Jeff said:
coastie99 said:
Looks to me like any guitar case lining is simply a strip/strips of rubbery/foam stuff over which is glued some plushy-stuff, then the whole shebang's glued to the shell.
Has anyone here ever de-constructed a guitar case for a look ?
John Kidder bought a case from me; he wrote me & described the process employed to loosen the existing lining, insert foam where needed & re fasten the fabric.
Hopefully he'll check in here & give us a narrative.
Hello folks, apologies for delays in seeing and now Coastie's new post.
First, I've not yet gone back to the person who told me that she could get me a custom h/s case for my M20 for (then) $125, from a Vancouver builder. I will go back there sometime this week and check out the possibility. One would expect that any sort of bulk buy should be less expensive, but who knows, and it was at least three, maybe four years ago that i made contact with her. i will try again.
Second, the process for inserting additional padding in the case liner is not difficult, but, as always , the first effort was not as good as it might be.
- 1: find a case that's close - I recollect that the case I got from Jeff was within 1 to 3/4 of an inch too big around the bouts. The length was also off, but I didn't think I needed to be so concerned about that: if the guitar were held snugly along both sides it wouldn't shift anyway.
2: the padding along the sides of the (at least this particular) case is a separate strip of material from the bottom of the case, and was not glued or stitched to the bottom lining. I found that I could pinch the padding near the bottom of the case and pull it away from the sides - the glue bond between the fabric and the case wall was not too strong, and the lining came away without undue effort. I detached the lining at the bottom only to leave a good inch along the top edge with the original glue bond undisturbed, and detached it only on the bass and the treble sides, and leave about about 4 inches at the bottom (heel) of the case..
3: I cut a piece of foam about 4" wide and 1" thick from an ordinary mattress overlay, then i skived the top edge so that it tapered from the 1" thickness to about 1/4" thick along the top. I made a test insertion push under the lining to get the length, then cut the two pieces and tapered the ends as well.
4: I pulled up the lining as far as I could and clamped it out of the way.
5: I stuffed the foam in along the case wall as close as possible to the remaining glued portion of the lining. (Next time, i would taper the top edge right down to 0 width - that would, I think, make the final assembly less bumpy than what I now have.) I checked to be sure the length was right all along, and estimated that I needed to narrow the width by about 1/2 inch to get the fit right, trimmed it and reinserted. Pretty good fit, although i could have done better along the top edge as mentioned above.
6: I daubed the inside edge of the lower inside edge of the treble side strip of foam in a dozen places with an ordinary vinyl adhesive, and wiped a little on the inside of the case side - there are probably better glues known to some of you, but I have that adhesive on hand for repairing tolex on cases, and it seems to have worked all right - at least it has a soft enough tack that it allows a little movement of the parts before they set up tight. Put the foam in place trying to keep it straight, and sort of succeeding. Next time I would just put the adhesive along the top edge first, lay the strip in and straighten it, then let the glue set a little before appling more adhesive to the bottom of the strip and finally gluing it in.
7 let the glue set, then put more adhesive on the exposed surface of the foam and on the fabric inside of the lining, stretch the fabric and pull it down over the foam in one go.
8: repeat 6 & 7 on the bass side.
9: There was no visible adhesive on the plush of the lining on the sides or the bottom, so I just put the M20 into the case, with pleasure at the snug fit, and left it there overnight to keep the lining/foam/case tight while the glue finally set.
Next time, in addition to being more careful to taper the top edge better for a cleaner line, and applying the adhesive in two steps to make fitting the foam a little easier, I would shape a piece of foam about 1/2" thick amd 3" or 4" long with a long taper towards both ends and glue it to the back of the strip to make the assembly just a little tighter in the waist of the guitar, and i would add a piece of the regular strip in the heel area - the gap's not big there, but it doesn't look professionally done (no real surprise given my handicraft skills).
In fact, now that I've written all this, perhaps one day I'll see if I can remove the foam now inserted and make the improvements. Until then, I have confidence that my little M20 (which I will always keep - it was my first Guild and is intimately connected with my first days with my late wife Siri) is snug and happy when we travel. Took it out today, in fact, because I had done a song about her and knew that it would be fitting to play it out first on the M20.
So it can be done, but lt me check on the potential for some custom jobs before anyone starts ripping cases apart.
