Building Blog
April 2009
The 201K OM and Dred are in finish now. I’m thinking the end of June for completion. I have been doing some interesting repair work. I have a 70’s D-41 that was re-topped elsewhere and the bridge had lifted and was in the wrong place affecting the intonation.
I filled the saddle slot, re-glued with hide, and routed a new slot in the right spot. New nut and compensated saddle along with setup and a conversion to unslotted bridge pins and it sounds and plays great.
I also have a 70’s Harmony Sovereign OOO size that sat in a closet for years. It had a center seam separation on the top, some collapse in the upper bout resulting in the need for a neck re-set, a headstock veneer that was 80% missing, and numerous other things. I X-rayed the neck joint and that showed me just where to put the steam needle.
The lower bout center seam crack was spread too much to get together with humidity so I splinted it and used cleats. These little tuner clamps worked great to line up and clamp the cleats
The neck steamed off with no problem. I re-set it, made a wedge for the fretboard, and converted it to a bolt-on. I reinforced the upper bout with 1/2” baltic birch and grafted spruce into some wood defects.
Here’s the bolt-on conversion. I used a transfer punch to mark the dovetail for threaded inserts and cemented them in place. I used a single central fretboard tenon. Seems to work OK
I enlarged the original 3/32” saddle slot to 1/8” and routed it deeper into the bridge to give a drop-in effect and improve stability. On this guitar the saddle compensation was actually pretty good. I think with the wider saddle I’ll be able to get good intonation.
I also replaced the fragmented plastic peghead veneer with a Rosewood substitute.
I have strung it up with the old nut and so far so good. It sounds like a ladder braced guitar should to my ear. I’ll take it down to Harmony restoration expert Marty Reynolds at The Podium when done for the ultimate critique. The neck was pretty beat up so I am going to re-finish it with Tru-Oil
