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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 4:51 am 
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Mahogany
Mahogany

Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:26 am
Posts: 54
First name: McLovin
Last Name: Anderson
City: Moss Beach
State: CA
Zip/Postal Code: 94038
Country: United States of America
Focus: Repair
Status: Amateur
I’m hoping to do some repair work on acoustic or electric guitars for practice and have heard there are sites that sell damaged stuff that’s not super expensive. Is this true?

I’ve looked on eBay etc but usually the stuff I see is pretty pricey for being broken. Like a Córdoba guitar with a neck broken in the middle was selling for $200 and it would cost $499 to buy new. Is that really FMV for a broken guitar or am I looking in the wrong place?


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 6:49 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood
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Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2010 9:06 pm
Posts: 2739
Location: Magnolia DE
First name: Brian
Last Name: Howard
City: Magnolia
State: Delaware
Zip/Postal Code: 19962
Country: United States
Focus: Repair
Status: Professional
Under normal times , call your local shops as we usually come across junk not worth repairing for profit on a regular basis. Put an ad up on craigslist WTB.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/



These users thanked the author B. Howard for the post: Hesh (Fri Apr 10, 2020 8:18 am)
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 8:26 am 
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Old Growth Brazilian Rosewood
Old Growth Brazilian Rosewood
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Joined: Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:49 am
Posts: 12971
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
First name: Hesh
Last Name: Breakstone
City: Ann Arbor
State: Michigan
Country: United States
Status: Professional
What Brian said. We get instruments donated to us because we have been known to repair them and give them to Vets and Homeless Folks. Of course these days we are ordered closed but as Brian said in normal times most guitar repair shops have a dead guitar storage area that would be perfect for this.

eBay is a constant source of massive misrepresentation and ripping folks off in my view. When we were open to the public a week didn't go by that someone came in proclaiming all happy "look at what I WON.... on eBay..." Then of course we are the ones to tell them that it's beyond economically feasible repair or toast in some other major way.

Craig's list look for what we call "project guitars" and that's how we advise folks who we pronounce their guitar DOA to list their offerings and they should be free or very little money.

Good on you too Keith for wanting to learn repair.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:37 am 
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Contributing Member
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Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:04 am
Posts: 5743
First name: Chris
Last Name: Pile
City: Wichita
State: Kansas
Country: Good old US of A
Focus: Repair
Status: Professional
Garage sales.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 1:22 pm 
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Mahogany
Mahogany

Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:26 am
Posts: 54
First name: McLovin
Last Name: Anderson
City: Moss Beach
State: CA
Zip/Postal Code: 94038
Country: United States of America
Focus: Repair
Status: Amateur
Never thought to try shops. I’ll give that a shot when control of the earth is returned to us from the undead.

I have looked at garage sales but so far no luck there, either. Maybe my neighbors are all Philistines that don’t play or they’re all great people, busy taking good care of their instruments.

It sounds like you’re saying there’s no international repository of defunct but repairable guitars, which is both surprising and disappointing. I was hoping there was a big pile of them somewhere like those places where it says “free wood” and you can cherry pick from any one of 100 or so eucalyptus stumps and random thick branches.



These users thanked the author Digelectric for the post: Hesh (Fri Apr 10, 2020 2:33 pm)
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:50 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2010 1:46 pm
Posts: 2124
First name: Freeman
Last Name: Keller
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
I have a reputation with my shop of trying to fix instruments that no one else will touch. Sometimes I'm successful. I also have an agreement with the mariachi music program at our local high school that I will fix their damaged instruments pro bono. Many of these are very poorly built, the kids are hard on them and I get lots of practice.

The flip side of that, however, is that you can dump hours into something that truly is not worth fixing - its a hard call.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 9:51 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood
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Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:55 pm
Posts: 3820
Location: Taiwan
First name: Tai
Last Name: Fu
City: Taipei
Country: Taiwan
Focus: Repair
Status: Semi-pro
I saw a broken Gibson J200, and when I say broken I mean completely smashed up to pieces. Still went for over 1000 dollars. Seriously you could buy a used one for not much more.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:28 am 
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Mahogany
Mahogany

Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:26 am
Posts: 54
First name: McLovin
Last Name: Anderson
City: Moss Beach
State: CA
Zip/Postal Code: 94038
Country: United States of America
Focus: Repair
Status: Amateur
Tai Fu wrote:
I saw a broken Gibson J200, and when I say broken I mean completely smashed up to pieces. Still went for over 1000 dollars. Seriously you could buy a used one for not much more.


Yeah I’m not sure I saw one that extreme but I’ve seen several acoustics that look like the neck is broken in such a place that I’m guessing the body is split and the neck would take a serious craftsman to rebuild and it would lose all its value and probably not sound that great once fixed and it’s maybe 15% lower than a used playable one.

So far so haven’t found any to experiment on.

Shops are mostly covid-closed near me but I might try one or two that know me when the opportunity is there.

Thanks for the info.


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 10:39 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood
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Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 8:55 pm
Posts: 3820
Location: Taiwan
First name: Tai
Last Name: Fu
City: Taipei
Country: Taiwan
Focus: Repair
Status: Semi-pro
Digelectric wrote:
Tai Fu wrote:
I saw a broken Gibson J200, and when I say broken I mean completely smashed up to pieces. Still went for over 1000 dollars. Seriously you could buy a used one for not much more.


Yeah I’m not sure I saw one that extreme but I’ve seen several acoustics that look like the neck is broken in such a place that I’m guessing the body is split and the neck would take a serious craftsman to rebuild and it would lose all its value and probably not sound that great once fixed and it’s maybe 15% lower than a used playable one.

So far so haven’t found any to experiment on.

Shops are mostly covid-closed near me but I might try one or two that know me when the opportunity is there.

Thanks for the info.



Just so you know (I forgot to mention this), I saw that on ebay. I don't know why someone would pay that much for smashed up guitars.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:26 am 
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Mahogany
Mahogany

Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2019 1:26 am
Posts: 54
First name: McLovin
Last Name: Anderson
City: Moss Beach
State: CA
Zip/Postal Code: 94038
Country: United States of America
Focus: Repair
Status: Amateur
Tai Fu wrote:
Digelectric wrote:
Tai Fu wrote:
I saw a broken Gibson J200, and when I say broken I mean completely smashed up to pieces. Still went for over 1000 dollars. Seriously you could buy a used one for not much more.


Yeah I’m not sure I saw one that extreme but I’ve seen several acoustics that look like the neck is broken in such a place that I’m guessing the body is split and the neck would take a serious craftsman to rebuild and it would lose all its value and probably not sound that great once fixed and it’s maybe 15% lower than a used playable one.

So far so haven’t found any to experiment on.

Shops are mostly covid-closed near me but I might try one or two that know me when the opportunity is there.

Thanks for the info.



Just so you know (I forgot to mention this), I saw that on ebay. I don't know why someone would pay that much for smashed up guitars.


Yeah I agree. I’ve purchased a couple that needed some work (that was unexpected) and learn a lot from fixing them but otherwise would prefer to make a new one from scratch rather than glue together a bunch of little fragments to make one whole again :)


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