Sorry for the really long layoff

It's amazing how time sneaks up on a person.

First, I'll go back to a few things I've worked on.

The cuatro was a real misery to work on. I ended up creating a laminated side for it, made from - heat sensitive shelving edging! It's a terrible way to do things, but there was no other way to get something to adhere to those very thin sides. With some sanding and finish work, it was obvious, but blended in and looked fine. More importantly, I lowered the nut slots so that the thing actually plays close to in tune. The owner was very happy, and that is what counts.

The tenor guitar bridge turned out great, and the guitar now sounds - like a cheap Stella, but perhaps a bit louder, thanks to the lack of nuts and bolts on the bridge. Perhaps a simple philosophy should be "NO METAL PARTS ON THE BRIDGE OF AN ACOUSTIC!!".

I've had little time to work on instruments over the past year, due to my choice to earn my masters degree. I do have a couple sets of picture to put up, though, so here we go.

First, I am the happy recipient of a 1936 Cromwell flattop guitar. This is a Gibson made guitar, but it has suffered mightily. It was bought new in Honolulu in 1937 by my wife's grandfather, who then gave it to my father-in-law when he came to California in 1961. He didn't like it much, and I can't say I blame him; by that time, the top was nicely bellied, and the bridge had suffered a pretty bad reglue. The action was probably sky-high at that point, making the guitar almost unplayable.

My father-in-law got another guitar he loves around 1964, so the Cromwell was consigned to a variety of closets and garages over the years, finally ending up in the attic of a garage for the last 25 years, without a case, at full tension. It suffered from a tremendous buildup of grunge, stickers, cracks, bellying, finish damage, and corrosion.

As received. Strings have been slackened, and I have experimentally rubbed saliva on part of the pickguard. 

Distributed by the Continental Music Company, later known as Conn instruments. 

What is really hard to see here, and impossible to see now, is a decal under the bridge and partially covered by the middle sticker. It is from "Thayer's", a music shop in Honolulu. Sadly, cleaning the guitar wiped out what remained of this decal. 

That is a lot of dirt my friends. 

The entire back. Notice the horizontal lines. 

Those lines are the result of lying on something that ate into the finish. Probably some kind of rubber or vinyl. 

A hole in the bottom. I should have searched the attic for the missing chunk of wood. 

General dirt and cobwebs. 

The poor reglue on the bridge. 

A cockroach egg - welcome to Hawaii!!

That hole does allow for a nice shot of the lifting back braces. 

After cleaning.

So, let's talk cleaning. This guitar was filthy. I mean, REALLY FILTHY. So I cleaned it with soap and water. Seriously, this is a great way to clean a gross guitar. Get a bucket of lightly soapy water and a very clean non-scratching rag, and wipe the instrument down. Dirt came off easily, without any elbow grease, and the finish was not affected. I would argue (and many would agree) that you should NEVER use any kind of cleaner besides water, a bit of soap, saliva, or naphtha on a guitar or other string instrument. There is just no need, and all of those "cleaners" being sold have stuff in them that is unnecessary or even harmful to your instrument. Realize that this guitar had not been cleaned in any way for 50 years, and had been lightly baked in an attic for 25 years, yet it came clean beautifully with some soapy water and a rag.

And I can hear it now. "But what if the water ruins the finish?" Well, in that case, stop ever touching the guitar with your sweaty fingers, or your wet from holding a beer fingers, or whatever. Water is not a problem. I didn't dunk the guitar in a bathtub, I wiped it clean. And dried it rather quickly afterwards, of course.

Use water, soap and water, saliva, or Naphtha to clean your guitar. If you use Naphtha on your fingerboard, it will look really dry. You can just leave it, or use a tiny bit of lemon oil or mineral oil, wiping it almost dry immediately afterwards. (No, you don't need to oil your damn fingerboard either, it won't dry out, it might get dirty, but you provide plenty of oil from your fingers already, thanks.)

Okay, off my soapy water box now.

After some time elapsed, I had a few more sessions of work on the Cromwell.

Here is that Thayer's decal. I knew that cleaning would probably destroy what little was left. 

The stickers are off, but a lot of residue remained. 

After cleaning, even less of the decal is evident. 

The sticker residue came off nicely, leaving very shiny undisturbed finish and lighter wood where they were. 

Lots of glue squeezeout from the bridge reglue.

A sharp flat chisel makes quick work of the mess. 

The pickguard came off nicely. 

 The pickguard came off because it has shrunk, creating several nice cracks in the top nearby. Those have since been cleated.

Some grain runout tore while taking the pickguard off. I will need to fix this before putting the pickguard back on. 

Some time later, I also removed the bridge.

Typical heat lamp and big guard method. 

Ick - lots of torn grain, damage from when it first came off, and lots of glue to clean off.

I need to take a picture of the sanding block used to clean this up. But what we have here is a nasty bit of torn grain from when the bridge came off the first time. I cleaned out the area, and cut some spruce to fill it in. 

This is the crack from the pickguard shrinking. It need gluing and cleating. 

Gluing the filler for the bridge area. I take these chunks of Plexiglas and round the corners so that they don't leave a mark. 

Clamping the cracked area at the same time. 

I'll take another set of pictures tomorrow to show some more progress, how that bridge area got cleaned up, how that big hole is getting filled, how the top is all cleated, how I will glue the back braces - whew!!

And, after the body is all done, I get to pull the neck off and reset it! WHOOHOO!!

Oh yes, and I will also update the dang Kamaka pineapple uke. That thing is getting just silly.

An unexpected banjo acquisition

 While out and about today, I hit up a local thrift store, and found this. It's a circa 1890 S. S. Stewart banjo, model "The Student". The head is partially rotted away thanks to finger gunk (that's what all those lovely brown stains are, built up finger gunk), and a couple of tuners are missing, as well as one hook. The otherwise, it is in excellent playing condition, just needing a TON of cleanup.

That is the original tailpiece, which, amazingly, has survived having steel strings. It was meant for gut strings only.

Fifth string tuner hole - almost a full inch deep!

Truly awful job of mounting a banjo head - the tension hoop should be flush with or slightly below the fretboard. Much of the fretboard is unusable because the strings bottom out on the hoop!

Filthy, filthy, filthy -but I do like the mother of pearl on the tips of the non-original tuners.

Seriously, this thing is really gross. The amount of filth, dust, and stuff that I really don't want to know about is amazing.

Sadly, one tuner is busted at the knob. I'm not sure I need to replace it, though.

That is more filth and finger gunk.

Amazingly, nobody has messed with the neck joint - these are usually hacked up by some slob with a chisel.

There is some writing inside the head - kind of a shame it's busted and has to be replaced.

The wedges are missing, no big deal. More dust and gunk.

That about does it.

So, there is not much structural work to do, with one exception - the steel strings have put the neck into a slight bow. My plan is to disassemble the banjo and clamp the neck to a 2x4 piece of wood with a slight backbow, and leave it in a hot car for a couple of hours. The could well solve the problem on it's own, and if not, I can always do some work with a heat lamp and some clamps.

New head, new tuning pegs, probably a new bridge, and lots and lots of cleaning. I plan to post every single thing that I do to this banjo. Maybe somebody will get an idea about how to do it, and maybe somebody can correct my techniques as well.

A pretty amazing find, and it should be a fantastic instrument. It will not be terribly valuable - in minty condition, this might be a $400 instrument, and this one will always have plenty of tarnished and worn nickel, so it might be worth a whole $200, but it will be a fantastic player, with a nice earthy tone. It will have nylon or flourocarbon strings on it. (I don't plan on getting actual gut strings - ick.)