Workshop: Midnight Tenor Dobro Repairs

So, this is a 1930 Regal-branded Dobro tenor guitar that arrived today. It's suffered some damage. That big old area in the middle with the round holes is called the "soundwell" and reinforces the cone-mounting area for the resonator.

It must have taken a hit to the neck because the heel cap/bottom heel area is entirely missing and in the photo above you can see how the mahogany dowel/neck attachment block inside the "soundwell" is entirely loose. The blue masking tape is to tape off the area I intend to glue it in so I can sand it for better adhesion.

Here's where the heel cap/bottom inch or so of the heel is entirely missing. Fortunately, the dowel that runs 2/3 of the heel is nicely in place and glued tight.

After sanding and fitting, here's that dowel/neck block being glued in.

Heh, heh. I've had this quite busted 1930s Regal tenor guitar hanging about for a while. The neck is trashed on it from the headstock up (it has a botched "splice" repair that makes it useless) so with my (curious) sense of humor, I've cut the orange-colored heel of one birch Regal tenor guitar...

...and mounted it to another!

I like the "double heel, double arcs" look to this. Kind of cute... and funny in its own right. I would have just made a piece to fit and sanded it all nicely together, then touched up the finish if I hadn't had the other tenor around. To me -- this is just more amusing to do and gives the heel a "waterline."

See the fretboard extension? Cracked right at the 15th fret. I have no doubt that once this all goes back together I can just glue that fella right up with its "mother board" since, before I removed the neck, I had no idea it was split in the first place (since it was such a tight join).

Ah, middle-of-the-night repairwork... can't beat it. But now I'm tired, so off to bed! More cool stuff in the morning -- another "Frankenstein" parts banjos is ready to photo and I have a weird fretless guitar banjo project coming up that should be done midday.