# Old acoustic guitar rebuild



## stickboy (Jun 26, 2009)

Hello Everyone!

My name is Rick, I have played guitar for 30 odd years now, still play in a couple of bands and love to build and rebuild stringed instruments. The forum has been a wonderful find for me and I learn a lot by reading your posts and replys.So I thought I would give back by showing a few projects I have completed over the last couple of years.

This is the first major rebuild that I did on an old acoustic guitar.
It is an old parlor guitar that I purchased through ebay, and it came in pretty rough shape.
My intention was to completely disassemble and reassemble it into a working playable guitar. 
First, I am not a luthier or a professional woodworker of any kind. I just do this as a hobby. Some of the methods used to complete this project may not have been the best or even correct. But it is learn as you go for me and off I went…









Here is the guitar as shipped. 
Originally a gut string guitar, nicely made, with spruce top, brazilian rosewood back and sides with a mohogany neck and ebony fret board.
There is cracks on the sound board, sides, back and tail block. It looks like someone put steel strings on and the added tension ripped off the bridge. The tail piece and floating bridge was added as a quick repair.








Could not find a name on the guitar but after doing a little research I beleive it to be a Harwood. 
Now the fun part.
I tried to heat fret board to softem the glue but it took way to long and in the end I used hot water and a polished 1" spatula to slowly seperate the fretboard from the neck.


















I made up a jig like one I saw in a Stewmac catalog and clamped it to the guitar body and neck heel. With the fret board off, it was easy to steam the neck joint loose.
(I used a wall paper steamer)








On the top, I used a router to remove the outer binding and then slowly cut into top glue edge and worked around until the top popped off.

















Now time to repair and rebuild into a working steel string guitar........


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Looks like a good project there. Will be interesting to follow this one


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## Lab123 (May 27, 2007)

Hi Rick ...I am amazed at the lack of top bracing.Wasn't designed for steel strings I guess. Was the top bellied very much? Are you going to use a new top or repair the old one...The top looks like Cedar but its hard to tell from pics. From the pics you certainly look like you know what you are doing..Interesting thread...Will be following your progress....Larry


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## John Watt (Aug 24, 2010)

I can see what attracted you to this guitar.
The purfling is really nice.


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## stickboy (Jun 26, 2009)

Yes, I also was taken back by the lack of bracing, but I believe originally it was strung up with gut strings. Alltough the top was cracked (4 splits) it was not bent or deformed. I re-used the top after fixing the cracks and replacing the bracing.
Out of curiousity, I measured the top thickness and it came in at 0.06 to 0.07 inch thick and the sides are 0.062. Pretty thin compared to factory made acoustic guitars today......


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## Lab123 (May 27, 2007)

Yup that's thin alright..Factory is around .125 on steel string..What bracing pattern are you going to use for top ? Don't think the top will hold up with existing type of bracing and steel strings..But I've been wrong before....


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## YJMUJRSRV (Jul 17, 2007)

gone fishing


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## John Watt (Aug 24, 2010)

I'd try those new style, phosphorous bronze strings from Godin.

This is a smaller scale guitar, compared to the biggest full scales,
but that doesn't necessarily make it a parlour guitar.
It's a nice lead guitar, for blending in with larger, rhythm guitars.
I bet you get into picking hard down around the back of the soundhole, 
catching a nice tonal range that projects right out.
It would be more interesting that way if you added frets up to the soundhole.


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