Hello again and welcome to another installment
of Luthier's Corner.
This month, I’d like to discuss a typical
scenario in any lutherie shop, restoring an
instrument that suffered severe damage. It’s
inevitable that, if you operate a lutherie
shop long enough, you will get your fair share
of clients bringing you instruments that had
severe damage occur. And I’m not just
talking about the usual broken headstock repair.
I’m talking about acoustic instruments
that have had their tops caved in, or sides
cracked badly, etc. Such was the case with
this month’s example. This was a brand
new guitar, by the way. It’s one thing
for an instrument that has seen better days
to be brought in with severe damage needing
repair. But it’s a whole other thing
when it’s a brand new instrument that
needs to be restored to showroom quality.
OK so this Martin HD-28E was brought to me
because it had incurred some damage during
shipping. Apparently the box took a really
bad hit on the side, which had dented the
side of the hardshell case, which in turn
caused 2 really bad cracks all along the bass
side of the body, and the back to separate
from the side near the top shoulder. It also
broke off a 3" long section of wood that
was about 1/8"-3/16" wide in one
of the cracks, which required me to graft
in some wood to fill the gap. After all the
repairing was done,
I sanded everything smooth and then stained
where needed, spray several coats of high
gloss clear lacquer, and then did my 4 step
polishing to get the finish lustre to match
that of the rest of the guitar. Once all the
restoration work was complete, I reinstalled
the Fishman electronics, and did a full setup
with Martin 12's.
Now she plays and sounds beautiful, and
I know the client will be pleased.
