Back Bracing DONE

So last night I finished up gluing in the brace wood and let it sit overnight.  I worked all day in shifts today carving these braces by hand with chisels, a small palm plane, and then just sanding by hand to keep the contours rounded.  My hand and arm are sore as hell.   Here's where I'm at now:

*edit*  I meant to add that if they look slightly off center, its due to two factors.  A)I used the lines from the original braces to line up the edges of the new ones, and B)I carved them by hand, so they aren't 100% perfect.

Regal Parlor update

So I talked to Lou, and decided that since the back and braces are so warped, there's no way I can really get it back to its original radius.  I'm just going to try and flatten it out as much as possible and hope for the best.  I bought some hardwood brace blanks and cut them to size and started gluing a little while ago.  Here's the first pic of the progress:

Since I'm not using radiused braces, I'm just going with regular clamps with X braced pressure, seems to be doing the trick so far.  I'm anxious to see how it holds up.

Regal parlor part 2.5

Did a small amount of work last night.  Lou decided on using the Bridge Doctor to stabilize the bellying behind the bridge, so I started some minor work with the bracing.  There were two braces that were loose, but still holding on for dear life, so I glued them down in place.  Also, the end of the fingerboard was loose and there was a crack through the top underneath it, so I glued down the fingerboard, and added a small strip of thin wood to keep the crack stabil.  Is that how you spell it?  Stable?  yeah, that seems better. 

Regal part III

So I decided to post this as a seperate entry.  After taking all the clamps off last night, I got to work on removing the back so I could reattach the braces.  I was worried that I'd have to build a makeshift steamer for the task, but the hide glue was pretty decomposed and it popped right off after 10 minutes of working around it with a hot steak knife.  I'm pausing at this stage for now because there are 3 routes I could go with the restoration.  A)Completely rebrace the top using modern X bracing patterns, B)Install a bridge doctor to lower the beer belly to a playable height, or C) Use the original braces, and install a trapese tailpiece to take the tension off of the belly of the guitar.  I'm waiting for Lou to decide which direction he wants me to go before I continue any futher with the top. 

As far as the back goes, I should be able to use 3 of the 4 original braces that were inside the guitar.  One was cracked, so I'm debating whether to glue it, or cut a new one.  I may just cut a new set out of some spruce boards I have laying around so I can try to reduce the amount of warping on the back, but I'll have to get my chisels sharpened before doing that.  Either way, its going smoothly and I'm 100% confident this will be playable again very soon.

Regal part II

So last night I started on Lou's Regal.  Taking the strings off proved to be a project in itself.  Several of the tuning pegs appear to be made of JB weld, and the strings themself appear to be as old as the guitar.  To make matters worse, whatever idiot strung it up before tied the strings to the tuners like a classical guitar and were rusted together.  Took me an hour to get them off, and once the last string came out, the bridge block/brace fell off.  heh.  So after I got all of those off and pulled out the braces that were loose and bouncing around inside, I started by securing the top down so the whole thing wouldn't implode while removing the back.  It went pretty well, there are 2 spots that are slightly uneven, but its sturdy as shit now.

What a mess...

I must thank my friend Lou for being addicted to guitars and keeping me in business. He brought me a Regal student model parlor he got on ebay recently. I've actually seen this one floating around for awhile, but I guess nobody was ready to tackle the project. I'm trying to figure out where to start myself. Looks like it was left out in the rain. The top and back are half off, half of the braces are missing or loose, causing the neck to pull forward. Its just a mess. On the other hand, I welcome a challenge, and he said I did a good job on his kingston that was splitting apart and is letting me try to work my magic. I'm thinking that I'm going to remove the back and rebrace it with new braces to try to reverse the warping, and if all else fails, put a new back on if I can't straighten it out enough.

Without further ado, here's the before:

pray for mojo....

Stellaaaaaaaaaa part 2

Finished up the stella yesterday. I was in a hurry to get everything glued and clamped up, and forgot to take any pics. I got the brace back in pretty easily using a modified clamp as a scissor jack and just let that set. Instead of dealing with a full on neck reset because the neck angle was good, it was just loose, I made a glue syringe and injected glue into the neck pocket and clamped it down overnight. Looks pretty good today, should hold up fine as long as Lou doesn't put 13's on it and tune all the way up to standard like i keep telling him not to do on the cheaper guitars. heh.

I realize that Its probably not all that easy to tell what I've done in the after pic, but oh well, felt like posting this anyways since it has other projects in the background.

Long overdue

So about 2 years ago, a friend brought me 2 guitars to do my magic on. One was a classical from the 50's that he found in a garage and wanted fixed so it would be playable, the other was an Ibanez Gio. The Ibanez, in my opinion isn't the greatest guitar, but it was his first guitar, and his baby, so I told him I'd do what I could. Since I started this project 2 years ago, I no longer have the "before" pics, I apologize.

The classical wasn't really in bad shape structurally, but the bridge was shattered, and the tuners were shot. I had a classical guitar laying around that my sister gave me which had no truss rod, so it was unplayable. I used that for parts since it had an ebony bridge and some halfway decent tuners. The bridge replacement went rather painlessly, but the tuners were a problem. the original tuners had the large plastic shafts, so I had to fill and redrill the holes on those.

The Ibanez...Oh where do i start? The back cover was missing, as were 3 of the knobs, and corresponding nuts on the pots, so they were all hanging out the back with partially detached wiring. The pickups needed cleaning badly, and the rings were cracked and missing springs. The pickup selector switch was broken. the strap pegs were gone, and they had been pulled out so many times he had resorted to duct tape to hold the strap on, leaving the body covered in several year old tape, and dried tape residue.

The first thing i tackled was the duct tape. Took forever to scrape off without damaging the paint, and then probably 2-3 hours in total to clean the goo off without removing any finish. I then drilled out the tattered pegholes to 3/8" and filled with a composite material i use, and capped with dowel plugs. Junked the old switch, and changed it out with an AllParts les paul switch. As a temporary fix, i took a scrap of 3/16" sapele I had laying around and made a new back cover until I can either find a NOS ibanez cover, or just make a new one from pickguard m aterial if he isn't happy with the wood cover. I managed to save the old pickup rings, and put new springs in there and cleaned up all the rust on the pole pieces. The last thing I did, which I didn't do until this week when I found out he was finally coming to get the stuff was find new knobs and get some replacement nuts so the pots would stop falling out. All in all, it was an ass ton of work combining a ton of small individual jobs, but I'm stoked with the results and I hope he is as well.