Repairers in Darwin

[hepikohetaniwha]

Hi all

I recently made a guitar for a friend who promptly upped sticks and moved to Darwin. I’ve used hide glue for most of it so when he told me he was moving to the tropics I was curious to see how things would go! He messaged me the other day saying the binding was floating a bit (see attached).

Can anyone recommend a Darwin-based luthier for a quick repair? It probably needs a check-up as well as having the binding reglued.

Thanks

Geoff

[kiwigeo]

Probably more a case of the wood moving rather than the hide glue. Darwin this time of year is like living in a steam bath.

If the hide glue has failed then I'd suspect might have been left in the sun

What's the finish on that guitar?

[hepikohetaniwha]

It’s shellac - French polished with ye olde pumice pore fill… another thing I’m curious to see the performance of in the tropics!

[Trevor Gore]

You could try Jim Scofield, Darwin Strings and see if he is interested. Jim has been a frequent contributor to the forum.

[kiwigeo]

Think this is Jim's website: https://darwin-guitar-repairs.myfreesites.net/gallery

[Taffy Evans]

Hi, this thread brings back memories. I was doing repairs and building stringed instruments in Alice Springs for 28 years and it was a concern of mine when sending instruments to customers in the "top end" in Darwin and Katherine about the high environmental difference between the two locations.
I only had one issue that caused me grief, it was that when I returned an acoustic guitar to Darwin, the pickup [undersaddle] would stop working properly when it worked fine for me. What I found was that the slight swelling of the timbers would pinch the piezo strip and/or the saddle in the saddle slot causing bad contact. Eased the fitting and solved the problem.

Oh, I did have one guitar I built for a lady in Katherine who complained her guitar was badly affected by moisture. She told me that during a recent flood, she put the guitar, in its case, on top of the wardrobe for safety only to find that it had been floating between the top of the wardrobe and the ceiling. That was a challenging repair. It would have been cheaper to build a new guitar, but she insisted on keeping the old guitar.
Cheers Taff