Over the past few days I got some work done on this guitar. Several back braces needed to be reglued. Weird part was none of the top braces were loose! I carefully opened up the gap between each brace and the back (working inside of an acoustic is a bit awkward) using a small steel ruler, then carefully sanded the joint with strips of sandpaper. Then I used a syringe to inject glue under the brace, worked the glue into the joint with my ruler, then clamped the brace with a little spreader clamp I made up inside the guitar with a clamp on the outside of the guitar for support. This worked well for me, and now all the braces are solid.
Next I turned to the neck. After removing all of the frets, I used CA glue to fix a couple small cracks in the fingerboard. There was a small portion of the fingerboard that was separating from the neck, so I reglued that as well.
Using a radius block I trued up the surface of the fingerboard.
Using a radius block I trued up the surface of the fingerboard.
Next I worked on resetting the neck angle. I had some success as well as some issues, as can be seen in the picture on the left. The fingerboard being a bit brittle, ended up breaking away at the 14th fret when I was working on the neck angle. On the bright side, this made setting the angle easier, but I'll have to carefully repair this later.
To check neck angle, I laid a straight edge set on top of the fingerboard and measured the distance between the straight edge and the top of the guitar at the bridge location. When I started out this measurement was less then 3 mm. When I was finished the measurement was between 10 - 11 mm. The neck fits against the body nicely, although I did have to shim the dovetail joint with 2 small pieces of maple veneer to get a good tight joint.
To check neck angle, I laid a straight edge set on top of the fingerboard and measured the distance between the straight edge and the top of the guitar at the bridge location. When I started out this measurement was less then 3 mm. When I was finished the measurement was between 10 - 11 mm. The neck fits against the body nicely, although I did have to shim the dovetail joint with 2 small pieces of maple veneer to get a good tight joint.
Last thing I did tonight was repair side cracks. I carefully worked some Titebond into each crack and clamped the top/back to close the cracks.
The first location was on the top bout. There are actually 2 cracks here.
The first location was on the top bout. There are actually 2 cracks here.
The other location is on the bottom bout. This spot the wood was actually deformed and popping out of the guitar. I worked glue into it and pushed it into place before clamping. Hopefully these cracks hold now!
Next, NEW FRETS!
Next, NEW FRETS!