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Any of you old guys remember the Gibson line of acoustics with Kasha fan bracing? Hadn't thought of them in years, but yesterday was asked to quote a repair job on a MK35.

The action was incredibly high on it as the neck joint was failing, the bridge was coming off, and the top was bellied badly right in the middle. It was BAD. The client hadn't played it since the 80's, having left it strung up to full pitch in the case in his damp basement for decades. It really smelled musty.

I couldn't get a mirror to check out the bracing pattern, but an image search on Google yielded some info... Guys, I am really loathe to jump into this one. Are they worth anything these days?

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

In their day the MK series Gibson was billed as "state of the art" and these guitars resulted from a brief collaboration between Kasha and Gibson. The bracing is unique, there is a plastic sound hole thing that I am forgetting what the proper name for it is, and they were made here in Michigan on Parsons street in Kalamazoo.

They do have their loyal following and one of our clients has one that was a high school graduation gift from his dad who by the way died a year and a week ago.

The people that have them or have had them tend to value them often because of sentimental reasons or because they tend to be pre-geezers who have a fondness for their pasts.

In terms of value it varies and of course it depends on who wants it too.

They suffer from the very same need for a neck reset as any old guitar does and they had dovetail joints as well. The bracing is unique but what resulted was frankly unimpressive IMO. These days because of their age it would be par for the course for the thing to need a neck reset, bridge reglue (possibly), and some loose braces addressed, and fret work. We call this the whole nine yards....

They were not bad guitars but not great ones either and often times what makes these MK series have value is that sentimental value to the individual and the scarcity of them too.

The MK series was an effort to build a better mouse trap and like many of these efforts it likely fell short.

Does it have the funny looking curved neck block? If so figure a conversion to bolt on as the neck joint is a very odd design and will not come undone.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I forgot Richard Schneider too as a co-developer. Shame on me...

Google "Gibson MK series" and you will see a very loyal following.

Gibson had high hopes since other collaborations with the likes of Les Paul..... and Lloyd Lohr were very fruitful for Gibson. The MKs - not so much....

This is a pic of the SS bracing I found online. Doesn't look much different than what you see in bracing today. I this photo accurate?

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"I've been had again"
Tim Benware
Creedmoor, NC

Nope. Not according to the photo I have of it in the Evans book. It's not X braced at all.

it's worth about $1500 ~$1800 on the left coast in mint.

The Kasha-style bracing on the 'Mark' series guitars was much different from that photo. I suppose it's possible they made some 'Mark' guitars with standard style X bracing, but that seems unlikely. There are good pictures of the Kasha style bracing is Evans and Evans' book: "Guitars, from the Renaissance to Rock'. See pp 272-274 in particular.

Re-gluing top braces on one might be a problem. Due to the number of braces in the pattern they used a hot-melt glue, activated with radio frequencies, to cut down on clamp time. I'm not sure how well that stuff will stick to the usual wood glues. The glue also seems to have put out fumes that reacted with the finish on the top. I saw one at a music store that had just come in: there was a discolored area in the top finish wherever there was a brace glued to the inside. I suspect they recalled all of those, but you never know. If they did the ones that are still out there may well have used 'normal' glue.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

According to Vintage Guitar Price guide it is worth between $625 and $800.

Looking out on the web I see them going for the low end of that scale so it isn't really a high end guitar. I had a friend who had one back in the early 80's and I played it a few times... I wasn't too impressed and I guess he wasn't either because he traded it in on a J-45 which he still has today.

I have never worked on one so I have no idea about doing a neck reset on it but if it uses a standard Gibson Dovetail it should be too much of an issue. As for the bridge and the belly, it sounds like the bridge plate has issues so I would have a closer look at that to figure out what it really needs.

If it has sentimental value to your client then it may be worth putting some money into. But then....

Bob

If it were a MK99, might be worth working on. A 35, 53, 72 - you're usually looking at a big can of worms, made out of wood and covered in lacquer. I've worked on a number of them, and each time most notable part of the experience was devising new and ingenuitive ways which I could combine expletives (I think I even invented a few new ones).

If the top has severe bellying, your best option would be to refer it to someone you really dislike and let them take on the liability. It's like someone walking in with one of these and saying they would just like a block from the top put back in to the fourth row.



Can - O - Worms. Some people love them. As a repair person, I tend to appraise their value in potential BTU's rather than dollars.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Here's a better pic of the MK bracing from Franks site, FRETS.

As you can see it's not X-bracing at all and instead uses a more "fan like" approach that Kasha was well known for:



Ken I Googled Abe and he lives in China now. His bio is impressive in that he apprenticed for Schneider for about a decade and then did his own thing. He also has a value statement on his site that I was also very impressed with. Sounds like a great guy.

I would pass. There was an article in the GAL a while ago about a neck reset on one of these. Is easier to saw the neck off and convert to a bolt on. I had one come in about 12 months ago that had bellied and the neck twisted. Really needed a neck reset and refret, but the owner baulked at the cost. Got away (but only just) with a truss rod tweek, new nut and bridge doctor. The bridge doctor installation was a pain because of the Kasha bracing. One of the bridge doctors won't fit in these guitars, and guess which one I ordered. Was interesting to see one of these, the owner was happy to have it playable, and I breathed a sigh of relief when it went out the door. Owner told me it sounded better than ever, but I was not impressed with the sound.

I think I know what happened, the article I picked to read used the wrong photo from Frank Ford's site. He used the photo above the description instead of the one below it. Both photo are on Frank's site in order. Gotta be careful on the internet:)

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"I've been had again"
Tim Benware
Creedmoor, NC

Nah, that's cheating! (Love that game!)

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Contact Abe Wechter in Michigan. He designed the Mark bracing.