1900 Benson Parlor Guitar Restoration

[Dan Drabek]

http://members.cruzio.com/~danield/beforeafter.jpg

The link may display as a thumbnail, and should enlarge to full size if you click on the image.

 

Hi, I'm new to the forum. As a hobbyist luthier, I've built a half dozen banjos over the past few decades and one classical guitar. I've spent many pleasant hours exploring Frank Ford's wonderful FRETS.COM web site, and learned a great deal about guitar repair. While I've done a lot of minor repairs over the years to both stringed instruments and other antiques, I'd never tackled a major restoration project before. A while back, I obtained a horribly beat-up old guitar that I thought might be a good learning project. It was so far gone that professional restoration would cost far more than the value of the guitar, so it seemed like a good opportunity to see what I could do with it.

The guitar in question was made by the P. Benson Company in Minneapolis Minnesota around the year 1900. Benson guitars are quite rare and from what I have found on the net, there aren't more than 20 or 30 of them known to exist. I picked up the guitar at the Santa Cruz flea market for $10. It had spent many decades sitting in an old barn, and it was in very bad shape. In fact, it was about one step from heading to the landfill. While this type of guitar doesn't generally have a lot of value, I felt it would be a crime to let it die without a fight.

The guitar had been exposed to the elements and most of the glue joints were failing. The top had cracks, and the back was so badly cracked and warped that it looked like a washboard. Many years ago, someone had made some very bad "repairs" to the guitar. Much of the restoration involved un-doing these previous repairs. In general I tried to maintain the originality as much as possible, repairing damage, but keeping things original wherever I could. I didn't intend or want this to end up looking like a new guitar, but hoped to get it looking reasonably presentable, and to bring it back to good playing condition. It was not possible to make all the repairs invisible--barring a total refinish, which I did not want to do. But overall, I'm satisfied with the results. All gluing was done with hide glue for originality, and to facilitate future repair work.

Among other things, the repairs I made were as follows:

1. The back was severely cracked and warped and had to be flattened, cracks glued and reinforced. Since the binding was half missing on the back, and it was starting to come unglued--I removed the back to make the internal repairs.

2. Inside I found that someone had smeared great gobs of wood filler into all the seams of the lower back. Some of this had actually squirted through the seams and filled the binding channel. It took a couple hours of chipping and scraping to remove the dried wood dough. I also removed a lot of glue slopped on the inside from the old repairs.

3. All of the internal braces were loose and had to be removed, cleaned of old glue and re-glued.

4. Large chunks of the linings were missing or decaying. It had to be cleaned up and new linings pieced in.

5. The warped back was flattened, glued and reinforced with small cleats. (see picture 1).

6. The top was cracked down the middle and cracked and warped along the lower edge of the fingerboard. The cracks were splined, glued and reinforced.

7. A spruce plate was added to the inside of the top, under the fingerboard, to flatten and stabilize the top in that area.

8. A maple plate was added to the lower area of the back to help flatten and stabilize that area. I used a solution of strong black tea to stain the new wood to help make the repairs less garish on the inside.

9. The tailblock was damaged and had to be repaired.

10. After the inside repairs were made, the back was glued back on.

11. The partial binding remaining on the back was removed, straightened by dipping in hot water and stretching it straight, and used to replace the missing binding on the fingerboard. The back was re-bound with new, color-matched binding.

12. Peghead, fingerboard and top binding was repaired where loose and/or missing small pieces.

13. The frets were removed, and chips and cracks were repaired on the fingerboard.

14. Someone had added ugly round inlays in the 12th fret to hide screws that they had installed to repair a cracked heel. I removed the inlays, routed a patch between the two frets and inlaid a piece of ebony to fill the gap. The cracked heel seemed stable, and the neck angle was OK, so I didn't remove or re-glue the neck.

15. The fingerboard was leveled and new frets were installed.

16. Someone had replaced the original bridge with a horrible chunk of wood. This was removed, and a new, correct bridge was made and installed after piecing in some spruce to repair torn wood found under the old bridge.

17. Sections of the fancy, inlaid binding were missing on the lower bout and upper part of the soundhole. I copied the existing marquetry and inserted new marquetry patches to fill the gaps. Thinned hot hide glue was brushed into the rest of the original binding to help solidify and stablilize the weakened and loose marquetry.

18. The guitar was gone over and touched up to somewhat hide scrapes, scuffs, dings, missing finish and other damage. I mixed alcohol stains to match the original color and blended into the remaining original finish to even the color where damaged and faded. Then did some light smoothing  with 800 grit and over-polished the entire guitar with French polish to revive the finish and bring out the color and grain of the wood. As much as possible, I tried not to remove old finish and made an effort to retain the patina of the original finish.

19. A new nut and saddle were made and fitted.

20. The original tuners were straightened and surface rust was removed.

21. The guitar was given a new set of bridge pins, new strings, was brought to pitch and sang for the first time in many years.

The guitar sounds very good and plays easily. It has a richer, warmer sound than most old parlor guitars I've played--probably in part due to the fact that it's a bit larger than the average parlor guitar. It was a pleasure giving new life to this old instrument. It was obviously a labor of love, and would "not pay" if  I were doing it for resale. However this one will become part of the family, and hopefully will be making music long after I'm gone.

 

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

Good job!

[Tim Mace]

Excellent preservation craftsmanship! I want it!!

[Kerry Krishna]

Terrific work Dan ! You should REALLY be proud of yourself! While I was looking at the pics, I wondered how you did that inlay!

[Dan Drabek]

Thanks guys. Your opinions are valued. When I started the project, I was uncertain whether a decent restoration was possible, or at least practical. Took it one step at a time and it just got done. ( Mercifully, I didn't keep track of the hours :->)
The missing marquetry wasn't too bad. I've made my own classical rosette (below), so I had a little practice.
I simply constructed a straight strip to match the pattern and cut pieces of it to fit in place--like a jigsaw puzzle. I can say that it's a lot easier to make a full binding fit the curves than it is to splice in sections. I couldn't get it perfect, but better than it was. I think one has to be a little crazy to enjoy this kind of work.
DD

[Kerry Krishna]

That Rose looks amazing also. Thanks so much for posting the pic!

[Bob Legnon]

I also came into a P Benson parlor guitar,

pretty bad shape when I got it. It took me about 6 months to find out what it was.

mine is the spruce and mahogany with ebony fret board, also with the vibration transfer, violin type, top to back post

which when you play it you can feel the back vibrate.  pretty cool

it had holes in the front and bottom, cracks up both sides and in the front, along with a fret board an eighth of an inch off the top,  with paint smears, and scratches.  the head veneer was split and separated.   What the 90 year old guy told me that gave it to me was it was used in a country band. He had got it from his dad.

It's beautiful now though, and dose have a sweet mellow sound to it.   I left as much of the original finish on it as I could

and finished it off with a french polish finish.

it also has an acorn hand carved into the top which is gold leafed

lot of character in this old thing.  As far as value,  I'm not sure, but for the first time in about 70 years this thing sings again

like to exchange photos some time 

Bob

 

[Dan Drabek]

Congratulations on your Benson. They are rare as hen's teeth. It does feel good to bring back one of these guys from the dead.

The best site I have found on Bensons is the following:

http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/kids/guitars.html

It has good info on the guitars, as well as a link to PDF's of an original Benson catalog showing many of their models, and images of the workshop. My guitar is pictured there. If you contact the site owner, he'll include shots of your guitar as well. 

[Bob Legnon]

Hi Dan

thanks for the reply

I have seen that site and am in contact with the site owner,  I should get some pics up soon

I had all kinds of appraisers look at it and no one knew what it was. I didn't either till I saw another guitar with the same P Benson brand inside on the internet.

I'm lucky I'm ok at restoring,  I don't think I'd trust it to anyone else. As it was, I've never been so nervious

about working on anything before.  I felt like if I screwed it up I'd be destroying a piece of history.

It's pretty exciting to actually own one of these things. And to see the photos of where it was made, and who might of actually made a hundred years ago this guitar I'm playing today. pretty cool 

anyhow I feel like a new member to some kind of exclusive club or something.

 

[Dan Drabek]

From what I've seen it is a rather exclusive club.

Since this thread has been resurrected, I've reloaded the images to the link at the top of this page. 

 

DD

[Bob Legnon]

Hi Dan

If your still watching this, I was wondering what kind of strings to put on the P Benson

I have been using nylon, but when I tried light steel the volume tripled

It,s louder than my Breedlove and Cordoba guitars, but I dont like the stress it puts on the Benson

I heard that martin had a good string that was very light

appreciate any advice, thanks

Bob

[Dan Drabek]

Hi Bob,

 

While the steel strings may sound good while it lasts, your Benson guitar was simply not built to handle the string tension. KInd of like putting a high-performance V-8 engine in a Model T Ford. It might go fast, but probably not for long.

Light gauge steel strings of any brand exert a lot more pull than nylon strings. Even silk and steel strings might be too much for it. Ultimately the decision is yours, but I'll only run nylon on mine. Be sure to measure your action at the 12th fret regularly, and if it starts creeping upward, you'd better get rid of the steel strings. These old parlor guitars are just not as strong as modern X-braced modern instruments. 

DD