Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi
A friend brought in a Martin travel guitar with a 4" crack in the top. He wants to use it as a camping guitar and I told him it would make a fairly good canoe paddle. Not amused he asked if I could just fix the top crack so it didn't get bigger. So what would be your advise on trying to stop this crack where it is? Pics below:



I would be interested in how you would get this clamped and if unable to get a cleat inside would a super glue fix hold this together. Thanks - Mike G

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guitarsbygiltzow.com

Personally, I would work some titebond into the crack, Get 6 earth magnets down the length of the crack to level it out and then clamp across the body.

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Blue Ring Acoustics
blueringacoustics.ca

Rehumidify the guitar to get the crack to close as well as its going to. Take your time and do this right. Then either Titebond or HHG in the crack, with a couple of spruce cleats inside. If the crack closes really well wick water thin CA in, then cleat. Its going to be a real bear getting inside with the tiny sound hole and tiny body.

I don't see anything special or unusual here. Aside from the shape of the guitar may make it easier to get some clamps on the rims if you like, it should repair like any other top crack.....

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I had one with several cracks in the top. I just took the whole top off as there is no binding, did the repair, and also carved the rectangular block braces down and after I glued it back on I thined the top around the edges. It developed a small belly behind the bridge and actually sounded much better. As well as it could anyways...

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Pat

When we started Ann Arbor Guitars one of these came in with the same crack.

We humidified it and it didn't close all the way. BTW we use RH of 75% for several days and can usually close things nearly as open as the Grand Canyon if we want to. Making matters worse when we left it to stabilize in 45% for several days it reopened wide open.

So we filled it with color tinted epoxy (a process pioneered at Elderly and appropriate for many low end instruments and some better ones too).

Cleating was not easy and was done with long reach clamps with the cleat taped to the clamp for installation and when the clamp was removed the cleat stayed in place.

Anyway the client abandoned the POS and after repeated calls from us never graced our doorway again.

Today it's up north at Dave's cabin with more cracks.

I wouldn't force this one shut it clearly looks like it's been open for a while and even if it does close you will create stresses in the rest of the structure and it will crack again at the point of least resistance.

FYI they sound terrible and are not worth the trouble of doing anything beyond the simplest repair. If it ends up getting abandoned with you maybe we can start a facebook group for abandoned POS instruments?

Thanks everyone. It does sound terrible and the owner offered to give it to me. Should have taken him up on that and used it as a canoe paddle. It has closed up after 2 days in a garbage bag so I'll try glue and a cleat. Probably should leave it in the garbage bag and take out the trash. Thanks again - Mike G

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guitarsbygiltzow.com

Someone also offered to give it to me when I told them it was a basket case. That's why I took the liberty to take the top off. Then sold it for a higher than average price due to the "custom mods" the whole thing probably took an hour.

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Pat

It is the season of nice campfires too . Dave likes to accumulate abandoned POS guitars or donated ones and the ones not worth fixing up for our homeless buddies who live on the streets below our shop he pitches in bon fires in the summer.

Wouldn't pretty much any Martin be worth fixing?