FIRST INSTALLMENT--1968 335 RESTORATION

ozover50 · Post by **ozover50** » Sat May 21, 2005 3:42 am

So Paul - are you working on the 335 this weekend? I'm sure I heard some tinkering going on out the back!

dale_fortune · Post by **dale_fortune** » Sat May 21, 2005 5:32 am

Paul That is correct, the amount of time doing the prep work will show in the finished product. A poor sanding job will show every scratch. Not knowing your past experience with re-fins and crack repair let me offer this info. Using a basic clothes iron and a wet/damp cotton cloth, (100% cotton with no dye in it) you can fix this warped/cracked top. 1st make up some flat maple pieces to go inside and on top of each crack, this can be tricky to get them inside the sound hole. Using small C clamps and bridge clamps do a test set up to make sure you have things in place and under controll. Now using the iron on it's highest setting, with the damp cloth on the face covering the cracks, iron the top of the body in the area where it's warped. This takes awhile to get the maple up to a temp. where it will be plyable. Use a spray mist water bottle to keep the cloth damp. When the maple is very hot to the touch and the heat has penatrated the thickness of the top, it's time to install your flat maple braces and clamps. The heat softens the cellulose in the wood cells and allows it to be reformed to a degree. Leave the clamps on over night, and you will have nice pretty flat top to work with. Now is the time to glue the cracks. If you don't have an iron, infra red heat lamps will work. The kind fast food places use to keep the grease hot in the french fries. The are available at most all hardware stores. When this guitar is all but final sanded you can use a mild wood bleach to restore the whiteness to the maple, if you are going for the Autumglo, otherwise a nice Amber toner in the Lacquer over the sealer will give it that vintage look. Looking foward to your pictures and progress. Wow Howard that's quite nice, I like the Schooner
very precise work.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sat May 21, 2005 7:56 am

Dale, thank you very much for this contribution. Your many years' background and extensive experience certainly show! I have a good deal of experience with this sort of steaming of maple. Before I began rebuilding and refinishing guitars, I restored two "shoebox" Mercury woodies in the early '70s. As you know from your own woodie experience, the shoeboxes (a '49 and a '50) both used steam-bent, laminated, microwave-cured maple pieces for all the verticals due to the extreme curvature of the wood. In fact, the manufacturing of these pieces was the first peacetime use of microwaves to "cook" anything--in this case, glue!

The maple is already at its original whiteness; no bleaching was required. I try to avoid bleaching because it raises the grain (of course!) and turns the top .015" or so of the maple into mush, which must then be sanded down to expose nice fresh hardwood. The sanding dust from this operation is very irritating to skin, nose, eyes, etc. Fortunately, I can avoid it this time.

Except for the cracks, the guitar is in very, very good condition. There are no dents or nicks, no scratches, and the buckle rash did not penetrate the thick topcoats. The worst of it was the fret wear, which will of course be taken care of with the new frets.

The Autumnglo sample which David and I agreed upon is a nicely-mellowed example, so it will have a wonderful amber cast to the center of the 'burst.

xcoyle · Post by **xcoyle** » Sat May 21, 2005 12:48 pm

Wow, I’ve been on vacation this week, love seeing the guitar come back to life. A shame about the hairline cracks, but it sounds like this will not be an issue in the end result. Better than a major neck repair at some point, which was my worse fear. Seeing the headstock stripe, that is satisfying. Paul you are a master.

Paul, have you ever thought about doing a summer seminar (two or four weeks) on guitar refinishing/repair at the school. I would definitely sign up (that would be vacation well spent).

dannyboy · Post by **dannyboy** » Sat May 21, 2005 2:10 pm

I agree a 100% with you David!
Paul, I'm absolutely amazed at the work you're doing; I find this very educating. I did not know that you were a luthier...from what I was reading in the other threads, I tought you were a graphic artist of some sort!!!
I will be watching this thread with a passionate interest...keep on truckin', Paul!!

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sat May 21, 2005 2:38 pm

You guys are quite kind.

I do not consider myself a luthier. I will have achieved that goal when I've completed a couple of hollow-bodied guitars of my own design, from scratch. The plan is to begin in May of 2006.

Dale Fortune (who posted above in this thread) is a true luthier who spent a number of years at Rickenbacker before heading north to Oregon. He builds beautifully-crafted original guitars. I hope he will continue to add his insights and his own unique approach to this thread as it develops.

This will then become a story of resurrecting this guitar, with lots of information and technical side trips. It will then serve more than its purpose of restoring an old Rickenbacker. It will be an educational resource.

Dan, education is what I do now--I manage the technical education facility, faculty, and curriculum at a large international design university. Prior to this I did lots of other things.

dale_fortune · Post by **dale_fortune** » Sat May 21, 2005 7:51 pm

Thanks Paul, that's a great compliment you've given. The reason I got into this business was Doc Kaufmann's fault. I took my 1966 Gibson 330 to him cause the 3 way switch had a problem. He was going to cut a large hole in the back to make it easy to work on. I stopped him before he had the chance to do so, I took it home and spent several hours fixing it the hard way. After that,1 thing led to another and I was fixing and painting guitars for others. But I craved to learn how to build instruments. Thanks to Rick/Electro I learned quite well, thank you F.C. and J.H.

harvey49 · Post by **harvey49** » Fri May 27, 2005 6:41 pm

So Paul, eagerly awaiting the next installment, how's the project going?

Ron

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 8:34 am

Here we are; project interrupted so I could complete the finals rush here at the U.

Seven new pictures. Sanded a whole lot over the last couple of weeks; uncovering some nice clean maple. The headstock and neck laminations are particularly nice. A few more hours' work and we should be ready to begin the refret. Following that, a couple of coats of vinyl sealer and it'll be time to mix some colors and spray up some chips.

Note in the first picture the old trick of using toothpicks to fill holes. David is sending me the hardware so I can determine whether any holes will need re-filling before beginning the refinish job. Depending upon if there are any that show, we'll have to decide on a strategy at that time.

I'm fairly busy for the next few weeks, what with several refins now in the works (two for Forum members) and three full restorations, too. Sometime around mid-July, things should open up a bit. Then I'll be working on setting up some finishing tutorials, if anyone is interested.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 8:37 am

Here are the picture links:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/jingle_jangle/DSC00263.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/jingle_jangle/DSC00265.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/jingle_jangle/DSC00266.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/jingle_jangle/DSC00267.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/jingle_jangle/DSC00268.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/jingle_jangle/DSC00269.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v693/jingle_jangle/DSC00270.jpg

ozover50 · Post by **ozover50** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:29 am

Looking really great, Paul. Sand on, dude!

harvey49 · Post by **harvey49** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:29 pm

Paul,
Have you ever stripped back a guitar, (like this one), to find heaps of bog and other nasties and decided it's not worth continuing? Or are you always optimistic you can work around the problems presented? Your second pic showing the sound hole, the body looks flat where it was cracked. Have you already done the "wedge and glue" thing? Because from this angle all looks fine.

Look forward to your next installment.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:15 pm

I can spot the degree of nastiness under a paint finish before I begin in almost every case. The reason for this is that repairmen who are inclined to bodge are seldom excellent finishers too. Result is a paint over job that reveals really bad stuff underneath. In this case, some weirdness was expected, else why refinish a beautiful burst in Jetglo? The only questions in my mind were: how much paint and how much damage?

Although our dear compadre Mr. Mondello has characterized this guitar as a "birdhouse", it is far from one.

As the body sits without paint, it is already flattening around the one major crack. I am going to steam/clamp this crack (as Dale Fortune suggested a couple of weeks ago) instead of wedging it, as the wood is settling in nicer than expected. We'll have a caul on the back when finished, which will be all but invisible.

I'm an optimist but not an incurable romantic. There are a lot of guitars out there that, but for sentimental value to the owners, would not be worth getting involved with. My own skills and facilities permit me to save nearly anything that's not already sawdust or termite feces, but projects like this are the most rewarding because they proceed at a reasonable pace and show dramatic results.

xcoyle · Post by **xcoyle** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:21 pm

Paul, I have been staring at the guitar for the last 20 minutes, I am in awe.

jonpaul · Post by **jonpaul** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:29 pm

Paul, Compliments from the East Coast (Va Beach, Va), your work is outstanding. I'm truly looking forward to seeing the end results for this guitar as well as the refin you are doing for me. A Master at work, that's what I say.