More Strippage

On Sunday, the 29th, I spent a lot of time stripping the top. I'd put a coat of stripper on, close the thing in the new basement bathroom--which has an exhaust fan--and set the timer for fifteen minutes or so. By the end of the day I had most of the top stripped.  The "sunburst" finish meant that the paint at the edge of the instrument was thicker, and took several more coats to get down to the wood.

I did try to send another picture of the top in  mid-strip, but I must have mis-addressed it. (I'm using my wife's iphone now.) Anyway, the top is now pretty much stripped, though it is somewhat blotchy looking. There is a fair amount of general clean-up to be done as well--the binding is messy looking, the line around the bridge needs cleaning, and there are still quite a number of spots on the top which need to be attended to.

On the positive side though, I think it'll look pretty cool once it's got a coat of some kind of finish on it. This guitar will be all about funky, but I think it will wear its repairs well.

Strippers!

I got some new stripper--full strength stuff--and it did the job. I started on the area where the pickguard had been, which was covered with a thick layer of some sort of glue. It took several coats of the stuff to get it to this point, but I am satisfied that the job will be easier from this point. The treble bout took about an hour total time. Not bad. It's interesting that there appears to be a shadow from the pickguard below the layer of paint, suggesting that this same oddball pickguard was on the guitar previous to the paint job. Could it possibly be original?

The Chisel

Chisel came over last night and helped me glue in the bridge plate. This morning I removed the clamps and it looked great. The top is flat with all the braces glued down tight. The new bridge plate looks pretty white next to that aged wood, but who's going to see it?

At about 6:00 am, I put a layer of safest stripper on a corner of the top. A half hour later it seemed that the stripper had not done much--maybe it's too old. I have had the same bottle for years. Tonight I'll try some fresh stuff. I've decided to strip the top before I put the bridge on, and I want to put the bridge on while the back is still off...I think...

Bridge plate blues

I knew all along I'd need a new bridge plate, since the old one was split in two. Last night I made a template, and then cut out a rough idea of what I might install. Then I made a prototype, which may just wind up to be the final thing, with a little tweaking.

Here it is just sitting in the guitar, unglued. It looks massive, I admit, but the spruce beneath the bridge is in tough shape. It was drastically distorted from the force of the screws being tightened in a misguided attempt to either fasten the bridge or lower the action. These screws went into a piece of wood inside which straddled the X-brace. Someone tightened the screws to the point where the bridge and bridge plate collapsed and split. A pro luthier may have cut out the old area under the bridge, and replaced it; my thought was that the instrument would still need a larger bridge plate, and I'd be taking on a huge headache for not a lot of payoff. So--I'll just go with the larger bridge plate.

The new plate will have to be bigger than the original for stability, and to help to flatten out the wrinkles that have become a part of the top. So, as big as this looks, it may well be necessary. Some final shaping will be done, but it won't end up much smaller than this prototype.

Inside job

Well, at last progress has been made. Probably the fact that my workroom is finished--the bench finally set up--is the reason that I can now get some work done in there. Last night I decided that the top cracks were closed as well as I'll ever be able to close them, so it was time to work on the braces.

The first thing to do was to glue down the tone-bar brace which I had loosened up in order to give those top cracks some wiggle room. I glued this down and let it sit for several hours. Hide glue dries quickly, and the batch I was working with seemed about as perfect as it could be. The brace was soon tight to the top. I may still need to cleat the cracks, but the brace itself acts as a cleat, holding the crack in place too. I will need to clean off some of that excess glue. I hope the crack doesn't re-open when it feels that moisture.

Earlier, I had grafted a piece of spruce onto the end of the broken X-brace. I suspect most real luthiers would probably have replaced the whole thing, but I wanted to re-use what I could from the original parts.

Gluing this piece back in place was a two part glue job. The X was the fulcrum of the broken piece. First, I glued the brace downwards from the X to the bottom bout. After that was dry, I glued and clamped the brace upwards from the X to the top bout.

This morning, after I unclamped the whole thing, the top plate was nice and flat, while the braces I glued on last night were tight to the wood.  Holding the neck block, I gave the top a tap, and for the first time, it made a nice musical, sonorous tone.

Previously a tap had produced a depressing cardboard thud. There's hope for this old dog.