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Ŧhe quaint ways I amuse myself is constantly changing. Changing in the way I see... me. I got up this morning, and after I went downstairs to brew coffee and take my pills, I came back upstairs and started working on the classical guitar I'm attempting to restore.
I guess I'm using the term "restore" because I'm not changing anything about the guitar's design. In fact, the only repair that requires new wood is the one wooden brace beneath the top sound board just to the rear of the sound hole I replaced with a stronger design to keep the same problem from reoccurring.
The rest of the repairs amounts to me cleaning the old glue off where it popped loose over the years. As much from the changing ambient temperatures and extremes of humidity it went through as I carried it around the country hitch-hiking without much protection. I never expected this old guitar to be around this long. It's been most interesting to me to have taken it apart and to see how classical style guitars that use nylon or catgut strings are put together.
The process of working with wood is coming back to me a little at the time. I don't have many tools, so I'm having to make do with what I have. I remembered that I'd bought a small handsaw that had an aluminum handle that might come in handy. I was surprised I actually found it.
This little saw really has helped me with removing the old glue. The glue the guitar was put together with is as hard as a brick. Using sandpaper to get it off could take forever and a day. The saw is a sort of keyhole saw. It has a blade that tapers in width down to the tip. It appears designed for the narrow tip to fit inside a bored hole that allows cuts to be made to make a door handle fit inside the wooden doors without weakening the integrity of the grain by a crosscut.
The reason it works for removing the old glue is that the narrow blade is so flexible I can lay it flat up next to the protruding old glue and literally saw it off even with the flat of the guitar panel. The small aluminum handle can be lifted up from where the tip of the blade lays flat on the panel, and that flexibility gives the room and leverage to work the blade back and forth. I can't think of a general tool that would do it better.
After I removed the old glue and spent considerable time sanding things smooth I decided to put some additional glue on the braces. I'm waiting for this new glue to set on one side of each of the five braces where it's connected to the bottom panel. When that's done I'll put a bead of glue on the other side of the brace, and let the panel sit all night to dry.
I have to wait until my brother gets back from Atlanta to glue the bottom panel back on to the guitar body. Not only because he has a bunch of clamps that can be used to hold it in place until the glue sets, but because four hands are better than two.
The real stickler is getting everything lined up all around the ends and sides of the guitar before the glue sets. It's a lot like pouring concrete. You have to do what you got to do before it sets up. If the glue sets with the panel not aligned, I'll probably just take the guitar out to my trash pile and burn it up. I suspect this old Silvertone guitar is older than I am is.
I've just realized that I can set the height of the strings from the fret board while I'm gluing the bottom panel back on. All I have to do is put one string on the guitar before I glue it in place, and then lift or push down on the neck of the guitar to set the height of the strings. Then when I get it right, clamp it down and hold it there until the glue sets.
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
