Re-Topping a Takamine

[Allen]

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"Originally Posted on: Mon Sep 20, 2010 7:33 am"

I was asked to re-top a Takamine some time back and agreed to take on the project as long as I could do it in my own time with all the other commitments I had going on these past several months.

The guitar had taken a blow at one time that had broken one leg of the X-brace and put many cracks from one end to the other following the grain of the WRC top. Also the original pic guard had been peeled off at one time and taken great chunks of wood along with it. I suppose with some very careful work the top may have bee able to be rescued, but the owner said he didn't want to go down that route.

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I had contacted Takamine and asked them about what glues they used, and method of neck attachment. They said that high strength epoxy was used for almost all of the construction, but couldn't be more specific. As to neck attachment, they said it could be one of 3 methods, and all used epoxy.

Hesh asked David Collins on my behalf about his experiences with them, and David's response was to cut the neck off and build a new one as they are unserviceable.but that almost no one does this, as it puts the cost of the repair out of reach.

I decided to treat it a Spanish Heel and just assumed that I wouldn't be able to get the neck out, so worked around it. The fret board was glued on with epoxy and it took a fair bit to get it to release. Slow deep heat with an iron and knives and spatulas inserted to get it to release.

Then I routed off the bindings almost all the way. Cleaning up the final little bit with my gramil.

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Then off came the top. This seemed to be either epoxy or gobs of a PVA type of glue. Very messy install that required lots of clean up once the top was removed.

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And here you can see the dovetail neck filled with the high strength epoxy. The rims and back are Koa ply with the outside show pieces very thin. David Collins and Takamine said that some of these necks also will have dowels installed.. I could not tell if this was the case or not, but just assumed that it was.

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The new top was some Figured Sequoia from Bob Cefalu. It's what the owner requested.

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I used the original lower tone bars as they were in good shape. All the others I remade. The bridge patch was made by taking the original that was made from some mahogany ply and using it as a template for a Qld. Walnut one.

More to follow later.

[Kim]

Very nice of you to take this on Allen Laughing

Takas are a good work horse guitar, the good ones have great electrics so are real keepers for stage work. As you know I am not one to use epoxy if it can be avoided and would never consider using it on a top, but with a curly redwood top being what it is, two thin boards of very short grained soft wood glued together, I would seriously consider using epoxy like a grain filler on this one. It will not only pull out the grain for good visual impact but will also help to lock all of that short grain together and may help prevent the bridge from tearing out it's own footprint down the track......as you no doubt already know, very little 'longitudinal' stiffness in curly redwood, if the bridge starts to roll.....

Cheers

Kim
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[kiwigeo]

Nice work getting that top of Allen. Epoxy for the neck joint....didn't they think the guitar might need a neck re-set at some time in it's life?
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Last edited by kiwigeo on Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

[christian]

Your a brave man Allen !!! i would'nt have gone near that guitar repair.
hats off to you !! fantastic new top !!!
look forward to seeing it finished.

Cheers.

Christian.

[Insomnomaniac]

For some reason the phrase "better than brand new" keeps coming to mind!

Can't wait to see it finished...

[Allen]

Back from work, so a bit more uploading to do.

Some more shots of the insides for your viewing pleasure.

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Rosette is some spalted Avocado that I have a large block of. Colors seem to work well with a lot of different wood combo's so I like to use it, and everyone seems to like it.

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Getting the X-brace and the transverse braces in the exact spot was pretty challenging. They are inlet into the linings at both ends, and I didn't want to have to cut any more from them to get a good fit. I might have got lucky, but I like to think that I might be pretty damn good too Very Happy 'cause they fit spot on with the center of the top lining up.

Anyway, top glued on and flush trimmed. Fret board just laid on for a idea of what it's going to look like.

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I didn't take any pictures of the binding process, but it's pretty standard stuff. First time using plastic, but I wanted to match the original as well as I could. The originals were white at one time, but has yellowed quite severely, with lighter spots where it might have had less sun and more wear. The stuff I installed was stark white so I made up some very dilute lacquer and tinted it up to match the original bindings. Used my air brush to color them up. Then glued on the fret board with hide glue this time around. And then some lacquer.

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There was a lot of hungry short grain on that top, and it took 3 spray sessions a week apart of very thin lacquer to get a semblance of a nice finish. In hind sight I might decide to use some epoxy pore filler on that type of wood if there is a next time.

The owner came by last weekend to check on progress after I had buffed it out. Here he is admiring it.

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And here it is all completed and set up. The bridge I made using the original as a template and trying to recreate the look as close as I could without the split saddle and the original pickup, as it was falling apart and just too much trouble to bother with. It has a UST that the owner supplied.

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And the best part is that the owner just picked it up tonight and is happy as Larry with it.

Would I do a job like this again....not without charging a lot more. It's actually easier to build a guitar from scratch than do something like this, but the experience was worth a lot to me.

Hope you all got a little out of this.

[Kim]

Sorry Allen, I thought it was a work in progress when you posted this morning and I responded accordingly.

Cheers

Kim
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[Nick]

Nice Job Allen, the owner would have had to have been an absolute idiot not to like what you've done. The Redwood top has some nice figure to it and I think it fits well with the rest of the timbers.

[Allen]

No worries Kim. It's been a too long work in progress for my liking, and only decided to post this after it turned out well. Didn't want things to go pear shaped on me in the middle of this while I was posting progress shots. Laughing

As to the top, personally I would never use it again. Only used it this time because the customer insisted. It taps like wet cardboard, and you either have to keep it much thicker than what you would with spruce, or laminate it with a much stiffer and stable wood like spruce.

The owner wasn't fussed about making it a stand out acoustic, just getting it back into playing condition, and "pretty" was his prime criteria. It was a little odd to have those design points as the goal.

So I kept the top at 3.2 mm as Kim had mentioned, it's got bugger all in longitudinal stiffness. Also the Takamine's original bracing is quite robust, as is the bridge plate. Probably why they work so well on stage. I copied the bracing as best I could, and used the lower tone bars. The result was a heavy and overbuilt top that I hope sounds and behaves well when amplified.

Yes Nick, the top does fit it well in terms of color and figure.

[christian]

Wow looks fantastic Allen!!!
beautifully executed repair, rightly so the owner is chuffed.
its a great exercise to do, but bloody difficult to charge for eh,
i probably would have tried to upsell him to a new guitar,rather than repair it...haha.

Christian.

[DarwinStrings]

Nice work Alan, sometimes wonder if the customers would want the job done if you quote accurately on jobs like that Rolling Eyes

kiwigeo wrote:
Nice work getting that top of Allen. Epoxy for the neck joint....didn't they think the guitar might need a neck re-set at some time in it's life?


I guess they just like to get them out of the factory and not have them fall apart in the warranty period Martin. They do tend to hold together well up here and in some ways it makes re-setting the neck easier.

Jim

[Nick]

Toejam wrote:
Nice work Alan, sometimes wonder if the customers would want the job done if you quote accurately on jobs like that Rolling Eyes
Jim


No... Wink Same old story aint it Jim, they just look at the finished product & don't see the amount of work that goes into it. The number of people that choke when I tell them how much I charge for a respray, they think "just a coat of paint....can't be anymore than a hundred bucks worth" but because it's more than that they think they're getting ripped off.
Bit of a funny story related to this but different circumstances. I knew a fellow engineer that also did blackpowder gunsmithing. A guy asked him to make a new pistol stock, so he duly made it and in typical Elliot (his name) fashion it was nothing short of perfect, all hand chequered Walnut & flawless . When the customer saw it he loved it but spat the dummy when he was told it would be $400. So Elliot asked him how much he thought it was worth, the guy said he thought it would've been no more than $200 & didn't want to stump up for anymore than that, so Elliot being Elliot disappeared into his workshop & when he came back handed the guy half of the gunstock....he'd been and run it through the bandsaw! Gave him his $200 worth. Laughing Laughing

[Allen]

Care to elaborate on how you go about resetting a neck like that Jim. I'd sure like to know for the next time around.

The music shop that had referec this chap to me told him that it would most likely be in the $300 range do this work. Shocked Good thing that this guy's been around a bit and knew that it would be considerably more than He gave me a sum that he was willing to go to and got my attention.

Similar story to yours Nick. I worked for a bloke back in Canada about 30 years ago now that had a bit of a short fuse. Customer complained about the price for the repairs and paint to his vehicle and refused to pay. Owner said no worries, went inside a pulled out a 9" electric sander with a 16 grit open coat disk and procedded to take back all the material that we had applied to the car. Once he took it back to metal, he told this bloke not to worry about the bill. Laughing

[matthew]

Nice job there, a great result. It's great to see something saved and not consigned to the bin - and what a nice save! Beautiful quilting. And that spalted avocado is as decorative as abalone.

Believe it or not I'd be very hesitant to attempt a guitar repair like that ... I guess you do what you know and once you've done something once its less scary the second time around ... now lets see ... that classical headstock replacement for my sister ... must dig that project out again.

[liam_fnq]

Quote:
So I kept the top at 3.2 mm as Kim had mentioned, it's got bugger all in longitudinal stiffness. Also the Takamine's original bracing is quite robust, as is the bridge plate. Probably why they work so well on stage. I copied the bracing as best I could, and used the lower tone bars. The result was a heavy and overbuilt top that I hope sounds and behaves well when amplified.


It confounds me when someone goes and buys a guitar overbuilt specifically for stage work when all they do with it is strum out at home or on a mate's verandah. I'm not saying Old Mate's in this category but I do see it all the time. That and cut aways on guitars owned by people who don't go north of the 5th fret.

[Insomnomaniac]

liam_fnq wrote:
It confounds me when someone goes and buys a guitar overbuilt specifically for stage work when all they do with it is strum out at home or on a mate's verandah. I'm not saying Old Mate's in this category but I do see it all the time. That and cut aways on guitars owned by people who don't go north of the 5th fret.


I see it being like people who buy an HSV Commodore or a WRX STi. Chances are they'll never see the top performance it's capable of, but they like to think they could. Hell, I'm building myself a high spec electric and I can barely play at all! I will one day though, honest!

[DarwinStrings]

No worries Allen although now I think about it "easier" may be debatable. Just lift the back off the neck block and a little further out then fold the heel in a bit, re-glue, trim and re-fit the binding.

Jim

Botanical names ROCK!!!

[matthew]

Toejam wrote:
Botanical names ROCK!!!
yeah! and geological names grow on you ...

[Allen]

Thanks Jim. Makes sense now that it's explained like that.


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