And so it begins.....F-50R repair/resurrection.

[gilded]

I would use the new bridge.
As to refinishing the top, that's a tough one. It would probably look better, but all the new lacquer will take a long time to break in. The real question is what's more important, the smoother look of a newly lacquered top, or the sound of a top that's already broken in.
gilded

 

[gilded]

I spent some more time looking at your top. I'm leaning toward a re-finish on the top!

Thought, the question of how good the top will look with a re-fin is gonna relate to how well your top replacement strips take any kind of stain that the luthier will put in the lacquer for that vintage look. In other words, if the replacement strips take the stain a lot lighter (or darker!) than the rest of the top, it will show up, big time!

Maybe the luthier could stain a small portion of the inside of the top and the new wood strips and A/B them side by side with a mirror and a light??

gilded

 

[kostask]

I would like the guitar to retain its factory colour. I'm not a big fan of changing guitar colours (just buy the guitar with the colour that you wanted in the first place is my personal philosophy). While I love Gibson J-45 type sunbursts (black on the edges, smallish yellowish bright area in the middle), that doesn't feel right to me in a natural colour Guild. I'm not concerned with the new wood blending in exactly with the original wood. I'm not trying to fool anybody or pretend that the guitar hasn't been repaired, because it has, and if anybody should ask, I will tell then exactly what the repair was.

Much consideration is being given to just replacing the bridge. It may not be possible to salvage the current saddle slot.

The luthier doing the work has has a lot of success with the spot spraying and then re-soraying the entire top In the past, His respray nitro is very, very thin, in other worlds, less solids and more solvent. He will be running colour tests on the spruce piece he took the strips out of before spot spraying.

 

[gilded]

k-man,

It sounds good to me!

You know, I was showing a knowledgable friend a Blond 1950 Gibson L5 non-cut acoustic a few months ago (not mine, sadly) and he was stunned with how good the finish looked on this 70 year old guitar. I mean, you could see little dings and a place where a DeArmond Rhythm Chief had 'lived' on the top, but overall the guitar was/is just stunning.

He looked at it for a long time, even pulled a light and a magnifying glass out. I asked what he was looking for and he said that Gibson would sometimes shoot a very thin, single-coat of lacquer on guitars that came back to the factory for a refurb. They called it a 'freshen up.' Is that cool or what?

gilded

 

[kostask]

In a number of ways. It is extremely cool that Gibson used to do repairs/refurbs, and that they would re-spray guitars. Even cooler was that the guy knew that, and knew what to look for.

 

[richardp69]

Well, just to throw out thoughts & ideas:
I’d do the new bridge - I just don’t trust them when they’ve been cracked & you don’t want to have to go there again at a later date. Plus, you’d have a clean saddle slot to work with.
Also, what about doing a sunburst finish (if your luthier has experience with them), which could go a long ways towards minimizing the visual impact of the repaired area. If he’s thinking about respraying the top anyway, it might be super cool to choose your favorite sunburst!

Sometimes a cracked bridge repair works out nicely and you can hardly even tell the bridge was repaired. I'm having that done on a D 100 NT CRV I recently picked up. But, each case is different and often times a bridge replacement is likely the best solution. If this stay at home edict ever gets lifted, my guitar will be going up to my local guy for the bridge repair. We'll see how it turns out but he's done this for me before and I've never had an issue.

 

[bobouz]

In a number of ways. It is extremely cool that Gibson used to do repairs/refurbs, and that they would re-spray guitars.

Yes, Gibson used to do some pretty extensive repair work. Unfortunately, in the process, a guitar could be significantly altered, as they would use whatever parts & processes (aesthetic or structural) that were currently available from the assembly line. Therefore, a 1951 J-200 could quite possibly come out of the Kalamazoo shop looking more like a late ‘60s model if worked on in that era.

In those days, the owner would most likely be pleased to have what essentially looked like a new guitar. Nowadays, we’d be mourning the loss of an accurate restoration opportunity. Just the same, I’ve seen some unique examples of more involved & complex repair work from Kalamazoo, and it typically was first rate.

 

[Westerly Wood]

looks a total gem of a F50R! congrats on buying it firs off, and now restoring it.

 

[kostask]

Progress for today is the fitting of the wood strips into the routed openings. See below:

What looks like gaps are actually shadows, as the replacement strips are thicker than the existing top.

 

[kostask]

And the gluing begins:’

 

[wileypickett]

I'm impressed your luthier has clamp that will reach as far as that white one does -- that's one deep throat!

Acutally, looking again, it appears home-made, yes?

 

[kostask]

He got a local machine shop to make it. But his design., yes. He had a few made up.

 

[davismanLV]

I'd say a high solvent based NCL is just what may make the finish checking vanish! Thanks for the photos!!

 

[wileypickett]

He got a local machine shop to make it. But his design., yes. He had a few made up.

He ought to make a few zillion and market them -- guitar repair folks would go nuts!

I've cleated cracks in the lower bout of a few guitars and have relied on either powerful magnets or the guitar-string-through-the-crack trick to do it.

Magnets work well if the pieces on either side of the crack are perfectly aligned. The string-through method is great for aligning the two halves if they're at all out of whack, but the holes you make, as teensy as they are, are usually visible. (I just cleated a crack in the lower bout of my JV52 using this method.)

That super-long clamp seems like the best of both worlds.

I like how he's gluing up the first piece of wood with braces through the adjacent opening! But for the last one I assume he'll need that clamp.

 

[kostask]

He does a lot of stuff with older archtops, and they are pretty tricky to work on, so he’s pretty creative about how he clamps stuff up. I think he is planning to use some wickedly pwerful nagnets for the last splint. I have seen the guitar string method, but also seem dental floss used (the round dental floss can be incredibly strong) by other luthiers. This luthier generally doesn’t like the string through method, but has used it in the past.

 

[mushroom]

A question from someone who has no experience in guitar repairs.
How do you un-glue or remove the piece of perspex (?) from the guitar top after the glue has set ?

 

[kostask]

The glue (aliphatic/Titebond) doesn’t stick to the perspex/plexiglass. If the glue was cyanoacrylate (crazy glue, shortened to cyano by most) that does stick to plexiglass, you would use a sheet of waxed pape, as not even cyano wilk stick to a waxed surface. If you were trying to control the cyano from sticking to guitar top, you could wax the guitar top (although note that cyano should NOT normally be used for this purpose).

Cyano and epoxy type glues do have their place in guitar repair, but those are very specific, and are not used very much.

 

[mushroom]

Thanks Kostask.

 

[wileypickett]

He does a lot of stuff with older archtops, and they are pretty tricky to work on, so he’s pretty creative about how he clamps stuff up.

I can't imagine working on the inside of an arch-top guitar through its F-holes. I always assumed you had to remove the back or the top.

 

[ezstrummer]

Keep it coming.. Im hooked.