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1930 Martin 0-18-This guitar came into the shop with some damage required immediate attention if the guitar was to be returned to service. The most critical problem was that the heel had been cracked completely through into the neck block and the treble side split next to the heel crack. In addition, the original bridge had lifted, and there were several top cracks. the initial challenge was to remove the neck and heel from the broken block together, without leaving the broken piece of the heel in the dovetail block. As the block was broken inside, this was more difficult than usual, but was accomplished by placing a clamp on the broken side of the block to keep it stable while moisture was introduced into the joint and the dovetail loosened. Once the neck was removed, the heel repair could be done. |
| The heel repair was pretty basic, as the repair had never been done before. Often, old breaks like this have been poorly repaired leading to subsequent failure, and require additional work to undo the previous repair. In this case though the mate of surfaces was very good and there was no splintering or loss of wood from the edge of the break. The heel was glued with titebond and clamped. |
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After the heel was glued together with the proper alignment of the surfaces, some finish touch up was necessary to hide the seam of the glue joint and finish. The old finish was lightly sanded and DentFil thickened lacquer was added to the seam in very small amounts to fill any old lacquer chips, and then sanded flush with the original surface. Then lacquer was padded over the repair and old lacquer seam to complete the cosmetic work on the surface of the heel. The dovetail block was also repaired at this point with Titebond, as well as the side crack. The block was clamped both vertically and horizontally, given that the break was not straight but ran 2 ways through the grain of the block. |
| There were several top cracks that needed to be addressed. They were basically hairline cracks, and requiring only glue and cleating. They were fairly level to begin with, and there were no deficits that reuqired splints or humidification to close them up. Small cleats were fashioned to reinforce the cracks from underneath. The cleats were glued in with a plexiglas clamping caul on the outside of the top. The plexi caul allows good visibility during the clamping to insure proper alignment and leveling when under clamping pressure. |
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Once the surface of the top was cleaned in the foot print of the bridge, and the underside of the bridge cleaned of old glue and spruce bits, the bridge was ready to be reglued. Thankfully, though this old guitar had been through some rough treatment, the bridge had never been changed nor altered, as is so often the case with older instruments. |
| Once the bridge was reattached the body was ready to have the repaired neck reset and glued in place. Care must be taken when resetting the necks on early Martins, as the necks from this period are not as stiff as today’s guitars, and relief under string tension must be taken into account during the reset to insure optimal playability. |
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When the guitar arrived in the shop it had non original tuners installed, and new holes had been drilled to accommodate the different mounting screw hole spacing in the newer plates. As vintage originality and correctness are always restored where possible, the guitar needed to have those holes filled and the proper tuners restored to the guitar. Proper tuners for this guitar would have been brass plate Waverly strip tuners. A set of these tuners was available in shop stock so the retrofit to the original tuners was done. |
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Finished Guitar |