High fret dress :: 2015 New Era Senorita Stefan Grossman [4.4 lbs]

January 28, 2016

I'm pretty reserved in my tastes but this absolutely works for me! Well ... maybe not the jewels in the headstock but it's a recreation of a rare 1935 Bacon & Day Senorita S-6 guitar popularized by John Fahey. This had a few high frets over the body transition that were leveled out. This guitar sounds as good as it looks.

Comment

Fret extension level :: 2015 New Era Senorita

January 14, 2016

A modern interpretation of a rare 1935 Bacon & Day Senorita S-6 in for some high frets in the transition over the body. This is the Stefan Grossman signature models. A very beautiful and unique guitar for sure.

Comment

100 Year Old Restoration :: Lyon & Healy Bowl Back Mandolin [1.3 lbs]

August 13, 2015

100 Year Old Restoration :: Lyon & Healy Bowl Back Mandolin [1.3 lbs]

Whew! Finally finished up this ~100 year old mandolin restoration a couple weeks ago. Let's see ... neck & fingerboard reglue, missing soundhole pieces, cracked / loose top bracing, loose back ribs, new inlayed pickguard (courtesy of Dave Nichols Custom Pearl Inlay), new bridge and properly spaced new tuners (peghead had to be bunged & redrilled). A lot of hours into this little fella. Excited to drop it off to it's new owner. I went to high school with him in PA and this was his grandmother's mandolin. Always an honor to work on family heirlooms.

Until I gather everything into a single blog post, you can check out the previous progress of this project here.

Comment

Fraulini Angelica [4.1 lbs] :: top crack repair

November 7, 2014

Fraulini Angelica [4.1 lbs] :: top crack repair.

This guitar has a top center crack caused by low humidity and I've been battling with it for most of the summer. The top was dried to the point of concavity (lower in the center than the edges). Normally acoustic guitar tops have an arch or are at least flat. I have had good luck in the past by humidifying guitars to close small cracks before gluing and cleating them. This crack repair however keeps wanting to pull itself apart, even in my climate controlled shop. I've gone through two iterations of structural / finish repairs and both times tiny checks developed in parts of the repair. Having to wait 3-4 weeks for the finish repairs to cure before rubbing and buffing only to find unsatisfactory results was frustrating. The repairs didn't look terrible, but I knew it could be better.

Cutting and fitting a slice of spruce into the crack helped relieve the stress on the top. One last round of finish repairs and at long last this great guitar is back in it's owner's hands.

Previous photo of fitting the splint here.

And photo of gluing in the splint here.

Comment