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My mate was given this peculiar thing. It seems to be a Hawaiian-style guitar from the 30s, meant to be played lap-style I guess. I found a few pics of one, the only one I can find and name searching reveals beggar all.
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/1_front.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/2_back.jpg
It's had a hard life, it's dry and crispy and been bodged up. I'm going to try and getting it somewhere near playable as a normal guitar, without expecting miracles.
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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Story so far:
Splits top & back
Fretboard concave
Bent tuner
Missing fret
Fretboard end damaged
Worst of all is the bridge, someone drilled for string pegs and bolloxed it up. Strings are meant to hang from the tailpiece. Which is another thing, they strings need loops at the ends, not the ferrules - praps I can remove them from normal strings.
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/3_head.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/4_bridge.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/5_tail.jpg
Basic plan - sort neck out, splits, check tailblock etc. Make a new bridge. Intonation seems miles off (as it didn't matter for the intended use I suppose they didn't worry). Figure out how best to position a saddle for intonation.
Leaving it beaten up & lived in, no refin or anything like that. Though I think the back & sides were quite a bit darker when new.
Today's effort -
Frets out
Fixed a split in the fretboard
Sanded board straight/flat. Probably leave it flat rather than add a slight radius.
There's a zero fret and wooden nut. There's not much to hold a zero fret in place, lot broken and it's dry & very chippy. Probably cut that off, make a small ledge and put a bone nut or buffalo horn if I can find a nice dark brown bit.
Got the bridge off. It's two-piece, the saddle holder 'ramp' bit and the base. It's made of pear stained black hence pale underneath
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/6_nut_off.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/7_bridge_off.jpg
Cheers, it must be for steel strings because the tailpiece studs wouldn't work with nylons. The tuners must normally sit with the heads pointing upwards to suit lap style, the action is pretty dang high.
Some long time ago (looking at the screws & patina etc) someone switched around the tuner plates, I noticed the "low E/A" ones have small holes... bass E & A wouldn't fit. They either didn't realise it was meant for lap style or thought they were wrong or something.
Then sometime more recently someone bodged the bridge, put 3 nylon treble strings on and realised afterwards that bass ones wouldn't fit the tuner holes...
Guess I'll have to drill the two small holes out, unless the guy decides to keep it lap style, then the tuner plates can be put back as they were originally.
Everything delayed with new pup and general mayhem in the house but finally got some stuff done.
Been hydrating the thing slowly, which worked well - some big ol' gaps closed up nicely, no splints needed.
5 splits in top & bottom got cleaned out with oxalic acid.
Made a cross-routing fixture for the bridge, and nut slots and what have you.
Made a brace for inside the body under the bridge, and started the bridge base.
Broke out the hot glue gun and made a soundhole clamp to suit the stepped bridge. The bottom bar pivots so the thing'll fit in, old guitar string through a hole in one end pulls it against a bump stop to align it.
Cracks glued up, cleats made & glued in, bridge brace glued in.
Ground an ancient set of decent pincers into fret nippers. My purpose-bought ones seem not to be quite man enough, this is decent high-carbon steel and cost nothing.
The back & sides are very faded out (big difference vs under the tailpice string plate) making the black neck look a bit odd. And it's some sort of varnish. So off it came, will redo it in celly and then beat it up a bit so it looks OK.
Got some nice bronze fretwire (originals were brass).
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/8_cross_rout_jig.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/9_bridge_brace.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/10_soundhole_clamp.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/11_cleats.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/12_fret_nipper.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/13_stripped.jpg
Also, for Hawaiian lap steel, you's surely have a very tall nut to get the strings 1cm above the fingerboard, with no need for a zero fret.
Cheers chaps. The bridge was fixed, its the original one for sure. Going to leave the part holding the saddle free for intonation sake. Re the nut I'd say this was pretty cheap and poss early days for these things, they just made the action way high.
Thinking I might see if the owner fancies a burst on the top, might alter the shape visually and reduce the weirdness..
Hup, zombie thread..
Been doing bits but slowly, the guy I'm doing this for is a mate and it's on a 'as & when' basis, but time passed faster than it should have.
Planed the fretboard down with an ancient £4 wooden jack, then steamed it off which was quick & easy after thinning.
That showed this mark left by someone that hasn't seen light for 80+ years, meaning jointed/prepped surface. Like a ghostly signature-
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/15_ghost.jpg
Made an ebony board and added markers, there weren't any originally, and Jescar wire. It sort of simulates the original brass frets, but will need ageing.
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/17_fretboard.jpg
There's no truss rod so I added a carbon fibre tube with a titanium rod and a home-made dowel (didn't have enough Ti..), epoxied inside-
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/19_neck_reinforce.jpg
The new bridge is underway so though it time to colour stuff in.
First go was a cock-up. I did it at night, added some red to the mix but in daylight it was too red. Once in a while with trans finishes the lighting in my place catches me out.
It came off quickly with acetone soaked kitchen towels and as a bonus the rubbing action added an old dirty look, actually dirtier in real life but that yellow thing in the sky came out and made the pics look cleaner-
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/20_before_final_paint.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/21_before_final_paint.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/22_before_final_paint.jpg
Take 2. Decided a different look. The back & sides have a small bit of red added to richen up the mahogany.
Clearcoat soon, finishing the bridge and then ageing the paint & new parts and we should be done. Looks like it should be playable (was a lap steel with an action high enough to park your tractor under) -
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/23_back_paint.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/24_head.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/25_front_paint.jpg
Wrapping this up, it's about done and surprised to find it doesn't sound entirely terrible.. could do with finding some different loop-end strings but done for now and off to my mate. Though I might add something behind the bridge for a stronger break angle, it originally had one.
Whoever designed it didn't give much of a crap, although it was meant for lap/slide the bridge plate position is off, the tailpiece spacing wrong but my mate wanted to keep that.
Got some new heads and aged them as the old ones were different each site and toast anyway-
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/heads_before.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/heads_after.jpg
last pics
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/26_done1.jpg
http://www.alleykat.co.uk/images/stuff/marks_acoustic/26_done2.jpg