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Well, I acquired this guitar last night and it's in pretty rough shape. I looked it over last night when I got it home. It's a Washburn D26S 12 string. It's a shame that it has been neglected for so long. The piece of wood on the top it really pretty. But I'm sure it must have been left under full tension forever and left in a storage unit, or a garage or something.

The bridge is pulled up at the rear. From what I can see inside, the front legs of the x brace are pulled off the top, one of the rear legs split at the x intersection, and some of the finger braces also have some separation from the top. The top is pretty sunken in front of the bridge and bellied up behind it (understandably). A straight edge on the frets gives about 1/8" over the bridge with the top in its present state.

I have decided to make the repairs with very low expectations. I figure I only paid $40 for the guitar, and if the repairs don't make it playable, I've gained experience and 12 tuning machines. My question is, is the top salvageable? What is the best way to undergo this? Remove the back and go from there? Or the front? It has simple binding/purfling on the front and just binding on the back.

Again, I realize this isn't a top-shelf historically significant guitar, but I would like to try, and at the very least gain some repair experience.

Thank you

Darrin

Project!
Nice find for $40, every if you have to re-top.

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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.

Never a shortage of projects Colin . It would be nice if I could reclaim this one from the dead.

Darrin : Since part of your plan is to gain experiance I would suggest you take the back off and proceed from there. I would think you should be able to save that top.Let us know how you make out and please post some pictures along the way. Good luck.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I will definitely post pictures. I was just reading through some posts on removing the back. I do have a few questions. I am going to sand/scrape the finish off the back prior to applying heat. I would guess the finish is nitrocellulose lacquer, in that this guitar was built between 1978 and 1986. Is there a way to test/know?

Should I remove the neck? The heel of the neck will be in the way of routing off the bindings at that point. Or should I rout close and then remove then with a chisel from there. Obviously I would like to limit the work to what needs to be done.

Thank you for your help.

Darrin

Darrin, a couple of quick comments. I had a Martin D12-28 that had some similar issues and while I didn't do the work, here is what was done

Remove and reset the neck. Your comment that the straightedge is 1/8 above the bridge says that it is overset, at least with the top geometry. It should be just touching the top of the bridge. Either way, it should come off since you will probably have to rout out the back binding when you remove the back.

Mine didn't have any broken braces, but it is possible to fix them thru the sound hole. I did have the bridgeplate removed and replaced in mine (again, thru the sound hole). If you can figure out cauls and clamps it would make it a whole lot easier if you didn't have to remove the back. I have found that super strong magnets are sometimes easier to work with than deep clamps.

If you do pull the back, consider adding a third tone bar if it doesn't already have three. Many older 12's had very similar bracing to a six, yet they have about 50% more top tension. Taylor uses slightly thicker top plates and three tone bars on theirs, I follow suit with the ones that I have built. This should help with the belly.

Pulling and reguling the bridge is easy - again, it had to be done to mine.

I don't see anything that cannot be repaired through the soundhole, including adding a third tone bar.
I believe this model has laminated back and sides, which is another reason you don't want to remove the back.

You can see if acetone will dissolve it, but I am pretty sure it won't. I think the finish is catalyzed polyester, which is virtually impossible to strip with normal chemicals.

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John

Freeman and John, thank you for your replies.

If I am to accomplish this through the soundhole...regarding the detached braces, is it best to remove them entirely and clean the glue surfaces, then reattach?

It doesn't seem as if reattaching the braces alone will bring up the sink around the soundhole. How would I go about raising this area?

The bridge plate seems to still be firmly adhered, is it best to leave well enough alone in this case? Or should it be removed and replaced with one that would be close to the top radius, whatever that should be? There is quite a bulge in this area.

If adding a third tone bar, is it best to split the middle of the two existing, or to add another one further down the leg of the x brace?

I think this situation is summarized by the saying "Most successes in life are due to experience. Most experience is the result of failures."

As long as I know what I'm doing isn't going to be the worst route to take, I'm willing to proceed and learn as I go, and repeat as necessary to get it right.

Thank you again.

Darrin

You don't have the back off of that yet?

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I wouldn't take the back off either. I've done many a repair like this through the sound hole. My guess is that even if you did take the back off you would still never get that deformation straightened out in front of the sound hole. Just reset the neck and re-glue the braces through the sound hole. You can make little jack type clamps out of turn buckles for the braces.

Of course for me it's a bit easy since I have really long skinny arms. I can reach all the way through to the back of a Dred.

I've never used a Bridge Doctor but it seems that those who have had good things to say about them. It's a last ditch effort IMO but it might work? IDK? http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... octor.html

I'll comment on the Bridge Doc since I did try one on my D12-28 before doing the other work. First, it did slightly reduce the belly, but not completely (I did not have any loose braces). Second, because I did not want to drill any holes through the bridge of a 30 year old Martin I used the kind with the little bolts that go through the pin holes, the strings thread through holes in the heads of the bolts. That cuts the break angle to almost nothing (I put them in the back holes which are the primaries on a Martin) - there was almost no drive to the top and it sounded terrible. There are many people that fell that because they limit the way the bridge rocks the top they are "tone killers" unless designed into the guitar (as Breedlove does). If you want to try a Doc, get the kind that bolts through the bridge itself. Just my $0.02.

Resetting the neck, regluing the bridge and a new bridge plate removed some of the belly on mine, setting the neck to compensate resulted in almost perfect action.

On your question about braces - when I built my OM sized 12 string I used 5/16 unscalloped X braces and tone bars and simply spaced the tone bars to allow for three instead of 2 in a basic OM layout. There are pics on Taylor's site on how they do the tone bars and I could prove one of mine.

As much as I want to dig into this and get going, I'm having to restrain myself and force myself to take my time and be patient.

Here are a few more pictures.
http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/k52 ... 1318005600
That is the treble side x brace in the upper bout. It is actually the leg that cracked. To me the pockets in the linings are too big and didn't provide any support. But I am not hugely experienced, so your opinions will be well-heeded.

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/k52 ... 1318005363

This is the bass side upper bout.
http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/k52 ... 1318005567

This one is interesting to me. It looks like the bridge patch is two separate pieces. with a joint right about where the saddle would be. Though you can't see it very well in this picture, the second piece, nearer to the sound hole is a very poor fit as far as butting up to the legs of the x brace.
http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/k52 ... 1318005340

You can see it better in this picture.
http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/k52 ... 1318005061

Seeing this, I am thinking that it would be best to remove the bridge plate and make a single piece of the proper size and fit. What is your feeling on this? I was reading up on repairing a badly bellied Martin and this was one of the major components of the repair.

Again, is it best to try to re-glue the braces without removing them, and just get as good a glue joint as possible? Wouldn't this pose a problem if this is anything but hide glue?

Would you recommend hydrating the instrument before attempting any repairs to see if the sink in the top comes up at all?


Darrin

Hard to say, but I think that 'seam' on the bridge patch is actually just the edge of an overlay someone put on it in the past.

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Jim Hansen

A short update and thank you with some pictures.

I decided to heed John Arnold's advice and try to do it all through the soundhole, remembering this was about gaining repair experience too.

I spent about a week trying to humidify the guitar somewhat. It was in a storage unit when I bought it, and our summers here are well over 100 degrees with very little humidity.

I made various clamps and watched/read as much about this as I could. Overall I couldn't be happier with the progress. I still have some things to do, and I will update those as I complete them.

I definitely will be filling in the gaps in the lining under the x brace legs and the UTB, as well as capping the x brace.

Thank you everyone who offered advice and words of wisdom born of experience.

Darrin