Guinevere Gracewood-Easther Guinevere Grace Guitars
Forum Replies Created
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Thank you both for taking the time to reply!
Pulling it was definitely the right choice, it’s a lot happier now. They’d removed some amount under the bridge at the factory but not nearly enough, only took a few hours to pop it off and fix the warped bridge and get it on, but the finish was so thick it was an absolute slog scraping it away. Like 10+ thou of thickness and hard and brittle.
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Belated reply — I really struggled with maintaining verticality on my cuts when I did my first guitar with help from one. The fret slots were very V shaped you’d need to clean them up manually.
Luckily for my inlays I was using resin and black sand so it was easier to fit things, but they had a similar trait and a solid inlay material would be a hassle. I also struggled with charring when going thicker, which was a relatively thin layer, but I’d be planning to sand or flush trim a bit anyways.
On darker hardwoods it’s worse and can really burn to the point it’s out of spec, another student at my high school had that happen, but even just on maple I had to try twice after the first one really cooked the wood in ways I didn’t want. You also have to account for the thickness of the cut, which can be unpredictable as the heat spreads and burns away the material. (Or in plastic, melts.) It’ll have a nominal value that is quite thin, but it can and will shift depending on what you’re doing.
I think it’d work really well for a quick and dirty start tho — a line to cut to, some lil dots for brad point bits, and a starting line for fret saws so you don’t need a template/calipers/etc. You can also always engrave a headstock plate then fill it with resin or gold leaf or something, like this build.
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(Generic parts bin on the left,gotoh on the right. Same screw pitch so probably a-ok to mix and match? Owners more concerned with functionality over appearance.)
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Thanks y’all! This is what I’m dealing with,sorry for the belated reply. Definitely too close for the double screw sta-tite 3 a side, or klusons of that style. But also too far for the six in lines. I was gonna use the modern ones,but many can’t do 17mm of thickness. However I’ve found a set of nuts in the parts drawer that are longer than the stock gotoh ones which may be the combo to go with?
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That is a good idea if I can disassemble it somehow, I’m not entirely sure how they go together, but they had to get the worm gear through those holes one way or another. The current ones appear to be brass, which is even easier to work. Even just a jewelers saw could rough it out before refining with the file, although steel would better match the nickel plating. Thank you for the ideas!
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No, thank you for that! With something as finicky as this I think it’s extremely useful to have that to go through to see all the possible diverging techniques and weighing the pros and cons you think of with my setup and the client’s case and so on. Thank you for all of this, I think I’ll have to go away and think on it and talk with the client, but this is giving me a lot of ways to consider it and approach it. And will report back if/when I get the go ahead from the client — might be something he has to work up towards, but it feels like a fun challenge so I’m really keen to try and find a way to make it possible.
It is looking like some new buttons would make things easier tho, hard to get to NZ, but ah well.
Thanks again for all the ideas!
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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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I think for now salvage, but I can talk to the owner. Certainly new and shiny ones would be a smart idea, but as more of a sentimental piece I think originality takes precedent over convenience.
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Yes, sorry, it was just so sunny in the workshop yesterday! The nut will likely need wholesale replacing, it’s just curious that modern hofner ones seem to use an opaque black material, whereas this is a dark clear one, so for full authenticity it may need something custom.
This is a better pic of the tuner — one of the two “legs” that would be peened into place has separated, is the problem. So either that has to be replaced or repaired, but my worry is given how it’s already shown a brittle fracture more hammering would be risky. But also heating it worries me with that ancient celluloid button. I suppose a donor set with the same rear components could be acquired, persuaded out of its plate, and secured in this one? But something exactly like this seems exceedingly difficult to find, especially with the bone rollers seen on the front of the headstock.
(And doesn’t have to be JB weld if I go the composite route, but any epoxy putty that could bond to the little mounting piece and hold it through the hole in the plate to make up for the missing metal.)
We do actually have the piece that fell off the back tho, if it could be reattached in a way that was structurally sound and then peened back in place.
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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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Thank you! That sounds like just the ticket, especially with that specific silicone product recommendation. Super helpful,will talk with the owner about things and go from there.
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Thank you! Feels like the best way to go about it with the least change to the instrument, but still wanted confirmation from someone more familiar before going and doing anything permanent. Failing that fixing it for sure I can probably just tell them to play less hard to stop it popping out of the saddle entirely. 🙂
