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Repairing braces that do not close against soundboard
Hello Friends,
I’ve had a vintage Epiphone acoustic stored at the shop for almost two years and it’s about time to wrap it up. That never happens, LOL.
It has a few loose braces, which is a repair I’ve done in the past. The problem with this one is that no matter how I jack up the loose braces from the inside, some parts of some braces simply do not move enough to come in contact with the soundboard. This is happening in a couple of places where a brace intersects another brace.
I can see all that with an internal endoscope camera, clearly. I jack it up, I even use an external clamp to push the soundboard down, and there’s still a gap.
Getting tangled up in a repair that would require me to remove the back of the guitar is not an option for me at this time.
I did think of solutions to make spruce shims (or inserts) to close the gaps, but I can already imagine how difficult and time consuming that would be. I also thought of just filling the gaps with a mix of epoxy & sawdust and then reinforcing these bad joints with strips of carbon fiber cloths.
This needs to be done on some kind of budget that would hopefully not exceed $1,200 to $1,500 for the entire job (including setup) and at this point I don’t even know if the guitar will need a new saddle..
Any thoughts and opinions would be kindly appreciated.
Thank you.
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2 Replies
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Here are a few photos. The gap is clearly visible, but it doesn’t completely close when pushed against the soundboard, even when I press the soundboard down, from the outside.
I did run a feeler gauge along the loose brace, to dislodge any loose particles that might potentially be there.
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Here’s another photo form a slightly different angle.
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