Repair And Restoration
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Old yamaha classical guitar — top crack repair + top crack repair repair
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Old yamaha classical guitar — top crack repair + top crack repair repair
Hey y’all,
Got another interesting job I’d like some advice on. It’s a 70s yamaha classical the current owner inherited from his father. At some point it developed a rather nasty top crack, to the point that I’m thinking the job would involve fresh spruce being applied in there. That’s routine enough at least, albeit uncommon for New Zealand’s climate in my experience so far. (Also open to suggestions on cleaning out the crack to accept new wood, I assume we might have to remove the very edges to get that gunk cleaned away. It’s an old old crack.)
But also, more importantly and interestingly, the crack had an attempted repair, I think by the father, and I’m wondering how to approach that. I worry it will involve removing the repair, which working through the soundhole at that… I’ve got a baby finger plane and a lot of patience, but is there a better way? It’s not a super valuable guitar, so I can’t get too in the weeds and sink weeks into it, but also I am willing to go an extra mile or two given the sentimentality.
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5 Replies
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By fresh spruce applied there, are you thinking about doing a top spline ?
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Yeah, that’s the word! 😅 NZ is so humid we typically see problems of guitars being too damp, year round. Especially with our housing. So I can make sure the crack won’t close with a light clamp, but it’s quite open in parts so I suspect it’ll need a spline. But we’ll see. But I also wonder if part of the cause is that wood added to “repair” it has swelled and forced it apart… So I’m thinking removing that repair may be the first step,but at a loss of the best way to do that.
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That is a good first step. It sure doesn’t look like it’s helping.
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Thank you for the advice so far, and if I may trouble you for one more thing: any advice on how to do that removal? I think this is just me asking out of some vague hope (denial/anger/bargaining/etc) I won’t have to just plane and sand it out wood shaving by wood shaving, but it’s unfortunately quite solidly glued.
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You could try leaving a damp sponge on it for a bit, like a bridge plate. I suspect the chances that it was glued on with hide glue are remote, but dampness still could make removal with implements easier.
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