R ESTORINGANORIGINA L
1921 Martin 0-18, Pt. 3
Welcome back to the wonderful world of
restoration! This 1921 Martin 0-18 resides
in the state of Minnesota and has seen its
share of cold and dangerously dry weather
throughout the years. As a result of age and
the environment, it now bears a long list of
needed repairs.
Last month we left off with the removal of
the bridge, using a bridge/fingerboard iron
warmed to a temperature of 250 degrees
on a basic hot plate to achieve separation.
With added help from the flexible Bridge
Removal Knife, the ebony pyramid bridge
came off cleanly with little to no tear out.
After the bridge was removed, I could see
that the underside gluing surface of the
bridge had a slight twist to it. This slight
warping was corrected by lightly coating the
bottom gluing surface of the bridge with
hot water and clamping the bridge to a flat
slab of aluminum.
more complicated, someone had previously
tried doing some handy work on it, giving
me more clean up to do. Would it be easier
to replace the sides? Perhaps, but that would
take away the challenge of making the repair
borderline invisible. Let the adventure begin!
Before we could think about mixing glue, we
first had to convince the separated ribs to
line back up. This was not a one-man job, as
the wood had a memory and did not want
to follow my lead. Carson Lulic, the newest
addition to Brown’s Guitar Factory, helped
me with two extra hands. As I flexed the
wood on the outside and through the soundhole from the inside to line up the seam,
Carson put on the spool clamps with light
to medium clamping pressure. This 1921
Martin’s sides are very thin and it wouldn’t
take very much to overclamp, collapsing the
sides and causing more damage.
For this month’s operations, we will be using
the following tools and supplies, all of which
are available through Stewart-MacDonald
( stewmac.com):
• Spool clamps, large #0684
• Drop-fill toothpicks, #3110
• Glue brush #4167
• Epoxy glue, slow setting #5174
• Measuring spoons
• Cup and stir stick
• Hair dryer
• Sponge
Rib Rebuild
At the owner’s request, I was to rebuild – not
replace – the original damaged sides. There
were multiple fractures on the bass and
treble sides, both long and short with a few
wide open, gaping cracks. To make matters
Once the ribs were clamped to their original positions, we were ready to apply some
light moisture to the damaged area. For this
I used a sponge that fit nicely through the
sound hole. The purpose of this is to rewarp
the ribs to their original state so that when
we remove the clamps it will make applying glue and the final clamping easier; more
importantly, it will keep the excess pressure
off the glue joint so that it isn’t destined to
break apart at the seam again. A total of two
moisture sessions were applied a day apart.
Gluing the Cracks
The glue of choice here was a two-part
epoxy with slow setting properties. This provided us with some extra time for positioning
and repositioning if the woods shifted during clamping. Epoxy will work as a filler and
creates a very strong glue joint designed to
never come apart. For this repair, I glued sections of 4” to 6” increments, as there were
many small, uneven areas that needed to
be addressed at the seam line of the crack.
Once the glue was mixed, I used a glue
brush and a drop-fill toothpick to apply it
to the cracked area. When needed, the hair
dryer provides heat perfect for thinning out
the glue so that it can seep into the hard-to-reach fractures.
Patience is a virtue with this project as the
gluing can only be done in sections of 4” to
6” per day. With that said, there will be many
days of crack repair ahead of me. Thank you
for checking out Restoring an Original. I’ll
see you next month.
John Brown
John Brown, of Brown's Guitar Factory, is the inventor
of the Fretted/Less bass. He owns and operates a full
guitar manufacturing and repair/restoration facility, which
is staffed by a team of talented luthiers. He is also the
designer of guitar making/repair tools and accessories
that are used today by instrument builders throughout
the world.
brownsguitarfactory.com
info@brownsguitarfactory.com
