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I bought this one new in '68 and it needs some work. I'll be taking this one up to Ann Arbor Guitars for the fretting and setup class this spring so guess I better get moving. This will be my first refret on a neck without a trussrod so I figure Hesh and David can ease me through it plus it should be a good learning opportunity for the rest of the class as well.

- Bridge is lifting and needs to be reglued.
- Had a crack in the back for at least 40 years that needs to be repaired
- frets/nut/saddle are shot and need to be replaced. I did some very early repair efforts on these and made some real rookie mistakes.
- Neck needs to be reset.

Otherwise it is in surprisingly good shape considering it has been all over the world and lived a very rough life without benefit of humidity control.


Bridge needs to be removed and reglued.


Cracked back


Nut and frets - good examples of beginning luthiery (guitar butchery?). Surprisingly enough it solved the problem I had with the lower strings buzzing and I played it that way for about 10 years


Neck has had the frets pulled but the straight edge still hits too low at the bridge. Fortunately the neck is not twisted or warped.



Inside and braces look pretty decent. There's a cleat on the top behind the bridge plate that I didn't expect. It came from the factory that way.


Bridge plate is in good shape.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Cool guitar and project Steve. We will have to compression refret it and we have all of the various tang sizes and the expertise to walk you though the refret as well. You will learn all that you need to know to refret a pre-truss-rod Martin AND anything with a rod will be even easier for you after the class!

You may have the best class mule yet!

Can't tell for sure from here but it may need a neck reset too as you suspected, it's old enough and that straight edge is coming in low on the bridge. If that is the case the reset should come before the refret since resets change the fret plane.

Hesh, glad you saw this. Yes, I plan to reset the neck so my first tasks will be to pull the bridge and the neck. Once those are off I figure I'll fix the crack then get the neck back on and finally the bridge. I'll make a new bone saddle too but will leave it a bit proud until I can get strings on it. I understand we'll do the nut in the class so I'll leave that and the fret board alone.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

What a great old friend to have all these years. That guitar is gonna be sweet once she's back in shape.

Yeah, it'll be good to get this one back, I was in high school when I bought it at the music store where I hung out. They let me make payments on it and I recall it cost $212.14. it hasn't been really playable for about 20 years and was just sitting in the case. This one deserves to be fixed up for sure and I'm looking forward to doing some finger picking on it.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Pulled the bridge. Had used a small blanket previously so first time using a heat lamp. I did not get it hot enough and pulled more fibers than I would like. I'll do better on the fretboard extension.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Those are sweet little guitars.

Good luck on the project!



Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Thanks Pat, I'm looking forward to being able to play it again.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looking good there Steve! Some bridges just don't want to come off clean and as such some wood fibers on the bridge bottom are not unusual. Your looks pretty good to me for a first try.

See ya in several weeks!

I have removed bridges from new builds and they came off much nicer. Regardless, it's all good experience. I'll get this one cleaned up and reglued.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I like the pallet knives I got from StewMac ok but I wanted something stronger so I modified a couple of putty knives. I bought these two because they were more flexible than most. I have wanted something that would have less of a tendency to dig into the soft top wood but would still allow me to use reasonable force. I beveled the bottom edge, rounded the corners and polished it up a bit. The edges are not sharp, just thin and somewhat rounded, somewhat like a butter knife. Finally I stuck them in a vise and bent them to shape. They worked well on the extension.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I moved the heat lamp about 4" from the extension and was able to loosen the extension quite easily. Not a good photo but I see glue residue in the joint instead of wood slivers this time. Next I'll see if I can get the neck joint steamed apart.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Time to remove the neck. I've done this one other time-on a Gibson J45. It did not come off easily. I use the StewMac jig and a Haan steam generator. Drilled a hole at the 13th fret which hit the dovetail cavity first time. Turns out the neck came off pretty easy and I didn't pull up any wood this time.

Some white crud on the finish brought out by the steam. It will scrape off with a fingernail but doesn't come off with Naptha. Anyone know a good way to remove this without messing up the finish underneath? Figured it would be good to ask before I try anything else.

Edit: got it off with some alcohol.



Some of the body finish stuck to the heel when it released but nothing that will show when it's done.

A bit of finish bubbled up on the heelcap but shouldn't be too hard to fix.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looking good, that's a nice project

Next I want to work on the crack in the back. I know for a fact this crack has been here for at least 50 years so it certainly isn't clean The pallet knife is about 0.017" thick so that's about what I need to deal with. My finger is beyond the end of the crack which was stopped by the middle back brace.


This is where the crack goes under the brace closest to the tail block. The brace is only loose for a short distance and shouldn't be too hard to glue down.


I am thinking I need to glue the brace back down then put a spline in the crack but would like to hear suggestions from some of you more experienced folks.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks Greg - gotta get it done for Ann Arbor.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Good work Steve. Great guitar and a great story - definitely wort the work.

You show a picture of the dovetail end of the neck with a little bit of raised finish. It looks like they applied glue to just the bottom 1/4 of the joint. This strikes me as the right way to do this - just a spot of glue and down low where it does the most good.

Is this the way Martin does all of their necks??

Ed

I like to glue up the crack first by sliding thin plastic, like from a zip lock bag, in between the brace and the top/ back. Lets me focus on making a tight splint without trying to clamp everything at once or trying to keep glue from the brace glue up out of the crack. Just my way. I'm sure there are others.

Ed, I don't know if they do them all this way but it sure was a lot easier to take apart then the '49 J45 I did previously.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks, that's a good idea. I had not thought about that gluing the brace first would get glue in the crack.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I would appreciate some advice on this one. I should be able to take care of the crack in the back this weekend but would also like to glue the bridge back on. Fortunately the bridge is still dead flat so I just scraped it clean but I didn't get the bridge hot enough when I removed it and had some tearout, a lot more than I like. Here I have scraped the top clean but as the photo shows it is not a nice gluing surface. The deeper spots are on the order of 0.040" to give an idea of the scale. I will use HHG of course but I'm not comfortable just slathering on the HHG and clamping it. Left to my own devices I would fill in the low spots with pieces of spruce, size it with HHG and then rescrape. Not sure if that would be overdoing or underdoing it?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thats what I would do. I believe our fellow East Tennessee luthier John Arnold has said the same.

Thanks Greg, that's what I'll plan on doing.

I hate it when I make extra work for myself.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hey Steve, I've developed what I think is a pretty good system for dealing w/ the situation you face. I am supper busy but here are a couple of pics. I can try and explain more tomorrow.

David, thanks for the photos. I think I get the idea but correct me if I'm wrong.
1. Plug the holes
2. Smooth the bridge gluing surface with the result being dished into the deeper areas.
3. Glue on a flexible spruce patch (maybe 0.040" thick in my case) using a caul with a flexible backing so the patch conforms to the dished surface.
4. Level the surface either by scraping or maybe do the initial leveling with a laminate trimmer and then once a level surface is established finish by scraping.
5. Repeat if necessary if there are multiple areas that can't all be done at one time.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"