Hard Won Education

[George Roberts]

This has to do with a Washburn look-alike that had a split side.  The edges all matched, but they overlapped at the waist, and were widely separated at the upper and lower bouts.  I used fitted blocks inside the guitar to bring the crack at the waist into alignment, but then the upper and lower bouts were even further apart.  Then put spool clamps on the upper and lower bouts and put the whole body of the guitar in a plastic bag with humidification.  Over the next 2 1/2 years I slowly tweaked it into position.  I added Don Teeter style tuning gear clamps as well as some magnets to keep the edges lined up.  Everything was close, and lined up well, but I gave it yet another 6 months in the humidified bag.

Today I took everything off, and it promptly returned to its original configuration.

It seemed like a reasonable approach, but talk about a long drawn out lesson in futility.

George

[Mark Pollock]

Ay caramba!!

It seems that some pieces of wood, no matter how much effort we put in, simply were never meant to behave, no matter what is done. Stupid tension wood.

[Donald A. Fortune]

hey George-- Looks like someone opened that side up good but it also looks you  are doing a bang up job of fixing it.

good Job--

peace, Donald

[Ned Knepp]

Sorry for the setback, George. At lease you know it will line up once you get around to gluing thing back together. I a bit confused about what happened. Did you glue things up while you had it all in place?

I think that what you experienced is pretty much how the damaged occurred in the first place and that the separation is pretty much the "natural" position of this (purposefully) warped/ bowed piece of wood.  You're going to have to force everything back into shape and then force it to stay there. 

[George Roberts]

Hey Ned,

No, stupid me!  I thought that after all that time and humidification it would stay that way.  When I bought the guitar, it had very, very heavy strings on it (probably the old, heavy Mapes), and the guitar was most likely in that condition for 10 to 20 years.  (With the bridge pulled up, also.)

My next plan is to make several more of the Teeter clamps, pull everything together again and glue it one Teeter clamp at a time.  The best laid plans.......

[Ned Knepp]

I completely understand, George. I'm looking at one of my projects and thinking that I need to just start over. No single thing that requires it, but lots of little things that I'm unhappy with. It all adds up and I think I will do a better job if I strip out my work and do it all again.  I figure this is the " takes years to learn and more to perfect" part of the hobby.  I'm really glad that I'm not trying to make a living doing this. 

BTW, I doubt it will be as hard or take as long for you to get everything aligned again. Good luck.

[Len Biglin]

Well George , I have a fairly new guitar with a very similar crack , I tried the same routine inc Teeter clamps and all kinds of props inside . Could not get alignment closer than about 1/8" , so I just gave up and hung it to one side . Over about 6 years I pulled it down for a look when I was low on work , but no go , I had given up . Then about 3 weeks ago i checked it out and could not beleive it , the crack was perfectly aligned and all I had to do was glue it and apply violin clamps . It was just sitting with no clamps and the weather must have been just right .Thanks for reminding me , I must cleat the inside ! Its already sanded and laquered . So the message is .....never give up ....just wait longer....and of course never throw anything away !