WezV - Antique Parlour restoration

WezV

i'm happy for any info that helps me date it

Kurtis

£70!! My acoustic was £80, but all it needed was a new bridge 

Looks nice though. 


My dad has an old banjolin like that one. I always assumed it was just a no name cheapo, might need to take another look! 

WezV

I don't think I will have much joy closing those splits the usual way.  Everything is too old and brittle for that.  So they will need filling instead.

I'm going to start by adding cleats to the inside, then thin slivers of spruce to fill the cracks on the outside.

This will leave streaks of bright new wood on the outside, but these will then be aged to match the old spruce 

The cracked binding also seems to be from spruce shrinkage, so something similar will need to be done there.  I'm hoping I can realign the purfling strips and fill any remaining gaps in the spruce.

BillDL

That's interesting about the tanged frets.  Looking at the overall design I was thinking that the guitar might be from around 1900 to 1920 and probably from smack bang in the middle of that period.  My very loose understanding was that bar frets were still very commonly used until some time around the end of the 20s but with some makers still using them for a number of years after tanged frets were made.

@DartmoorHedgehog - The bar frets I have seen in the past were just straight rectangular rods that were glued and pressed into wide saw cuts on the flat fingerboards and then crudely crowned, or perhaps crowned prior to insertion.  I saw one old guitar with a slightly radiused fingerboard where the bars had been bend into a radius and the saw cuts were cut to the depth of the radius.  I am not sure whether the radiusing on the fingerboard had been done in more recent times by a luthier that chose to retain some originality while improving playability though.  Gerry Hayes, a builder and repairer from near Dublin, has a blog page about bar frets:

https://hazeguitars.com/blog/vintage-refretting-with-bar-frets

It's actually turned out quite handy that the soundboard was separating from the sides so that you could start separating it without much or any damage.  I assume you'll need a filler strip for that wide split [EDIT - Splits plural), and being able to work both sides of the soundboard will make it a lot easier.  That's pretty old wood used for the soundboard.  You hardly see such straight and uniform grain these days.  It's a pretty chunky bridge plate and it's still in good shape, or else somebody has replaced it.  I wonder why somebody would have dyed most of it with watery black ink or paint?

Did it smell horribly musty and old when you cracked it open?

WezV

BillDL said:

It's actually turned out quite handy that the soundboard was separating from the sides so that you could start separating it without much or any damage.  I assume you'll need a filler strip for that wide split [EDIT - Splits plural), and being able to work both sides of the soundboard will make it a lot easier.  That's pretty old wood used for the soundboard.  You hardly see such straight and uniform grain these days.  It's a pretty chunky bridge plate and it's still in good shape, or else somebody has replaced it.  I wonder why somebody would have dyed most of it with watery black ink or paint?

Did it smell horribly musty and old when you cracked it open?

I would have stayed well away if it had the same purfling front and back.  Knowing I could get easy access to work on the soundboard was  one reason I took a punt on this.

The spruce seems to have some nice silking going on which confirms how close to quartersawn it must be, all the braces are perfectly quatertsawn too, although the big one on the back does have a couple of small knot holes  in it

I'm not sure on the bridge plate.  A lot don't have one at all but it looks contemporary to the guitar. It again points to this being a bit later than 1900.  It's probably the thing that has keep the top reasonably flat.

I don't mind the smell, although the dust was a bit horrible

JayGee

WezV said:

I don't think I will have much joy closing those splits the usual way.  Everything is too old and brittle for that.  So they will need filling instead.

I'm going to start by adding cleats to the inside, then thin slivers of spruce to fill the cracks on the outside.

This will leave streaks of bright new wood on the outside, but these will then be aged to match the old spruce 

The cracked binding also seems to be from spruce shrinkage, so something similar will need to be done there.  I'm hoping I can realign the purfling strips and fill any remaining gaps in the spruce.

The usual provisos that…

• It’s your guitar
• You’re doing the work
• It’s for your own use and/or satisfaction

…and hence it’s absolutely nobody else's business what you do with it and how you do it apply.

But…

…have you considered rather than disguising the filled in cracks, replaced bits of purfling etc doing something along the lines of the Japanese Kintsugi style of ceramic repair, where the repair and the resulting joins become part of the piece (traditionally highlighted with gold or silver) rather than being hidden?

I think that could look absolutely fabulous on this, and would make your work part of the ongoing story of the instrument.

Supportact

I like this kind of thread, will be watching with interest!

WezV

JayGee said:

…have you considered rather than disguising the filled in cracks, replaced bits of purfling etc doing something along the lines of the Japanese Kintsugi style of ceramic repair, where the repair and the resulting joins become part of the piece (traditionally highlighted with gold or silver) rather than being hidden?

I think that could look absolutely fabulous on this, and would make your work part of the ongoing story of the instrument.

it will have that on the inside with lots of clean spruce cleats, not the outside.

My own preference for instruments is a repair your eye passes over.  It doesn't need to be invisible or hidden, just not stand out as wrong.

I also have some decisions on the finish. Most of the original is gone. I think the back and sides were original darker and the top much lighter. The repairs will need touch ups.  I will need to do some refinish work to protect it for another 100 years, but don't want to lose all the old wear.  It will be a challenging balance to get right

WezV

Good news.  The tuners cleaned up really well with some ketchup and a toothbrush.  they have been cleaned and some grease added to the gears

Bad news.  The shaft that had been bent at 90 degrees snapped when trying to bend it back.


So we have gone from this:


To This:


I may still have enough post to hold a button, but i'm also considering a few other options.  Either rebuilding the tuner entirely with new part on this old baseplate, or maybe just splice the shaft somehow. 

WezV

amazingly i've found another set that fit this odd spacing - but these are not in great shape either and I have no idea what they came from.  The gears turn better on the older set now, but these can probably be revived too if needed.

BillDL

Hah!  You did this while I was off looking for a solution to your problem.  I knew I had an ancient (maybe early 1900s) knife sharpening "steel" with a bone handle that I have used for various things in the past including paint stirring.  It still works but not as well as a newer one I bought, and I've hung onto it in case I had a use for the bone.  I was thinking you might be able to extend the broken off key stem and fashion a matching round button which you may have been able to artificially create the cracking.  I also went looking at Gumtree for a set of old Gibson tuners on plates that I've seen recurring every time I filter musical instruments to my locality.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/other-guitar-accessories/old-gibson-machine-heads-/1413047047

The buttons are oval though, and they are normal orientation steel string ones with vertical posts.

Oh well, I've exhausted my thoughts 

WezV

I think I'm going to have to replace the 2 remaining buttons anyway.  It was advertised with 3, one fell off in the post.  They are all close to dead and I don't see any point stabilizing the remaining 2 if they won't match the rest

I haven't decided what to replace them with yet though.  Plastic is always easiest.  I do have some 60's hofner classical tuners with nicely aged buttons on. Wrong spacing for this though and I don't want to dismantle them 

thinking on it, Mandolin buttons may be the best fit

WezV

I've ordered a 15mm diameter piece of off white plastic rod.  If I cut some 6mm slices from that I will be very close to the size and shape of the original buttons.

ICBM

Aha... found these. I was thinking of the top set, but they're 35mm post spacing.

The lower set are 33mm - 66mm between the outer posts - any good? They're complete and have quite nice 'German style' keys.

WezV

Ooh.   I might come back to you on that if I can't save the original set.  These are 33mm  not 32 as originally stated.

At first I thought that bottom set might be too fancy, but the buttons are actually a good match for the inlay style on the rosette.  They could work well

WezV

top repair.


first job is to work on the purfling.  its cracked where the spruce has shrunk and pulled it apart.  Worse on the bass side than the treble.  On the bass side i've used a hot knife to break the  join and reposition the purfling, then filled the bigger gaps with new spruce

splits 






pretty good on the treble


but we do have newe wood to level off and blend in on the treble, along with new wood that has been used to fill the splits

this is where the top is at


no light is showing through and the splits are all stable.  I'm now working on the inside with extra reinforcement to keep it that way

paulnb57

WezV said:

top repair.


first job is to work on the purfling.  its cracked where the spruce has shrunk and pulled it apart.  Worse on the bass side than the treble.  On the bass side i've used a hot knife to break the  join and reposition the purfling, then filled the bigger gaps with new spruce

splits 






pretty good on the treble


but we do have newe wood to level off and blend in on the treble, along with new wood that has been used to fill the splits

this is where the top is at


no light is showing through and the splits are all stable.  I'm now working on the inside with extra reinforcement to keep it that way

What a great project, really enjoying following the progress

earwighoney

Great work Wez.  I saw that guitar on eBay when I was looking for 'parlour guitars'.  It will be great to see it in playable condition once again.

If you can't find any tuners that fit and work, I have heard Rubner make tuners with different spacings for not too much.

WezV

i've got a bridge design ready to go


 and also scanned the inlays ready to get some pearl cut - purposefully non-perfect

BillDL

Your cat looks as though he? is really large, and has a face like a lion.  I miss having cats around.