A week late...

 So,I'm putting this up a week late - that's how it goes when things get too busy!

Cleaning the parts of that Stewart banjo has been a real pain. I borrowed a neighbors brass cartridge cleaner, and, well, it didn't really work too well. Back to regular hand cleaning of every stinking part.

Anyhow, on Sunday the 26th, I had a couple hours of time to mess around and do repairs. I lined up the victims of the day, and went to work.

 First, the guitar. It's a Harmony-made Regal, solid woods and top, ladder bracing, 12 frets to the body. It was a cheap way for me to practice doing a neck reset, and now I'm just going back and finishing it up.

 At some point last summer, I had plugged the holes that were left in the fretboard from steaming the neck off. I used some chunks of ebony, although the wood is some kind of dyed hardwood.

 A sharp chisel leveled things out a bit.

And an Exacto saw cleaned out the slot. I figured that the slot was too wide, since the fretboard had broken across the slot when the neck came off. (The slots are really deep, almost through the fretboard.)

 No to find that missing fret. My friend Ray had one of the greatest tips of all time - just throw all the hardware and parts in the guitar body! So, there it is, hiding in the corner.

 When I pulled the fret, I colored one end blue - blue for bass (both start with "b", isn't that clever?)

 Mashing it in with my fingers got it pretty close.

 Tapping it with a hammer got it seated perfectly. I was really surprised that it stayed - I was assuming that I would have to glue it in. In fact, the glue pot was all warmed up and ready to go.

 I then peeled off the pickguard, since it looked like it was coming off anyways.

 Aw crap. There is both yellow glue and CA glue (super glue) on that guard, and puddles of the stuff on the guitar top. I couldn't bear to deal with it, so I went on to doing something else.

 This is a nice old Leonardo Nunes uke that has seen some serious use. There are multiple cracks on the top, a hole in the side, a seperated neck block, and a missing bridge and tuners.

 And some binding missing on the side. That should be interesting.

Nice label!

 

The pressing issue of the day was the loose neck block. If I pressed down on the neck, a big gap opened up on the top.

 Pressing the neck up closed the gap. While it's fun to play the muppet mouth game with a uke, I figured I should glue that sucker into place.

 The order of work - press the gap open from inside with my finger..

Squirt in some hide glue with a syringe...

Cram it in with a pallette knife...

Of course, I can't take pictures and work with hide glue at the same time, but it worked, and I put a couple of cauls on the gap, as well as a couple of spool clamps on the side where the top was loose from the binding. 

Now, back to that ugly pickguard. I realized I was in for some serious cutting and scraping, so I got the chisel out again, and went to work. 

After about 20 minutes, it was clean. 

The top took a lot of work too.

 Finally, both were clean and ready. I used yellow wood glue, since that seems to be what works with pickguards and finishes.

Once nice thing about ladder bracing - you can just chuck a piece of wood in the guitar, and it will brace the top against the pickguard. 

I took a look in a sealed can in the garage. The can is filled with chunks of bone and acetone. The bone was bought at a pet store last month, and I rough-shaped it so it would de-grease faster in the acetone. 

Coming along nicely. I don't bleach bone, I just use it natural - natural, that it, if chopping it up on a bandsaw, shaping it on a sander, and sealing it up with acetone can be considered natural. 

Banjo time! I did a little cleaning around the frets with an old gift card. Cutting a bit away gives a nice sharp corner, but the plastic won't dig into the wood too badly. 

The problem of the day was some loose frets. They had to be glued down. Luckily, hide glue is perfect for this - it cleans up very easily, but holds the frets well. I squished some in, wigled the frets up and down to work it in, and clamped the mess down with a piece of flat steel that I had sitting around. 

 I could only do part of the neck, so I'll have to do the rest another day.

I also experimented with steaming the banjo hardware clean. No luck. Back to polishing every single piece by hand...