Official Luthiers Forum!

I say go for it. I think Irving Sloane would understand and wouldn't have a problem with this.

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Another day, another dollar.

I agree that it does seem strange for the son to want to change his fathers only existing steel string that was a present but as the guitar is of no real historical value i don't think there are any ethical issues.
The idea of documenting the work is very exciting and I would consider approaching a publisher before starting the work. Could be called "Steel String Re-construction". Outlining all the faults with the original and rectifying them would be an intersting, original book.
Good Luck!

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

The customer is always right, but I would try to convince the customer to leave it the way it is. I'm sure that guitar means a lot to him and he wants to have a playing guitar but that guitar means a lot to a lot of other people myself included and really is a historic object.

Has he been playing it all along or just wants to start playing it?

Considering all the modifications that are needed to the neck, I would remove it and build a new one using the same type materials and in a similar style. The old neck could be preserved intact and kept safe. The "new" guitar could be made more functional for it's owner, who if at a later date desired to reverse the changes would be able to. One goal of conservatorship is to make any modifications reversible, and I think making a new neck would allow this. How to have your cake and eat it too!

What Clay said.

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

If a guitar is kept behind glass for protection and display, is it still a guitar? The number one reason to build a guitar is to play and hear it play. I believe that the modifications to be made will allow this instrument to serve it's purpose (and presumably Irving Sloan's original purpose for it).
Todd, I am sure you will document the process and serve history in that way. I think modification is good in this situation. Please post a documentary thread for the repair, Todd. Very cool project!

Todd,
I'm solidly in the group that believes the son has every right to make the
guitar his father built for him more playable. Building a replica or things like
removing the original neck complete and replacing it make the guitar much
less the one his dad built. And your plan is moderate and sensible to me.
I'd go forward as you two have agree.
Regards,

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Modifying the neck so completely makes the guitar much less the one his dad built. As I read it, to increase the width and change the cross section of the neck and the peghead angle a whole new neck will need to be made, the fingerboard will be saved, but pieces will be added to the sides of it to make it wider, the head plate removed, modified, and reused. Fingerboards are commonly replaced, so the only piece of unique Sloane workmanship that would remain is the head plate veneer.
I agree that the owner has a right to do with the guitar what he pleases. If he feels that his father got it so far wrong then perhaps he should have it modified. I would only argue for making the work reversible.
I have transmogrified enough nice old guitars to be willing to have someone else do a few too. It will help spread the guilt around a bit

I say, don't do anything to it.
Build him one that is like it,
but set up how he likes it.
I've regretted some work I did on some old electrics.
As a player I adjust to " the bad things" about guitars.
Does the guitar sound bad with the headstock angle?

Yes, this was the first book I got on guitar building, too. I still use the clamps and the purfling cutter now and then...

I agree that the funny neck joint, reinforcement, headstock angle etc. are not optimal, but seen in the context of the time it was built, the builder and his background, the information available at the time, and the impact the book had on subsequent builders and so on, those could be the very things that makes this guitar interesting, as a piece of musical instrument history.

The main purpose of a musical instrument should be as a tool for making music, so even if this one has historical significance, there is no reason this guitar could not be that, with minimum (or reversible) intervention. I'm with Clay; make a new neck. Its will probably go faster (it would for me, anyways), and more importantly, you won't have to be remembered as the guy who ruined Sloane's one and only steel string... Bad Karma!

Remember the first rule: "Do no harm"

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Todd,

I would like to suggest that you consider taking video as part of your documentation. Have fun!

Steve

Thats interesting. I liked Clay's idea so far the best if the restoration must go on but was thinking to myself that it would be impossible to separate that neck joint. I tried it, on the very first guitar I ever built right out of Sloanes book and there was no way that neck was going to steam off. So I sawed it off and converted it to bolt on.

Curious to know if you know how some one reset that neck? Did Sloane himself do it? Was it rejoined in the same way?

Musical instruments have been modified for hundreds of years. Sometimes it is to make the new music accessible to them and sometimes at the whim of the owner. Lutes have been especially prone to this, and conservators often puzzle over what is original, and what has been changed. Sometimes they change something , thinking they are "restoring" it to original, only to discover that they in fact have made a mistake and changed it from the original, and wish to change it back. That is the thinking behind making things reversible.
Sloane's guitar is not a masterwork worthy of the veneration of a fine Cremona violin. However, from what people have posted on this forum, it has obviously influenced many budding luthiers, and because of this deserves some consideration. Today it would be nice to have the guitar playable for the maker's son. Tomorrow is might be nice to have it back in it's original condition, with all it's faults and foibles.

For me, reversibility is less important. The notoriety of this instrument stems directly form an influential publication where its construction methods were published in detail. Future generations will be able to read all they need to know about how it was constructed originally. Should the book itself be lost to the ages, so to would this particular instrument's fame; by the time that happens, the civilization of the future will not need to look solely at this guitar to glean how 20th century steel string guitars were constructed (nor should they).

In my opinion, a thoughtfully detailed publication about this instruments flaws and the correction of them would serve to enhance the story of this guitars influence on the craft.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

No question.

If the son were to commission a copy to include improvements to address any structural issues and have that set up to suit his own playing preference, he would have the best of both worlds in look and feel, and the world would be richer for retaining the original.

Regardless of its considered significance today, the very fact that particular steel string guitar, warts and all, stands as inspiration for, and the product of perhaps the 'first' "how to" books written in the world on the subject of building such an instrument, it represents the only 'tangible' kick off point for the revival of our craft. Therefore that guitar, as it stands today, retains real potential to be appreciate for its historic significance by everyone at sometime in the future.

I feel that guitar should probably have its strings slackened off and be left to be appreciated in a new way because it has something no other instrument can ever have again, it was built by Irving Sloane. I do get the point about the son having right to do what he chooses with this guitar, but what of his son, etc, etc..I don't think this guy could live to regret 'not' having any changes made, but see lots of potential with the alternative regardless of who does the work and how well it is done.

Cheers

Kim