Repair And Restoration
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Seeking Mid 70’s Martin D28 High Action Assesment Input And Recommendations
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Seeking Mid 70’s Martin D28 High Action Assesment Input And Recommendations
I inherited a 70’s D28 that is a players instrument. The action is too high for me, but the saddle is bottomed out. There is no obvious belly bulge. The top of the bridge has been shaved. Bridge pin holes are uneven in diameter. However, the bridge placement seems pretty close; within 1/32″. A straight edge on the fret board sits about 1/8″ below the top of the bridge. The fret board has plenty of finger worn wells, there is virtually no fret board radius, the head stock has been broken and repaired twice (the last one seems stable), and it could use a fret job. The neck itself seems straight. The relief measures at about 0.005″. No obvious twists or warps. The heel is tight. I wonder if replacing the fret board / bridge / saddle would give this instrument new life. I suppose a neck reset should be considered as well, but the lack a radius and finger wear wells have me concerned. Thoughts? Recommendations? Referrals?
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7 Replies
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Tod,
Awesome question, however you posted it on the timeline, which is totally cool, but it will eventually get lost in the shuffle. A better place to add it would be the acoustic section of the guitar repair forum. Im dropping the link here. Feel free to throw in a couple pics too. Pics can often get the ball rolling.
https://dev.loothgroup.com/groups/repair-and-restoration/forum/repair-and-restoration/acoustic/ -
Reset, refret, new bridge is the mantra for many, many of these 70’s Martins. About 50% of the time the bridge has been shaved, no sense in resetting it to a shaved bridge. Oh, and almost always some kind of pickguard problems from shrinkage…
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Thanks Dave, I’m going to follow Ian’s recommendation and re-post this in a more appropriate area with a few pictures. I’m curious if replacing the fret board (radius appears to have been taken out) / replacing the bridge and re-fretting will work. I suppose I could see how a new fret board and bridge sit before committing to a reset. It may take a few days before I get a chance to do that. The pick guard was replaced and subsequent crack was repaired with a cleat years ago. I removed the pick guard and cleaned off the self adhesive. I may replace it as it has some funky scratch patterns on it.
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Here are a couple of profile picture of the sound board. While it looks like a belly bulge on the lower bout in one picture, it isn’t there directly behind the bridge in the other. I tried the Bridge Doctor experiment and gained… about 1/64″. It was worth a try. I figure on replacing the bridge anyway.
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I believe I answered my own question. Even though the fret board has been flattened and the sound board is relatively flat, a ruler still comes up 1/8″ low on the bridge. I reversed the process with a level on the sound board and fount the neck is about the same measurement off between the 1st and 2nd fret. I can’t get any feeler gauges to stick around the heal. So the geometry of the neck must have changed over the last 50 years.
I’m new to guitar repair. I’ve done a couple of partial re-frets and managed to repair a Washburn D60SW (solid wood) that needed between 13 and 15 different repairs when I got it. The damage ranged from loose braces on the back to a snapped in half X brace and secondary brace and a tone bar tail that was ripped off the top. Also, a 12″ crack, broken maple binding, damaged side, and broken neck. While I’m certain I didn’t repair it according to Hoyle, it is repaired and I play it regularly. I’m sure you folks would laugh at my initial glue up.
I think a neck reset is probably not something to a person wants to learn to do on an older D28. Any thoughts?
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Looks like classic neck reset/typical martin stuff. Only exception is the fingerboard. Might be worth hopping on a zoom call to chat about this one. Would you have time for something like that ?
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I don’t mind, but I’m pretty limited technology wise. I do not have any zoom app. I’ve only done remote Doctor visits for my elderly mother. The kind where they initiate the call. Is that what you do.
I talked with a well regarded repair shop on the other end of the state. They would rather not replace the fret board unless there were no other options. The lack of a radius doesn’t seem to be an issue to them.
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