Workshop: F-Hole Brace Reglues

These are older pics that I was saving for notes on a guitar I'm finishing up, but I wanted to share because a customer asked me about how I go about repairing braces through the f-holes of archtop guitars. Here's the process -- though because this one is opened-up on the back, the clamps have their adjusters inside rather than outside...

The clamping is actually easy, but when working through the f-holes it can sometimes be hard to remove loose old glue and prep the inside surfaces.

I use softwood scraps to keep from damaging tops.

As an aside: just about everything on this old Harmony tenor guitar (50s) that could be wrong as regards glue... was wrong. It was so dried out that the back was hanging on by a thread when it came in, both top braces were loose enough that I could wiggle them once and they popped off, and the neck needed a reset. Thankfully, as of yesterday, I'm at the point where I just need to figure out a bridge and do the frets. More on that, though, soon.