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I question the direction that the repair of older guitars is headed. I have been told not to replace very worn, cracked and pitted fingerboards because it will detract from the value of the guitar. Yet violin repair people routinely replace fingerboards when they have been plained down too thin. No one builds them up with epoxy. I have been told to save old Kluson tuners with worn gears and rotten buttons. Yet violins periodically get there pegs replaced (even the finest violins do not have original pegs). If we had a vintage car would we recap the tires just to keep them original? When the fabric seats are worn through do we try to weave in new threads? We replace the frets when they are worn, why not the “ebonized maple” board on an old National? What are we trying to preserve?

David: The MIMF has a section specifically for repair of vintage instruments IIRC.
Tom

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Hi David,
There is a tendency today to save as much of the original guitar as possible and resist the temptation to renew the instrument with non authentic parts. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. Previously some guitars were renecked (tenor to 6 string), retopped (Martin archtops to flattops) and commonly given closed back tuners in place of "outdated" open backs.
I remember seeing an old Aubert 4 course guitar in a violin makers shop whose owner wanted it converted to a six string. Even back in the bad old days that seemed wrong to me.
I think we have all done a few things we wish we hadn't in retrospect, and that may be part of our reluctance to "renew" too much today.

Restorations are done all the time and fine. I would just use parts that are replicas if can't find vintage parts to replace the broken stuff. There comes a point where things have to be done. I just wouldn't use things that were not replica or vintage to that age. I know great repair guys who do that all the time, but they make the parts to the specs of the time period.

For me, I don't get into those things. I had a customer with an expensive old Gibson who had binding problems. Could I do it? Probably, but was not 100% comfortable that might not screw up also. I elected to call David Collins and refer customer to him. I have referred other things to better than good repair folks.

I do what I know I can do. I know what I can't do or not fully confident of ability so don't do them, and so a majority of major things I refer to others. Could I probably figure it out and do many of those things. Sure. But think in the long run, I save myself headaches and money doing what I know I can do and not messing with the rest.

Would you replace an "eponized maple" board that was worn half way through with another "eponized" board. They were cheap crap from the begining. Never meant to last 25 years let alone 75 years.

I'm over vintage worship, frankly.
I have no problem refretting instruments that need it or replacing worn parts with replica parts that work properly.
Since it is a concern I always have a frank discussion with whoever that the guitar will lose quite a bit of it's perceived value to collectors who just want one in their stable and don't care about playability as long as it's original and would probably by it for top dollar tomorrow if they wanted to sell it. I do this because they should know, but really it's their instrument. Usually they'll say something along the lines of "I want to play it 'cuz I love the guitar, my Dad gave it to me. I don't ever plan on selling it".
Every year, these guitars age 1 more year.
If somebody calls me and starts telling me about their vintage guitar collection that needs to be maintained and they want everything to play good yet remain original, and I better not break a knob or some such part that's getting ready to crumble to dust at the slightest touch that they haven't played in 10 years and don't know how bad it's really aging, I pass them on.
Too much headache, and I don't want to be liable for a $200 vintage Gibson knob because I did a $45 setup on it and it cracked off as soon as I gingerly barely turned the knob, just because it's that old, and the guitar still plays a feels like crap because the frets are worn and the neck has some irregularities due to being old.

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I have a 1931 National tenor guitar in my shop right now that has a very pitted finger board with bad frets and a collapsed cone. Thirty years ago you couldn't give these guitars away. Now people think they are worth there weight in gold even when they are unplayable. They want it all original but want it playable. The two don't mix. You can't have it both ways.

Tell them that. If they want it playable it needs new parts, but they can keep the original parts for future sale if need be. Often with non-destructive replacement, as long as the original parts are included in the sale the value should be maintained.

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Whisper with you on this one. I will replace open back with open back tuners and the brand depends on how much they want to spend on the tuners. Same with other parts. If it is broke and not working, I tell them I can make it work and look as periodic as far as possible, but still new stuff. I then advise them to keep the original stuff in the case should they sale the guitar.

But then like I said, I don't get into big and expensive restoration work and keep to the basics. Just don't have the skill sets for big and expensive restoration jobs to make it right nor want to attempt them and to old to want to learn. I do OK with what I do and what I want to do.

After all, that stuff could get into interfering with fly tying and fly fishing, and can't do that. Doing the basic stuff pays for those fun things, and for me that is the bottom line.

talk with your client and outline your policy to them. be the boss. i mean who's driving the bus here -you or them? if they want a player, then the old junk's gotta go. replace it and put the broken bits in a bag so they can look at them and say that they are included when they resell the guitar on ebay. now if they want a "period correct restoration" that's another thing and i hope you charge them fully, and accordingly. in my day job life we call that a "punitive quote". a price that basically makes them go elsewhere because their ideas are impractical.

imo, i think the bigger problem is that the internet has empowered guitar owners to second guess and micromanage nearly every aspect of guitar set-up and repair with "factoids" pulled down from forums. it's one reason that i don't do repair nor do commission except for known family and friends. i have very little patience for jackassery and time wasting trying to talk somebody down from their bad ideas.

Haven't had much issue with that. Either their information is good or it's laughable. If it's laughable, I laugh and tell them why it's ridiculous, they usually leave it up to me after that.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Violins are generally more valuable than guitars, are better built for serviceability, and are working instruments while being decades or centuries old. The culture of violin ownership is different too, with wealthy folk owning the instruments while professional players possess and play them. The culture is so entirely different to guitar culture that comparison is not practical.

Guitars also are extremely varied in their design, construction, and use of materials and hardware. Far more decisions come into play changing a fingerboard on a guitar (that was never intended to be changed) compared to a violin... on a guitar the time can be quite extensive and disproportionate to the guitars value. So a decision to rehabilitate and extend the useful life of an existing fingerboard is practical.

You can't go wrong preserving as much originality that you can, especially when that comes at lesser cost. Of course replacement parts are ideally from the period or period correct when not available or practical. Changing tuning pegs on a violin has entirely different considerations than changing tuning pegs on a guitar.

Lastly, guitars as collectibles is in its relative infancy and the ideals of collectors, players, and player/collectors are disconnected. So the ideals and budget of the owner is the great deciding factor, unless asked to do something that conflicts with your personal ideals at which time you may decide to pass on the project.

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David Radlin
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I would say that it depends on the guitar and the point of how bad the part is. If you are speaking of a pre war martin D45 then no but a Gibson L0 or Martin 0-18 you may . There is a lot to think about on this subject. The old vintage guitars are not treated the same as violins for sure. There are some interesting techniques for making the old stuff work again but I agree , if the part is shot it may need replacement. I do a lot of work on old vintage stuff and you may be surprised what can be done.
If you do have to replace a part , keeping the original with the instrument so it is available is often a nice option. I agree when tuners are shot and most of the old tuners are crap compared to today , but that can devalue the instrument a great deal. There are some nice replacement options out there. Then you have to communicate with the owner. Tell him the options.
There are different stages of repair , serviceable and structural Originality and museum quality.
Serviceable and Structural make it playable
Originality is when you just keep the old and use the same methods of repair as it was built
Museum quality repairs may show are as original as possible and reversible.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Good thread!

First Arie's post is an excellent one and worth reading a few times IMHO. If you have a shingle hanging out and do repair and restoration work there is an expectation that you will know what you are doing. If you indeed do know what you are doing this stuff is not difficult nor is the message that we have to send to Mr. and Mrs. Customer from time to time.

It's true that clients can be very wrong in what they think that they wish. That's where we come in as trusted advisors who are supposed to be fully capable of proposing suitable alternatives for some wrong minded BS that the client may be wrongly armed with because of some snake oil infested forum advice.... Me.... I'm not jaded....

It's up to us to set them right, have an "appropriate for the instrument" approach to providing value to the instrument and ultimately it's current steward - what you guys may refer to as the owner.

I don't see a big divide between repair ethic for violins and guitars. In both cases the following should be true:

1) It's OK to replace original parts if the original parts cannot be made to function as intended. If we have to replace original parts thought should also go toward what's appropriate for the instrument as well. For example Klusons with damaged buttons, replace the buttons, rebuild the tuners and lube them up and call it a day. We are shooting for 1) functionality and 2) originality and in this order. There are exceptions with instruments that may live a life in a museum and/or the provenance is a huge part of the perceived value and in this case these instruments don't remain in service but on display.

When vintage parts need to be replaced though exact duplicates are desirable provided that they are available and will get you where you need to go in terms of functionality. Damaged buttons can be crushed off the tuners and new (vintage looking) buttons sourced (Stew-Mac has them) or made (we just did this last week...). Again the idea is to restore the functionality of the instrument - never to reengineer it....

Violins and guitars differ in respect to the finger boards or fret boards. On a fretted instrument divots will not necessarily prevent the instrument from functioning as intended, the frets are where the string will break not on the raw board. With a violin divots will impact the functionality of the instrument and need to be either filled, milled down, or the board replaced just to restore functionality. This is a example of where the restoration ethic for either a violin or a guitar actually are the same idea - restore the functionality first, originality second. If the board needs to be replaced as the OP has asked a few times now replace the board. I would however replace it with something that is a duplicate if the instrument is indeed valuable. In my view the current steward does not have the right to request that repair folks reengineer a historic piece of great value because they own the thing. If I was asked to replace an ebony board with a rosewood board on say a pre-war Martin (WWII....) I would explain why it's not a good idea. If the client insisted it would be suggested to them that perhaps they may be happier going elsewhere..... None of us have any obligation to destroy an instrument because a client believes that they have the right to do what they please with it. You would be surprised at just how may uppty clients get reasonable when advised of another way forward. Most of the time it's because they don't know and it's our job if you want to be in this biz to educate them. If that is not good enough for them and they insist on retopping a 000-18 from 1937 with an Ov*tion top.... show em the door and try to not get any on ya in the process....

So back to the National. If the board needs to be replaced for reasons of functionality I would do so if you do this kind of work and can deal with the finish issues that will be part of the job too. The replacement would be an exact duplicate of the original if the value of the instrument warrants preservation and we have had Andy Birko make us replacement boards in the past for vintage instruments. We can make our own boards but appreciate the very high quality that we can get from Andy and it frees us up to address other things.

Although the ebonized maple was not a great choice for the original board I would not be keen to reengineer the instrument if it has historical value. It's true that fret boards (and necks) have been replaced often a number of times on valuable violins it's also true that they were almost always replaced with something that was an exact duplicate of the original unless the functionality would suffer. Many old violins are often close to 50% not original but they were restored and repaired with maintaining functionality in mind.

Tuners - have a historic instrument and the old Waverlys failed, replace them with period correct new ones but don't put something that is not historically correct on them such as Grover rotomatics.... Worked on a pre-war Martin last week that this had been done too - looks terrible IMHO.. and was invasive to the instrument in that new holes had to be drilled.

It's important to respect these old girls and we are lucky to still have them kicking so that we can all enjoy them as well. There are folks who worked on them long before us including the original makers and there hopefully will be many folks who will work on them long after we are all gone. My perspective is to never do anything that might prevent the instrument from functioning and remaining serviceable well into the future.

Granted it's a huge responsibility when we are fortunate enough to be charged with repairing a vintage, valuable instrument but it's also an opportunity to keep her singing well into the future. The approach is not all that different from current instruments if you subscribe to the idea of functionality first and preservation second and have applied this thinking to the correct instrument. Again it has to be an instrument that is intended to remain in service.

Something else that PT66 said that caught my attention was that these things were in the past considered junk. I struggle with this notion every day seeing things that were indeed junk from my youth that now command very high prices. Go figure....

Mind you in many instances they are STILL junk but now old junk with an inflated value.... Go figure again.

I just don't understand it either in so much as an improperly intonated instrument from 1946 is likely to remain improperly intonated if the bridge was in the wrong place. But these things command very high prices these days and even experienced collectors have come to expect misrepresentation or omission in the sales transaction when they purchase these things or, as I like to say "win........" them on ebay....

Anyway it's the reality of the day, yesterday's junk seems in some instances to be today's highly prized "win" on ebay....

One thing is for sure PT if you can remember when these things were considered junk as I do you and I are not getting any younger.

one persons trash is another person's treasure

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Restoring the 70 Gretsch Country Gentleman and Quite Frankly I am amazed at the poor quality of the " factory" work on this one in the first place

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Of all the old guitars I get my paws in I also am amazed at the less the stellar detail work , but we have to remember they are production instruments. Of them all Martin seems to have the nicer insides. I have seen glue stalagmites in old Gibson's .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Wait until you have to deal with a Rik.... If you currently don't swear like a sailor you will after repairing Riks.....

And then there is Ov*tion as well. Companies with a core competency of dealing with low and high frequency vibration that can be found on rotary wing aircraft should never attempt to build guitars where vibration elimination is not the goal.... Copious use of ep*xy, truss rod adjustment access that requires a colonoscopy ( for the guitar not the Luthier...), heavy, dissimilar materials with differing expansion rates bonded together (for now...), off balance wanting to dive toward the headstock and heavy as well. Lots of shops won't even attempt to work on them. Amazingly they had huge market share at one time... Being one of the first acoustics with on-board electronic was innovative. The cheaper ones were good for leaving in your car on a 200 degree day, they held together and were excellent camp fire instruments. Especially if thrown in the fire when done playing... Look at the pretty colors.....

Gibson did indeed use a lot of HHG and slopped it on. Squeeze-out was apparently their friend and cleaning up inside the box was not... Although not something that troubles me lots of saw marks on the braces and even scratches on the fret boards that revealed that wire wheels were used on the boards. Then there are the nibs.... the stinkin nibs that some clients even ask to have preserved until they learn what it's going to cost and that their 1999 Les Paul whatever... is not considered vintage, yet.

It is amazing though the value that some of this stuff has just because it's getting old.

I was once asked to retop a 1941 Martin D-28...simply because it had a couple of repaired cracks and initials scratched in the left upper bout. I politely refused (the guitar sounded incredible), but the collector took it to another luthier whose name is well-known today. I did see the retopped guitar, and it was a fine instrument, but worth no more than half its previous value. A few years later, the collector went through a messy divorce, leaving his ex-wife with about 200 empty cases...and some 'spare parts'....mainly tops from all the 1950's and 1960's D-28's and D-35's he had 'upgraded', as well as some red spruce and Brazilian RW sets. These items were sold at public auction to probate the divorce, and I ended up buying that 1941 D-28 top from a guitar dealer who had attended the auction. I have a 1947 D-28 that needs a new top, so I plan to recycle that herringbone top.
BTW, a few of those 200 guitars ended up on Ebay, but I have not found out what happened to most of them....including that retopped herringbone.
As far as fingerboard divots, my preferred method to repair them (if I do anything at all) is to rout a shallow rectangular slot from fret-to-fret, and inlay matching wood. Very often, the edges of this inlaid wood are right under the strings, and the repair can be nearly impossible to detect.

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John

Most people agree that guitars that aren't particularly valuable or collectible can be repaired with little regard for historical accuracy and reversibility. The problem is that today's ordinary, uncollectible guitar is tomorrow's collectible guitar. I'm dating myself here, but I remember when prewar Martin 0-17s and 00-17s were considered to be cheap campfire guitars. 1960's Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters were seen as nearly-unsalable curiosities. Now, compared to the millions of guitars mass-produced in Asia, even guitars that weren't and are't great instruments stand out and are rightly, IMHO, valued for their character. I understand that it's exasperating to have customers that insist on unreasonable standards for repairing inferior instruments, but customers find infinite ways to be exasperating. That's just the way it is working with the public. (And as you know if you've ever performed in bars, they're even worse when they've been drinking.) I would hope that repair people would educate their customers, when possible, about the benefits of keeping their instruments as original as possible, and the need to pay extra for that sometimes. I hope that repair shops that aren't interested in doing restorations can refer to shops that are.

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Tim Allen
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