Projects Projects Projects

I've been out of action (along with Bonnie) for the last week due to some sort of flu plague, but felt well enough today to get a little work done. Let's start with this instrument: this is a tiple that I'm working on for a customer in Connecticut. It arrived with a loose neck, top crack hairline, a bungled fretboard, and a missing bridge. So far I've attacked the fretboard, hardware (tuner overhaul), the neck reset (which I'll give detail on a little below), and the top crack. All I have left to do is the bridge, really, before I string it up. I've also already done some finish restoration: scuff and scratch removal from the back, sides, and neck: I'm going to rub in a coat of varnish on the top after I finish with the bridge due to some serious pickwear (it's almost through the wood).

The original bridge was dyed maple (there was a fragment left) so I'm going to do the same to replace it. I had ordered a rosewood end-loading guitar-style bridge to modify for this instrument, but I didn't like the feel of it, so I'm cutting my own.

Here's the rough cut. This is going to end up a back-loading bridge (typical for a tiple) but won't have the fragile square-cut classical-style top that these usually have (that end up breaking).

Dressed & polished frets & conditioned board.

Front view. Notice the top of the board now that we have some contrasting light: some silly devil had filed the board down very poorly on the top 3 frets and it was previously a lot more jagged and discolored brown. I've fine-sanded it a bit (didn't want to remove too much more than was already removed) and recolored the area to match the rest of the board. Unless you get the light just right it doesn't show up (which is a plus) though the fingers still feel that slight divot.

Tuners have been cleaned: these were previously a nice brown tarnished color. Once they've been through a light dip in a mild acid bath and some scrubbing most of the 80+ years of grime and tarnish gets removed and you have very well-functioning original tuners.

The neck on this tiple was (as is common) a bit loose. The dovetail joint was still pretty strong, however, so rather than steam the whole neck and fretboard off, I simply lifted the already lightly-glued heel cap, drilled a very small pilot hole, and "hosed in" some tightbond into the slightly open joint. Then I applied some pressure to the neck to bring the joint tight, wiped off any excess glue that seeped from the neck pocket, and reglued the heel cap. I prefer this method (when I can use it) to steaming because sometimes steam can bleed and hurt old finish, which then needs to get touched up. You also don't have to worry about fragile dried-out fretboards, either, and it keeps the repair cost down for the customer.

Here's the back, previously home to a bit of paint splatter and scuffs.

This is an old squeezebox I'm working on: plays like a concertina or harmonica: one note on the push, a different one on the pull. The bellows look ok and the reeds check out fine, but they're chattering again so it's back to opening it up! This dates probably c.1890/1900.

Nice hand-painted flowers.


Detail.

Here's a Bruno "Maxitone" quality "Chicago-Hawaiian" uke. It looks a lot like koa but I won't swear to it. This one's got a couple of not-through-the-wood hairline repairs on the top, multiple binding reglues, back/side seam repairs, a neck reset, and eventually a bridge reglue.

And here's a c.1950s/1960s Gretsch mahogany uke that's getting some serious surgery: this has a bunch of cracks all over, including some really ugly big separations on the top (under that big slap of balsa). It came in covered (and in every seam!) with some pasty glue-like substance that I managed to caress, peel, pick, and scalpel-off until I had clean gluing surfaces.

And what's in the future? A fun lower-mid range Regal uke from the 1920s which looks like it'll sound awesome (super light), another c.1925 tiple (again by Bruno), a c.1930 or so Regal archtop guitar (can't wait!), and various other stuff. Till next time!