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Nice job Johny. Since it isn't a rare valuable guitar the bolt neck conversion is fine in my opinion. Mike

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Joan-Alexis,
I'm watching with great interest. I am very impressed with the way you brought the back and sides back together and fixed those issues. I am not qualified to comment on your bracing scheme for the top, but I personally have no problem with your conversion to the x-brace. I must say, however, that your re-set neck looks a little "cranked" to the treble side in your photo. And if I read you accurately, you are planning a conversion to a pinned bridge. I am not sure about that one. It'll probably work well with your x-brace scheme, but you're going to have holes in your top, so there's no going back.........

I kind of like that funky old tailpiece. I believe I'd have tried to work with that. But it's not my guitar. It's yours. And you are showing me some real craftsmanship here. We will leave the restoration ethics issues to others.

Patrick

I had some more time to work on the old guitar.

I put a light coat of amber shellac to the inside of the box.


And then sanded the upper bout flat before closing the box.




To be continued in next post.

Next came the daunting task of binding the box.

I used this jig that I bought from Kenneth Michael.


And it did a pretty good job actually. I cleaned the channel with my veritas mini rabbet plane.


Glue up. Ebony binding with BWB purfling and a stripe of bloodwood veneer, to tie up with the original rosette.



Things are going pretty smoothly actually.

I'm currently working on the headstock and will soon start shaping the bridge. I will post updates when it's worthy.

Thanks for looking.

I am really glad I subscribed to this post at the beginning. I'm learning a lot, and have a similar vintage broken parlor guitar that I have dreams of some day restoring (or really, renovating, because I don't care if it retains it's historical structure). I think you're doing a brilliant job of marrying old to new. Can't wait to see your new bridge!

Some of these parlors are so badly damaged that the only thing I'm concerned about when restoring them is making them playable. There's a lot that needs to be done to them and it's impossible to keep them "original".

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I love working on these older guitars and seeing them brought back to life . Sweet work !

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Excellent job so far.
I am most impressed.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Alright, some more progress.

Gap filling with white glue + black pigment.


Drilling tuner holes.


I cut the slots with a coping saw, then cleaned the slots with the bosch.


Shaping the ramps.


Done headstock.


To be continued.

I drilled through the UTB for accessing the trussrod.


Glued the fretboard on.


Then began working on the bridge blank. First cutting to line.


Here is my stupidly simple jig for routing the saddle slot.


Template.

I used the old Nicholson rasp I bought a few weeks back to shape the wings.


Then worked on the curvature of the blank itself.




With this end result:

Finally for today, I sanded and polished the fretboard, then knocked the edge off the fretslots with a triangle file.


Then hammered the frets in.

Looking finer than frog fur!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Amazing!

Love that bridge! (Exquisite work all round of course)

Thanks!

I've been sanding the body back to bare wood today. I should be able to put some finish on this in the next few weeks.

Thanks again for the comments and help, I really appreciate it.

J-A

Please keep the pics coming as you have them. And a video of it being played when complete would be great to see.
Beautiful work.

I also like the looks of the bridge but am a bit confused. I saw on your templates what looked like holes for tying the strings on but you removed all of the material in that area. How do the strings terminate? Or are you using a tailpiece?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks!

Yes I realize the paper template is confusing. It is going to be a standard pinned bridge. The dots on top are there to mark the center of the holes for the bone pins. The other dots that I put on the rear of the bridge was just to align things when I was drawing it.

Got it. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I really dig the bridge too, clever way of doing it also.

A follow-up of the progress on this thing,

Shaped a new heel cap.


Sanded everything to bare wood.


I also dyied this little birch piece to make it less noticeable.


For the finish, I started with brushing a few coats of amber shellac to warm things up. I also dissolved a batch of blond shellac (shown here) that I will use further on to build the finish.

First coat on the top.


There is some bearclaw on this top. Interesting.


The back is now alive.


And then the neck.


I'm done for today. In the next weeks, I will build coats by brushing on the shellac, sanding back, brush-on more, etc.

Thanks for looking!

It's progressing well, I think.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Nice work. It's one thing taking wood and turning it into a guitar. But taking trash and making it playable is awesome.