Accidents Happen...Blackwood OM rebuild

[woodrat]

OK .....It has been about 12 months since this happened and so I am nearly over it!....I was going to take this guitar to the National last year but it had a little accident...
So I was buffing it late at night...and I was tired...I shouldnt have been anywhere near the buffer....should I? NO!...So anyway there I was buffing away when I had a momentary lapse of concentration...as you do when your buffing
The following pictures are the result soundhole of the Black top Blackwood guitar being caught by said buffer and being ripped from my hands subsequently traveling on a short but brisk journey south to destination concrete floor....I was speechless....as you can see...it was a bit of a train wreck ....

Anyway I just put it up and looked at it for about a year....So here it is....I decided to have a go at salvage. I hope to salvage the rimset and put a new falcate top on it and a new back. I will also have the opportunity to put some side mass attachment blocks in it as well for resonance trimming.

I thought that I would take the back off first but I found that with a bit of heat the lacquer can be stripped fairly easily so I thought I would strip the whole back and sides before I took the back off to begin repairs. I will put a new top on it after I replace the back. I thought it better to get the back off intact instead of driving the jigsaw around just inside of the linings. I will do that for the top though...

I will try to post a few pics here to show progress as it goes along towards being a healthy guitar again.

Anyway here are a few to start off ....

[David Aumann]

Hello John,

A few years ago I was asked to build a baritone uke from spalted myrtle/King Billy. Having finished the job I was invited to a folk club by the fellow who ordered the uke. Well, when I say finished, it was 'in the white', but he'd be able to see what it was going to look like. Whilst loading my car, with my shoes on but laces undone and uke in hand, I stood on an undone lace and tripped myself up! As I fell, I was wondering how I could prevent falling on the uke so I sort of threw it relatively out of harm's way. It landed on its King Billy face on our screenings driveway. When I inspected the damage, the back/sides/neck were okay but the King Billy top had a crack that was probably not repairable.

I had to go to the folk club and spent the whole night hoping he wouldn't ask to see the uke. But eventually he did, and I had to own up to what had happened hours earlier. But I assured him I'd make another top and it'd be as good as new. I did this, and to symbolise the uke "rising from the ashes", I inlaid an engraved pearl plaque between the slots in the peghead that said PHOENIX. We both thought that was a good joke.

Cheers, David.

[P Bill]

You have my sympathy John. Disbelief Is the word. I knocked over a double bass the morning of the 2010 Brisbane Guitar Show. That clumsiness broke the bridge, cracked the heel and seperated the top from the rim on the upper bout. I think the HHG minimised the damage. It was only my 2nd acoustic and I was on a severe bummer till it was repaired.

[woodrat]

Thanks for you sympathy David and Bill....This might end up quite a cathartic thread with people sharing their bloopers!....yes words like BUMMER convey SOME of the emotions that one feels at times like these....

Sometimes it just happens....

John

[charangohabsburg]

John, that kind of accidents bother quite a bit.
Glad to see you got over it.

I guess you mean re-attach the back when you say "replace the back", right? Or do you want to convert the back into a sexy coffee table?

[woodrat]

Markus...it will have a completely new back...I am fortunate to have quite a bit of this mastergrade blackwood from a tree I cut down 3 years ago...it is beautiful stuff...

John

[charangohabsburg]

What's wrong with that back (other than you seem to have left some ironing marks)?

[woodrat]

I am going to use it for a smaller guitar....I will slip it through the sander and clean it up and it should be alright....

John

[charangohabsburg]

Sounds good. Kind of wood re-birthing.

[woodrat]

Yes Markus.....but a kind I could have done without!

John

[Kamusur]

Commiserations John, can break a mans spirit if he lets it. Bit like humpty dumpty and all the kings men....not up to the task, they should have called for a loofier instead.

Steve

[woodrat]

Thanks Steve.....I just needed 12 months to get over it.....I am fitting the new back and will glue it on tonight....

...So looking on the positive side the guitar will be better than it ever was with 12 months more knowledge under my belt as well as the arsenal of new techniques courtesy of Messrs Gore and Gilet...

...its all good!

John

I will post more pics soon.....

[woodrat]

OK....I am feeling much better about this guitar now....I have the new back on and I will need to remember to put the mass attachment points on in the am...but I still have a couple of processes to do on the top yet so I have time to remember....

...I cut the top off with my jigsaw and then planed away the material that was surplus to requirements...You can see the radial back bracing in the pics.

....Hopefully I will close the box tomorrow and then on to the binding...fortunately I have some more ebony binding:)

John

[Kamusur]

Good work John, excellent save. Saw one of Warrens bodies a couple of weeks back (very similar back bracing to yours) and it reminded me of an abridged Klepper, is that Trevor Gores' influence?

Steve

[woodrat]

Thanks Steve, Yes, very much Trevor's influence....I am a disciple of his approach as "the book" covers everything and Trevor's whole ethos and methodology strikes a chord with me for sure....I just wish I had the science chops to fully understand the modelling better....but having said that there is so much in there that can be used in conjunction with ones previous knowledge that you cant but make better guitars....I certainly am now

I glued the top on too today so I will get this baby bound soon and it will be back to a player soon.....

John

[Kamusur]

Thanks John and you are right for sure. It seems more of a 'whole' listic approach and inspirational even if we cant execute such tasks entirely ourselves (yet lol) it cant hurt to aim in that direction anyway.

Steve

[kiwigeo]

THIS is the interesting stuff!

[woodrat]

Just a few pics to show the progress...I decided to put herringbone on it for a change...it will look completely different since it was a blacktop with BWB purfs before the accident...did anyone say accident?

I have got to scrape the sides down and round the edge of the ebony binding and then it will be ready for lacquer....

The smudge in pic three on the upper bout is some HHG that I have used to glue down some spruce fibers that the tape pulled up...I have scraped it down and its virtually invisible now...

The top is Lutz that I have had for a while now....It has had x bracing on it which I planed off to attempt my first falcate with....It was an aborted effort before I got the hang of the CF so now it has been used on this rebuild and has been successfully converted to a falcate top...more smiles:)

...So it looks like a happy ending coming up here. I have a blackwood bridge made and am looking to have a 170Hz top once it is glued on after a bit of fine tuning.

John

[auscab]

It looks very nice John. How did you go bending the Ebony binding ? I thought it was like trying to bend black glass

[woodrat]

Hi Rob, Thanks...Yes I am feeling better about it now...The ebony bends fine in the bender with a blanket. I buy it from Stewmac as they have the best blackest ebony I have ever seen....I cant find better...

John

[Nick]

Bit of a big body for a Uke ain't it John?

Nice recovery, that top's looking very smart with it's Herringbone.

[Kamusur]

Excellent recovery and it sure doesn't look to shabby with the h/bone alongside the ebony bindings John.

Steve

[woodrat]

Thanks for the encouraging words folks....I am pretty keen to get strings back on this.... It should sound a lot better since it has had a "technology upgrade" as well:)

I have had a few late nights on it and have just to scrape the bindings and round them to finish it and mask the bridge before lacquer....

I have to do a slight adjust to the heel cap too as I lost about 2mm of body depth in the proces and so the heel cap has ended up flush with the back. I will just ease it down a couple of mm to put it back to how it looked before by planing off some of the heel cap.

Pretty close now

John

[Bruce McC]

Dear John ( at last a Dear John letter)

Thank you for sharing with us your creative recovery techniques. Who would have thought
you could iron lacquer off a guitar or would be courageous enough to remove a top with a jig saw.
You don't find such valuable or practical instruction in Cumpiano and Natelson or even Gore and Gilet.
You are an inspiration to us mere mortals. Just one small suggestion if I may be so presumptuous,
next time you are buffing a guitar could you not attach a device similar to a surf board leg rope
to the neck of the guitar and the other end to your wrist, this would restrict the distance your guitar
would travel should you loose your grip.......again.

See you next weekend at the Nationals, looking forward to some more tips.

[woodrat]

Hi Bruce and thanks for your kind words....Your innovative suggestion ranks at least as high as mine does....a bit of cross pollination from the world of surfing to the world of lutherie! now thats innovation...
...I cant say that I have seen anywhere the technique of using an iron to remover the lacquer...it just happened as I was trying to release the back I was scorching it and there were nasty bubbles appearing and then I scraped it and it sort of slipped off as I must have had it just at the right temperature...I experimented some more and there you go it came off very easily at the right temp...The whole process took about 1/2 an hour...I hope I dont have to use it again mind you!...

Yes...I look forward to chatting at the national....

John