One of the things I love about luthiery is the range of skills required. This week a very sad, new guitarist came to me with a tale of his guitar falling from the bag on his back straight onto the floor!
As you can see from the image, the bottom of the guitar was chipped and scratched quite badly. He also reported that the guitar didn't play well and that there was a lot of string buzz.
So the first job was to use super glue to fix down the lose chips of finish, then begin the polishing. Gentle sanding with high grit wet and dry paper, from 600 to 1200, then polishing compounds and finally buffing with metal polish and the shine was back.
Next was a full set up, to address the string buzz and playability. I was shocked by the amount of relief in the neck, almost 5mm at the 7th fret! Once that was down to 0.25mm, the saddle height needed raising significantly. Surprisingly, the intonation was very good already.
damage repaired, string height adjusted, and the frets polished up to gleaming, the guitar now plays beautifully and the client is happily learning to play on an instrument that will encourage him, not hinder him.
next up is resurrecting an old Höfner acoustic.
Have a great week,
Richard
