1965 Martin 00-18 Lefty Conversion Guitar

This poor, lovely beastie arrived here with a missing section of top and side and, as you'd expect, a huge battered section of bracing and cracking all around the damaged area. Its owner wanted us to get the work done anyhow, so Ancel began the long process of replacing the damaged sections.

Aside from the color of the stain (too dark, but can be fixed if desired), the job went perfectly. He cut-out a section of mahogany to replace missing bits in the side, bent it and fit it spot-on and color-matched it well. There were innumerable little cleats and fill jobs that then needed doing on the inside side and back. After that, top bracing got reglued and he fit a new section of (vintage) spruce to the top. He then re-routed the edge binding channels and fit new, celluloid tortoise binding and trim layers to match the originals. This is all a ton of work.

After all of the damage was fixed, it got a neck reset, fret level/dress, bridge reglue and saddle-slot conversion to lefty configuration, a new saddle and nut, replacement (single gold) tuner for laughs, and all the usual setup-side work to make it a player.

And, no, the bondo near the soundhole was not us.