Another repair completed while we were shut for lockdown, this poorly Tanglewood was brought in was a nasty top crack, the section was almost breaking off from the guitar!
One of the cracks had previously tried to be repaired with superglue, which made the repair harder still. The top was also badly warped in the surrounding area,
We first glued back the lifting top, then repaired the side damage and rebuilt the edge binding. We then built up layers of nitrocellulose lacquer to even out the top and protect the repaired breaks!
Although the customer wasn’t concerned about aesthetics, we wanted to blend the repair the best we could!
At the same time the frets were recrowned and hand polished, along with a setup and a K&K pure mini pickup fitted!
One of the cracks had previously tried to be repaired with superglue, which made the repair harder still. The top was also badly warped in the surrounding area,
We first glued back the lifting top, then repaired the side damage and rebuilt the edge binding. We then built up layers of nitrocellulose lacquer to even out the top and protect the repaired breaks!
Although the customer wasn’t concerned about aesthetics, we wanted to blend the repair the best we could!
At the same time the frets were recrowned and hand polished, along with a setup and a K&K pure mini pickup fitted!
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The top when it was brought in, one of the worst damage acoustics we've seen!
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The top after the lifting crack was glued down, due to superglue being used on a previous repair attempt, superglue had be used on these areas rather than wood glue.
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The side of the guitar where it had cracked was also needing to be sorted. The broken edge was then cleaned up ready to be rebuilt. Inserts were carefully cut and fitted to reenforce the broken end, the gap was left for a separate insert to be inserted to enforce the small crack.
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The insert was cut to fit inside the top acting as a brace to one of the cracks. The inserts were then glued.
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The inserts were then trimmed back to allow the purfling and binding to be fitted.
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The purfling fitted, although it wasn’t a perfect match it was the best match we could source!
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The high parts of the crack repair were flattened back to even out the top. The cracks were then stained to match in with the rest of the top.
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The binding was then slowly built in layers, using thicker binding which was thicknessed down to size before being fitted and trimmed.
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The binding was slowly built up to match the existing binding before being trimmed down to fit.
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The binding was the stained to blend it in along with repairing the damage to the side of the guitar, blending it with the rest of the guitar and refinishing with lacquer.
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During the lacquer application and flattening back process. The top was then prepped ready for nitrocellulose to be applied by hand, something we’d never done on a guitar top before!
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The finished result of the top repair!
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The frets before the recrown and hand polish.
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The frets were well worn from years of gigging. They were first masked off and marked before the recrowning could begin.
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The frets were filed to remove the wear but preserving the level tops of the frets, they were then hand polished to a shine!
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After the recrown and hand polish. The guitar was then restrung and setup along with having the K&K mini pure fitted before the customer collected his guitar.
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