Well it's been a while since I've posted so I thought I'd bring you up to speed on some ongoing projects...
Birney hollowbody:
This guitar was hand crafted Harry Birney of Wasaga Beach right here in Ontario. He certainly does fine work with a great choice of top quality materials! This one has a solid spruce top, birdseye maple back, sides and neck with an ebony fingerboard.
As you can tell, this particular guitar has some wiring issues! The owner was experiencing some hum with the stock Gibson Les Paul pickups so this will be rewired with some improved grounding in the circuit. More picks of this fine instrument coming soon!
1937 Slide Guitar:
It's great to find these old gems and bring them back to life for a deserving picker to enjoy once more. Very similar in construction to the old Stella and Harmony guitars, this one was once played quite vigorously as a lapsteel type slide guitar before being tucked away for the soundboard to warp.
This guitar is in need of a neck reset and bracing re-gluing/replacement. These guitars are a great way to keep the skills sharp as they were made entirely by hand and assembled with hide-glue.
The neck and soundboard required little effort to come off.
The old cross bracing became unglued in certain areas causing the one-piece solid top to adopt a rather unusual profile! On the left are the new cross braces (placed on for the picture) with an extra one added to the underside of where the fretboard ends. A slight radius was applied to the contact surface of each one. The picture on the right was taken just after the top was removed ~ you can see one of the broken top braces and one-piece solid back. These original spruce braces are in decent shape will be re-glued one at a time. More pics on a detailed post to follow.
1948 SS Stewart 7009:
This beautiful old archtop has a black painted solid spruce top with maple back & sides and a great herringbone binding. This was closet find made by the owner and after years of neglect it needed some TLC. Some of the inlays were popping up and the neck had a slight twist but fortunately the joint is solid and with the quality woods used this guitar is very repairable.
This guitar will also be fitted with a new bone compensated nut and period correct tuners.
Although brittle, this Brazilian rosewood fretboard will clean-up nicely. You can see the inlays lifting away which is due to their very thin construction.
After dressing the fretboard, some of the edges of the original inlays were sanded through, being only about as thick as your big toenail! They will be replaced with new vintage style inlays that are the proper thickness to last for decades to come. You can see here that the fretboard turned out quite well and is ready for refret.
Stay tuned!!
