Violin Repair - Murdoch Maidstone

Violin Repair - Murdoch Maidstone

Been restoring and refinishing etc this violin. Fitted new fingerboard.








 

 

Hofner 125 Guitar - Neck Re-glue

Hi - here is a Hofner 125 Guitar with  a disconnected neck that I've been repairing. It has had various goes at being repaired in the past- they're known for coming apart since the joint is cantilevered and relies on the glue. A dovetail would have been much better.

I cleaned the joint down to bare wood - added some dowels and used hot hide glue to re-attach it.

It was difficult to clamp accurately so I made an alignment jig attached to the fingerboard and gently clamped it up so as not to disturb the alignment.

The alignment jig

Centreline pointer

Another guitar to mess with

Hi - this one is reputedly from around 1920 - various people have had a go at it - now it's my turn.

First get the action fixed:

Action ever so slightly unplayable

Simply remove some of the fretboard

then saw the neck off

Supro 60 Pick Up

Supro 60 Pick Up

This is the pick up from the Supro 60 Lap Steel guitar I'm restoring. As far as I can tell it is from around 1938 to 1940 and is one of the first production electric guitar pick ups.

Repairs to a Roland Boss GT-8 Guitar Effects Pedal

Hi - recently got a broken GT-8 to try out. It had a fine crack on the PCB which caused lots of buttons to stop working and took out a 5V regulator. Didn't have a direct replacement regulator so plumbed one in temporarily (now that Christmas and new year has been dispensed with, have received a proper one).

Rather than link out the tracks at the crack, I connected a wire to each end of the break since you can solder to proper solder pads on IC's or components which are much more reliable. It took a jolly long time - but works great now.

The sounds are great - the best bit so far is having 2 parallel amp simulators - so you can have one doing the basic guitar sound and the other with distortion etc mixed together.

Here's some photos:

Roland Boss GT-8 Guitar Effects Pedal

The temporary 5V regulator on the main logic board

The front panel board after repair

The crack is horizontally across the centre of this photo - this shows the wire links I've added

Cheers Chris
 

Washburn J20 Bridge Repair

 Washburn J20 Bridge Repair

Hi Folks - this is my lovely Washburn J20 Acoustic Guitar. The bridge has been pulling away for sometime so I decided to completely remove it and re-glue it. I was expecting some trouble when removing it but it basically snapped cleanly off. So I cleaned up both the top and the underside of the bridge and stuck it back on. Actually it took a long time to set it up and get both surfaces true - you need to scrape the underside of the bridge slightly concave so that when the centre is clamped the ends are pressed down.








Here's the photos:

 Mask off the top area with card - draw round the bridge to get an accurate mask hole in the card.
Using something like a scalpel, carefully scribe through the varnish (but not the wood) around the perimeter to give a clean edge.

 Sand and scrape until both surfaces are completely free of glue and are flat, leave the bridge slightly concave.
A chisel works well as a scraper, always work from the edge to the middle so that you don't accidentally damage the varnish.

I used some scrap metal pins  to locate the bridge through the existing holes - accurate re-alignment is jolly important. I figured the glue wouldn't stick to the metal and would be easier to remove.

Clamping
This was the fun part. I didn't have many long throat clamps and I couldn't summon up enough interest to make a caul. That's the block of something that you put inside under the bridge - it needs to have cutaways to clear the bracing glued to the under side of the top. I did a bit of googling and came up with Go Bars - an old technique using sprung bars or timber etc - they are usually used with a frame that has a roof to push against.
Anyway as you can see, I ended up using garden canes cut about 5mm too long and propped them against the garage ceiling.

 You need to be careful that it doesn't slide around and also be wary of how much force you can exert on it.

 I used Titebond to glue it. Hasn't ripped off yet!

 So here it is - I think it came out ok. It sounds great but still doesn't play in time!

Thanks for reading
cheers Chris.