After  repair and finish touch-up.
Guild GAD series acoustic, recent
series- (poly finish) - before
hardware removal.
1972 Martin D-12-28
This Martin suffered a bad peghead break. Upon inspection you can see that
the previous repair included the use of nails and glue as a means of holding
the break together. The old repair held for a number of years until the guitar
was dropped again. This was definitely not a traditional method of repairing a
break and the new repair will involve removing the nails. Luckily the new break
has plenty of surface area exposed and will be a good candidate for repair with
hot hide glue.
A shot of the peghead from the
bass side.
Photo of peghead front with tuners
removed. The peghead veneer is
slightly bent forward at the E
tuners.
Nut removed with slot showing
nail entry points. Note finish
damage on peghead veneer..
Nail removed from old repair.
Clamps applied after heating the
repair area and applying hot hide
glue.
Back view of completed repair
after finish touch-up, installation
of hardware.
Front view after installation of
strings.
Another front view showing E
tuners where the peghead veneer
was previously bent forward. This
guitar also got a new LR Baggs
I-Beam pickup system. Now it's
sounding sweet and ready to sing
another 37 years.
Guitar Repair and Restoration
Neck Repairs
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Neck Reset of 1972 Martin D-18
Here we have an early 70's Martin
with a host of problems, worst of
which is high action acompanied
with a very low saddle. This is
usually an indication that over the
past couple of decades the neck
angle has shifted and needs to be
reset.
This photo illustrates the problem.
Under normal conditions this
straightedge should rest along the
fret tops and just land on the top of
the wooden bridge. This one clearly
falls below the bridge top by a
significant amount. At this point I take
a measurement of how much the
straight edge needs to move upward
and plug this number into a trig
formula that will tell me how much
material must be removed from the
heel of the neck to correct the angle.
At this point I have already removed
the pickup and am preparing to heat
the fingerboard extension for neck
removal. I use several methods to
heat the extension and loosen it
from the top.
After the fingerboard extension is
sufficiently heated I use a slim
spatula the separate it from the
top.