Official Luthiers Forum!

Over the last year, I had the opportunity to restore a 1949 Martin D-28. When I received the guitar, it had been severely damaged in a flood and by another luthier, err..um wood butcher. The inside was covered with mold and mildew. On the inside of the top and under the mold was an 1/8" layer of hide glued that someone had graciously dumped into the top... maybe to strengthen loose bracing? It worked. Many areas of the guitar had been sanded down to paper-thin in some places.

With a lot of patience and a little help I was able to get this guitar cleaned up re-constructed. It is kind of like the 6 Million dollar man only this guitar sounds way better. I thought for sure the top was going to blow apart when I was finally able to string it up, but it held. I delivered it a week ago Friday and as far as I know, the top is still in one piece. Victory!


Happy Fats! Who knew??


Where did the binding go?


Sound post?


Thanks to David LaPlante for the Brazilian scraps to complete the graft.





There quite a few more photos on my blog.

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

Well done, Chris!!

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Nice one Chris.
My birth year too, hope they can fix me as well when I get into that state eventually!
Hmm.. come to think of it, I had a great hip replacement last year.. not BRW though..

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Well done. Far beyond my skillset.

Thanks guys, I used my card scraper so much on this project that I have lost it... it is literally missing now for a couple weeks. On the bright side, I am now able use a fork again.

I believe patience and attention are the keys to this type of project. Apply both liberally and you'll be fine.

Colin... if you ever need this type of restore you are really in trouble. Hope the hip works out... even if it is not made in Brazil.

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

Nice work. Curious, did the former owner/s sand the guitar out to paper thin in spots as you said? One of my customers has 2 old Martin guitars, I mean old, that he has completely destroyed like that, It's so sad to see. I built him a Spanish guitar and the last time I saw it, it had heavy gauge steal strings on it. *sighs* what some people do to poor innocent guitars

Any famous sigs on that top?

Wow!
Unbelievable!
Perfect job, imo.

Thanks again guys.

The guitar was sanded to crazy thinness by whoever Happy Fats had work on it (presumably in Louisiana). If you checked my blog for additional pictures, you can see that the bridge was replaced and something was done to replace or shorten the fretboard exposing the rosette.... weird.

There are/were some signatures of note. Fats Domino and D.L Menard (the cajun Hank Williams).

I'm sure some of the other signatures were/are someone, but they sig's were cleaned off when I received it and those photos were provided by the current owner.

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

That is a piece of music history! Happy Fats and the Rayne Bo Ramblers were the real deal back in the Cajun-Western Swing years of the 30's-50's and were very popular in the SW Louisana/East Texas dance club circuit. How did you end up with that guitar? There are people in the Lafayette/Rayne/Crowley/Eunice/Mammou/Ville Platte, Louisiana area who would be very interested in hearing and seeing your story about the guitar. Some will be furious that the signatures were erased but the customer is always right. I recognized the names of a few obscure Cajun musicians on it. Glad you were able to rescue it!

Mark,

Any info like what you posted is greatly appreciated. I'd love to add some history of the guitar to go along with the restoration. It is a 1949, so, it may have been a later addition to Leroy LeBlanc's (Happy Fats) collection?

For the safety of my customer, I'll just say this... a man in southern Illinois purchased the guitar... and buys a lot of old Martin guitars through Gruhn's and auctions. I have known him for a couple years and did this restoration for him.

Let the ragin' Cajuns know that it was because of a flood (in their area) that the guitar had to go through this process... not just another dang Yankee destroying history!

chris

_________________
Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

Looks like they didn't have the old herringbone rosette anymore that year. Nice job.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

Nick, you can see the herringbone rosette in the first picture above. I hadn't noticed until your comment, but, the rosette appears different in the finished photo... it is a light/camera effect. Probably due to reducing size to view on the forum. I'll put the original back out there.

_________________
Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...