This one came in recently, the classic "too many monkeys jumping on the bed" resulting in the breaking of expensive instruments.
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It is a nice oud, worth fixing i think, but the top is quite messed up, no major breaks or cracks, but the top has come loose from the bass side. The worst part is that the top has kind of potato chipped severely and sucked into the side, deforming the side outwards as the top warped down.
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The whole top is as i said severely warped, more so than it appears in the pictures, my first inclination is to make a new top for it, copying the old one as well as i can, or perhaps just removing and rebracing this top. The thing is, while i feel that i am competent enough to do a nice job, the finer points of what makes a nice oud are out of my realm of experience, and i would prefer to at least get some advice from someone experienced with these types of instruments, or ideally refer the customer to someone who does this regularly. Anyone, particularly anyone near upstate NY have any pointers or want to take over a cool repair job?