WezV - Antique Parlour restoration

WezV

Functional tuners.



I've not aged the buttons yet, but they don't look out of place as is

BillDL

They look great, and if they can be "aged" they will probably be indistinguishable from the original without magnifying glass scrutiny.  How did you fit them?  Drilled and glued on or heat the spigot and push them into a pilot hole to melt them on?

WezV

Yeah, just pushed on when hot.... I added a drop of superglue to each one for extra insurance.

ICBM

Those look great, and more appropriate than my zig-zag ones. How did you fix the broken keyshaft?

WezV

I didn't manage to extend it, but did manage reshape a little

It feels like it will work well and is strong enough, but still cant be sure till i get it strung up.  If it does fail I can try to drill down the middle of the shaft to extend it properly, or just go with an alternative set.

WezV

Inlay.

Far from perfect, but I'm happy with the overall effect if not the individual inlays. 

They still need levelling off, which I will do after stabilising the whole rosette.


Edit.  If you look at the original pics you can see that bottom right star was always badly spaced between the 2 snowflakes

WezV

I've stalled slightly thinking about next steps.

In the end I decided I really need to attach the bridge before reattaching the back.  This is arse about tit, but I can't get my hands inside that soundhole easily, so regluing the bridge first will be easier this way round.

This means i need to  finish the top first before gluing the bridge.  I decided on a period correct french polish.  I've used shellac for finishing before as it makes a great sealer, but never applied with the french polish technique.  I'm using rustin's pre-prepared French and Button Polish.  The lighter (although still quite amber) french for the top, and will use the darker button polish for the back and sides.

I think i'm nearly there with the top.  Kept a lot of age, but also have a nice deep shine forming.  Far from perfect, but I don't think it should be on this.




next i will gently level that off, thin the darker bits on the inlay and do a final session with the french polish.

Chris.B

That looks like a fabulous finish, a nice lustre to it that brings back some life into the instrument. 

WezV

 old vs new brass fretwire


note the old fretwire has a shorter tang with no barbs... it's a wonder they have stayed in as long as they have, but this makes for a very easy partial refret as the slots are in great condition

DartmoorHedgehog

WezV said:

 
note the old fretwire has a shorter tang with no barbs... it's a wonder they have stayed in as long as they have, but this makes for a very easy partial refret as the slots are in great condition

That's lucky. The frets on my old banjolin are similar-looking but I have no idea if they have barbs or not. The frets I replaced were completely missing when I got it so I didn't actually take any out. Slots were very clean though so perhaps it's the same as yours.

I love what you've done with the top - definitely in keeping with the general look of an old instrument. Would have been a shame to make it look new.

hoops

Fantastically interesting thread. Amazing skills. Keep it going please. 

hoops

Whoops. I appear to have put the kybosh on this very interesting thread. Sorry about that. 

WezV

Haha, I'm just letting things settle and trying to convince the top to be a bit flatter before I finish it off 

hoops

Excellent. Thank God for that. It wasn’t me after all.