How to fix a split back?

[mark dawson]

[Tim Mace]

looks like narra?

[mark dawson]

'Could be I suppose. The seller called it primavera from South America. It's very brittle but has beautiful color. My plan was to put a coat of shellac on it to enhance that golden tone and then spray lacquer. But I have to repair those cracks first.

I'm told that I can remove the center strip on the inside of the box and replace it with a wider one to stabilize it, then fill the cracks with dust or slivers of the same wood and sand. If anyone has a better idea, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

I'm afraid it would continue to crack. I would consider make a center part of another wood for that 3 part back look I like.

[Tim Mace]

I like my Narra back mandola ...the stuff is hard very tonal,drum like projection.Anyway they look like natural grain and not your backseam and Pierre's MO sounds good unless you're hungup on what a great matched set it is.Gonna go lookup primavera.Or sit here and look it up.

[Ned Knepp]

I'm wondering if this was well seasoned or perhaps your environment is dry. You might try humidifying to see if they close up some but I think it will continue to crack in the long run. I agree with Pierre if you don't replace it outright.

Ned

[mark dawson]

Good ideas. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do yet, but I'll probably take a swing at it this weekend.

Thanks for the help!