Fixing caved in top

[Jay Peterson]

I have this beautiful old Korean Made Harmony. It is caving in above the sound hole. I showed it to a few luthiers/repair techs and I was surprised to find out it has a laminate top. The reason I was surprised about the laminate top is that it doesn't sound like a laminate top. my guitar afficionado friends love the way it sounds and were also surprised when I told them about it. Anyway I heard you can't fix a caved laminate top, only solids. I was wondering about replacing the top. Any suggestions?

this first set of pics is to show you how nice it looks.

[Jeff Highland]

IMHO , expecting humidifying the guitar to fix this is wishful thinking, but talking of retopping is overkill.
It just needs the UTB replaced, and the replacement should be more substantial.

[Jay Peterson]

Could you explain that a little bit better for me? Thanks

[Jeff Highland]

The upper transverse brace UTB the one under the end of the firetboard has collapsed and the top has followed it down. The rest of the top looks fine so it is not likely to be a general humidity problem
Remove that brace and replace it with one sized a bit bigger and without the neds scalloped as far and the top will come back up
Not a DIY procedure though unless you have worked through a soundhole before and know what you are doing.