the thumb-screws on his bolted down bracket "clamp things" (the band-sawed aluminum things). Then he had everything lined up perfect to glue the top down where it had come apart.

Of course not every top seperation requires a set-up like that. Just had to mention how far he goes, to emphasize what a great source of info he provides.

You might have a case that just requires some spool clamps.

Or maybe you have a case where the wood has shrunk enough that it can't be glued back how it was, without looking funny or having a badly noticable gap, in which case you might experiment with putting the guitar inside a large plastic trash bag with a pot of water, and keeping the bag tied shut for a day or so to see if that kind of humidity helps get the parts to go back to how they were when the guitar was new

[Dingus420]

yep turns out it was a complete piece of ****, the sides were splitting at the bottom, the rossette was chipped, the fretboard and the body was full of chips and the bridge was completely ****ed and needed replacing

i talked him down to 15 bucks, but i still decided not to buy it, i offered him 5 bucks to smash it right there on the spot but he refused