366/12 IN NEED OF CARE

[jingle_jangle]

These photos show a 366/12 which was found in Paraguay, which is being given the full treatment in my shop. The guitar was 95% complete and what was there was all original, but as is common in 3rd world countries, things get neglected until they fail to function anymore...it's mostly because of lack of parts supply and knowledgeable fixers.

Most of the fixing in Paraguay is between companies wishing to do business there, and the government...

The guitar was originally AZ and needed general restoration; paint poor, varnish cracked and missing, hardware tarnished (comb missing), electrics grungy and crackly, frets worn, etc. Worst defect was a split in the top running from top to bottom and end to end, right at the top (bass) edge of the neck. The split varied in width and ran a bit crookedly. It would have to be repaired and solidified, before anything else could be attended to.

I stripped the guitar and sanded it carefully to #320. This revealed the split a good deal more clearly, and also proved that the guitar was original, with no patching or bad repairs having been made in the past.





In order to clean the crack (which had years of grunge embedded) and prepare it for insertion of a maple stave to solidify the top and provide a basis for the refinish, I decided to open the crack to an even .125" and use a trimmed .125 maple piece to fill it. This could not be done with a router, as the neck gets in the way. It could be done on a mill, but only with a couple hours' setup and with the use of a special 1/8" X 4" long carbide cutter, which is a special order (and very pricey) item of limited utility.

The table saw, with a brand new blade, would do the trick. But first, due to the neck and fretboard standing proud, the body would have to be blocked up so it could slide upside down on the table saw...





3/4 MDF was attached to the body with screws through the neck pickup recess and underneath the bridge plate. These are both invisible once the guitar was assembled, and in any event would be filled with maple splinters and surfaced and painted over. The second MDF block was attached wth permacell tape to the body. Then 1/4" masonite rails were attached with permacell to the MDF blocks. An area in the center of the body was left without blocks so I could align everything and see what I was doing when I set it up on the saw.





It was determined that the blade height would have to be set at 2.2" in order to cut through the body and leave the back plate and binding intact.



Here's the body on the saw, with the blade entering the split, and then coming out the other end, having cut a perfectly-straight and smooth .125" groove, to be filled with a maple stave.







The maple stave is permacelled to a bigger piece of maple to run through my precision thickness sander. It is sanded to precisely .125". The Titebond glue would cause it to swell a bit for a nice tight fit.



The stave is separated from the block, and checked for fit in the body groove:







The two hollow areas in the body are relieved from the stave, it's glued into place, weighted, and allowed to set up overnight on a granite surface plate to assure flatness.







Next, the stave will be sanded, and the guitar will be de-fretted and the fretboard sanded. Then it's paint prep time. Meanwhile, all of the hardware has been replated and is being catalogued and readied for re-installation a week or two down the line.

[sloop_john_b]

Very impressive Paul! I hope a fresh Azureglo finish is in its future.

[jingle_jangle]

In the very near future, JB.

[sloop_john_b]

In the very near future, JB.

Cool! Is this one yours, or for a customer?

[admin]

Paul: What a fantastic post and an excellent example of why RickResource moved on to a new format.

[jingle_jangle]

JB: It is for a customer who may choose to reveal himself here.

Peter: It is much easier to post pictures here than in the old format...takes a bit of work to put them onto photobucket, but worth it in the result! I put most of my stuff onto photobucket, anyway...

[ozover50]

An excellent documentary, Paul. Words would have meant little to me but the pics say it all.

Looking forward to the rest of the restoration!

[jps]

Excellent! Are you going to make a comb?

[ozover50]

Who's the dweeb in your avatar, JPS??

[jingle_jangle]

I have a stainless steel comb made by a machinist...

Aitch, stop picking on Jafra, er, Jeffrey...

[jps]

What, you guys jealous of all the hair I USED to have?

I was 21 at the time.

[ozover50]

Why are you asking Paul if he's making a comb, Jeff...... neither of you need one!

[jps]

Good point, Aitch!

[johnallg]

Paul, totally fascinating. I love seeing seemingly insurmountable problems get innovative solutions. I can see just setting up the guitar location for the saw cut had to be VERY precise and no doubt took a bit of time.

I'm also looking forward to more on this one! Thanks for sharing.

[jingle_jangle]

John:

When I upgraded myself from an amateur "thing-maker" in HS and college (back when dinosaurs and Raquel Welch ruled the earth), two things were essential to learn. One was a very general thing called "patience" with tools, processes and objects which were largely beyond my control. The other was a specific feature of this "patience", which was the immutable fact that often a setup will take an hour for a cut that takes less than thirty seconds.

Patience with these setups, in design and construction, yield predictable, consistent results that do the project justice by keeping things nice and crisp, the process proceeds (instead of a lot of backpedalling in order to correct goof-ups like filling a too-wide crack...) and the reward is consistent.

Young, inexperienced people (I see a lot of them in my job) oftentimes are shocked to realize that positive results when one performs manual tasks are not as instantaneous as the rewards in the video games to which many are addicted. I'm from a pre-video game generation (Lone Ranger and Sky King), and the "slowing down" of my own processes was a difficult transition for me. I see every day how tough it is for my students. Some "get it" and see immediate results, most are a bit slow about it, and others never catch on.

By the time I was in my late 20s, I had developed my faculties and skills to the point where building most things was easy for me, and embarked upon a number of projects that I played the dual roles of designer and prototyper. These ranged from cars to toys. Somewhere along the way I got to be really fast at dreaming and building stuff. I missed one vital step in the process, which I didn't integrate until a few years ago. I had somehow taught myself that the first time I did something was the only time. (Probably because I was being paid to do things only once, and well, period.) A few years ago, I learned that oftentimes going back and doing things a second, third or even fourth time, brought improvements in quality and taught me the rewards of yet another form of patience with myself, my tools, and my workpiece.

Several of my refinish customers have guitars or basses that have been stripped and refinished more than once, until the job satisfied me, but of course were only charged for one refinish.

I'll never tell who.

Some things we learn later in life!