Broken Stringed Instruments And Rainy Weather

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It's been an interesting day. I haven't been up in my attic for years. As I remembered it, I didn't have much stuff up there anyway. Yesterday I got curious and took a look. I was right for the most part. There wasn't much up there that I might use on a regular basis.

Surprisingly, I found a mandolin I had forgotten where I put it, and guitar I knew was in the attic, but I knew that was in bad shape. Another thing I'd forgotten about was my great-grandfather's saddle he used in the Civil War. It's not ready to put on a horse. Much of the leather is not ... hmmm... shiny.

I brought it all downstairs, and today I took a look-see to find out what I could do about the instruments. The saddle is pretty much on it's own. I apparently didn't loosen the strings on either the guitar or the mandolin. That was a mistake. the tension of the strings pulled the neck up off the body of the mandolin, and ripped the glued bridge off the classical guitar.

The mandolin should be ready to play by lunch tomorrow. I took it up to my brother's shop when he keeps lots of carpentry tools and a willing hand. I needed clamps and glue and an extra pair of hands. As usual, I didn't have to do much. It's his tools. I sorta went over there and became his helper. Between us we glued the mandolin back together. Now it has to set for 24 hours and should be good to go. Maybe better?

The guitar strings caused a similar problem in that the tension ripped bridge completely off the body of the guitar. The bridge was still attached through the nylon strings to the guitar, but it was in bad shape even when I put it away. The bottom panel of the body of the guitar had come unglued in several places.

It had been that way even when I was playing it regular, but I was on the road a lot back then and didn't have the tools I needed. I'm too cheap to pay somebody else to do it. Especially when I can probably do a better job than many of the professionals.

My father taught woodworking classes as part of his agriculture department. My brothers and I learned how to use most power tools without supervision by the time we were around ten years old, so it's no big whoop to repair a wooden guitar when the right tools are available. My youngest brother is a tool nut.

He's got tools I've never heard of before. He sells craftsmen's specialty tools for industrial construction over the internet to places all over the world. If they got an internet connection to order from, he'll ship them anywhere on the planet the commercial carriers go. It shocks me this guy is my "little brother."

I got started on the guitar by removing the bottom panel a little at a time with a screwdriver wedged between the existing cracks where glue had come loose. I worked my way around the edge of the panel until I could lift it off and see inside.

The first thing I saw was the label pasted on the top of the panel I removed. The ragged label could still be read. It's a Silvertone guitar that was sold by Sears Roebuck probably by catalog a long time ago. I've had the guitar for forty years, but I haven't played it in twenty of those years.

Inside the guitar are a group of wooden brace pieces that hold the top and bottom panels stiff. They're arranged in a certain way to keep the panels from buckling from the stress the strings puts on them, and glued into place.

After I checked these wooden braces out to consider their condition it appeared most of them had come unglued right where the bottom panel was separating from the body. Usually at one end of the brace or the other.

The one brace just to the rear of the sound hole that appeared to be the main brace that is located just under where all the strumming goes on had come unglued most all the way across the underside of the top panel that the sound hole is in. Besides that, it was a home-made jobbie that apparently been put there by a former owner.

I think somebody gave me this guitar because it was in pretty bad shape. It was better than nothing so I took it thinking I'd come across a better one somewhere down the line. I didn't, because I stopped playing a guitar and began playing a classical flute like the ones used by marching bands. That's how it ended up in the attic.

I sat here like a zombie and scraped all the shellac off the bottom panel I had removed earlier with a Swiss knife I use a lot. I just opened the larger blade and scraped away. The shellac was crackled and falling off in places anyway. I didn't stop until it was done. I enjoyed it.

I found a piece of wood I could shape to replace the first home-made brace that was coming unglued. I don't know what kind of wood it is. It was used as part of a lamp somebody dumped on me, and I kept the wood and threw the lamp away. It was round, so I had to flatten a part of it to make a flat side to glue it in.

When I got it ready I had to jury-rig a jig to push the top panel back out like it was designed to be. Since I've been remodeling the house lately I had plenty of short two by fours to use with a C-clamp to use the brace I made to push it back into place and hold it until the glue dries. It has to stay that way until tomorrow afternoon before I unclamp it.

I'm sitting here tonight with two musical instruments all glued into place just waiting until the glue completely dries. As I wrote earlier, the mandolin was a pretty easy fix. I didn't even take the strings off of it in order to glue it together and clamp it.

If the glue holds, and it should because it's a modern miracle (according to the TV ads), I should be able to put the bridge nut and adjustable bridge back into place and play it to see how the repair took. It might be interesting to have another instrument (or two) to play the scales on.

I hope both of them have a nice ring to them. The guitar is not exactly your professional level instrument, but just what one would expect from a moil order guitar. When I scrapped the shellac off the bottom panel I was surprised as the patterns of the wood. That could have something to do with it's age.

Back before guitars became so popular due to rock and roll, even the cheap guitars were made from the classical woods. I'm looking forward to refinishing it and putting new shellac on it. That'll screw it as far as it's antique value is concerned, but if the repairs I'm making works okay I'm hoping for something that will hold together for a while to play here at the house.
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