Boggs Posted April 19, 2004 Report Share Posted April 19, 2004 This was my first guitar. It is 30+ years old and was in despirate need of a neck reset, fingerboard repair, and a bridge build-up as well as adding a JLD Bridge Doctor to reduce the belly in the top at the bridge. I also added new Grover mini-locking tuning machines for good measure. Following is a pictorial of the work. I have yet to do inlay work on the headstock as planned or add the wood pickguard my friend and I have designed. Too many projects working at once! Neck removal... Note some tearout of the laminate which we repaired easily. This thread will continue with more repairs and photos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2004 Next installment, fingerboard repair... There were deep divots from 30+ years of playing this guitar. Pics don't really give you the sense of the depth of them. I first sanded the fingerboard between the frets using sandpaper and a block which fit between the frets allowing it to slide. I did this by hand keeping a consistent radius. I then carefully collected as much of the rosewood dust as possible. I then cut deeply along the grain in the areas of the divots with an exacto knife (took a bit of soul searching) and brought grain up to the surface level. I used the saved rosewood dust to fill and pack the area under and between the wood grain I brought up with the knife. I then got the thinnest cyanoacrelate adhesive (super glue) and dropped it onto the repair area allowing it to wick into the matrix. I then resanded the area. The repair is hardly visible now and the surface is nice and smooth again! This shows the worst area after repairing it... NICE! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2004 Resetting the neck... Old angle. See how it lines up at the base of the saddle. Very high action. Building up the bridge for better saddle stability... Rosewood veneer to be laminated onto the existing bridge. Note the screw in the bridge where the JLD Bridge Doctor has already been installed to remove the belly in the top. Gluing and clamping the bridge laminate. First is clamp detail. Make tools as you need to. Carving the bridge veneer... The bridge repaired... Next up, the nut and saddle... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2004 Making the nut and saddle from fossilized mastadon bone... After cutting a piece for the saddle, sanded it on a glass plate with sand papers adhered to it. All done by hand. Next shows the carved nut blank... Slots were filed by hand. Next up, fitting the neck at new angle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2004 Repairing the tearout from the neck reset. Sanded the area, shaved some maple with a sharp plane and laid ply layers of the shavings with fish glue and sanded when dry. You can see that we cleaned up the mortice and shimmed to fit as well. Trimming the dovetail with a sharp chisel to the new angle... That's my expert buddy, Tim. Tim shows that it fits! You can see we removed the old neck finish. The new neck angle with the built-up bridge. Note that instead of aligning at the base of the bridge where it meets the body, it is at the base of the saddle now. Gluing the neck... That's me. That's Tim fitting it. Clamping. The fit... You can see the tuning machines have been installed. Progress showing the nut and saddle blanks and the neck finish. Pickguard has been removed. The lighter area is the original color of the top. The gold is the natural vintage aging of the original finish. Next up, potential pickguards and a link to a sound clip of the repaired guitaras used on our second CD... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2004 Here are some potential pickguard materials... What do you think? Here is a link to the guitar as used in our Colors of Christmas CD. http://www.dynrec.com/cof . Look for the clip entitled "In The Arms Of The Babe." After I get the pickguard on and the inlay done, I will post that too. I hope you have gotten something out of this. Cheers! Boggs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 No questions? Boggs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southpa Posted April 20, 2004 Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 NICE work Boggs! This section doesn't see a lot of traffic, most people here are apparently solidbody types. But so much applies to both acoustics and electrics. First, thats a handy little steamer you got there, is that what it was built for? ie. loosening glue joints? I also have a few guitars laying around that have had years of playing time which caused similar fretboard divots. You say you sanded between the frets beforehand, I guess it was basically to attain the required filler dust as well as to wind up with less of a hole to fill. I will definitely give that a go on my old 60's Fender Newporter and 67 Hagstrom III. I've tried premixing the glue with the dust in hopes of packing the mixture in, we all learn from experimentation. In this case things got rather "chunky", . Thanks for showing me something new! Lastly, when you replaced the tuners were the mounting screw holes in the same place as the old ones? If that is not the case, got any tips on how to hide the old holes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Thanks for the feedback! That steamer is for general use to steam wrinkles out of clothes or any other purpose where superheated steam is needed. It is made by Eureka. The hose and needle are from Stewart MacDonald and are made for that specific purpose. http://www.stewmac.com . The holes were not in the exact spot as it had the old fashioned open tuner tree. The new machines did cover them, but I filled the old ones with toothpicks dipped in glue and broken off at the surface and sanded flush. I should also mention that Tim did the finish on the neck with a French polish technique. I sanded the old finish off by wet-sanding by hand. Took a while and a few cramps on that one! For the fingerboard repair, I made several blocks of various thicknesses so I could sand all of the areas between the frets without having to remove them. It did a couple of things for me. #1, it reduced the depths of the divots. #2, it was almost like scalloping the fingerboard giving me slightly more effective fret height compensating for wear. #3, it gave me the dust I needed. Make sure that you use a very thin superglue. Try several types out on sample pieces before you try the real thing. Boggs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJohn Posted April 20, 2004 Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Great work,it's nice to see the classic techniques applied so beautifully. PS-love the flame in that cam clamp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted April 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Classic techniques? We're just kind of makin' this up as we go along with what we've got... Neither of us had tried anything like this before. We just sort of jumped in and said "What the hell!" Right way or wrong way, we got it done! Thanks for the feedback! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJohn Posted April 20, 2004 Report Share Posted April 20, 2004 Classic techniques? We're just kind of makin' this up as we go along with what we've got... Neither of us had tried anything like this before. We just sort of jumped in and said "What the hell!" Right way or wrong way, we got it done! Thanks for the feedback! LOL Great work,can't wait to see the inlay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snork Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Great work boggs! love the tutorial. sounds great as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Bell Posted May 1, 2004 Report Share Posted May 1, 2004 Looks great, thanks for all the pics too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLS Posted May 1, 2004 Report Share Posted May 1, 2004 That would be an AWESOME pickguard. Great job! And the guitar sounds excellent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boggs Posted May 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 1, 2004 Yes, it would, except that piece is going to be next to impossible to flatten... Thank you for the comps on its tone and for taking the time to check it out! Boggs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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