ES-175 sinking top- another one

[Meiron Blackstien]

Hi all. I have a newer ES 175 on my bench which has me stumped.

The customer brought it on for a set up but right away something looked off... the top was sunken between the two pickups.

I removed the pickups for a quick peek inside, expecting to find a broken tone bar, but I think what I found is even worse:

This in clearly a victim of hot car syndrome... and I think it's worse than a broken brace because that glob of glue has hardened this way and I can't force the brace back....this is the worst spot but here's some more pics:

The only thing I can think of is removing the tone bars completely, cleaning up and re gluing... but I would REALLY rather avoid that if at all possible. Any suggestions?

[FRANK]

Yea if its gota be fixed and you fix it charge good that looks like it would drive me crazy i dont know but i just want to say good luck and id like to know how you fix this one

[Greg Mirken]

Yike. That first picture looks more like a bad repair, or the brace was never clamped tightly against the top at all!

[Steve Beckwith]

To do it the right way, you should pull the brace. If this was the result of a hot environment, then other sections of the brace could be in the same shape as the area in your image.

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

To do a good repair I don't have any other idea but removing the back, get the tone bars off, cleaning the area and gluing back the whole thing. That's a long work, and the only good point in it is that perhaps the bill will remind your customer not to forget the guitar in the car. I fixed an old ES-125 that way : http://paroiron.free.fr/dotclear/index.php?post/2009/09/Restauratio...