It’s almost weird how similar repairs always come in batches, even though the owners of the guitars don’t know each other, and live far apart. I had two of the most peculiar repair cases come in over the past two weeks, both on Garrison Guitars. You might remember the Garrison line of guitars, they were a Canadian company that made their acoustic guitars with a composite frame for braces. I have never had any particular troubles with these guitars, asides from the usual setup and wear and tear, but these two are quite the case. The first one arrived two weeks ago. After a few email exchanges, the owner drove all the way from Vankleek Hill to bring me the guitar, because I was, as far as I have been told, the only fool he had found that would attempt the repair. The guitar had exploded, for lack of a better term. The heel is made of four pieces, laminated together, with a large dowel insert that runs through the middle. It’s a bolt on neck, and the machine screw inserts are inside the heel. I say exploded, because the problem arose when the guitar was sitting in a stand, in tune, and then was suddenly on the floor in three pieces. The sound box, the neck and the heel had just let go, as you can see in the pictures. Then, yesterday, another customer, from Ottawa, came in with another Garrison, that seems to have the exact same issue. The heel is cracking in two places and lifting from the body. The only sure fire way of repairing this is to cut it off, prepare a joint, glue some wood back on it and make a new heel, especially in the first case, since it was already in pieces, and the owner had cut off the excess with his bandsaw. The pictures show my progress so far on the first Garrison, which is currently drying. I could go as far as refinishing the whole neck to make it seamless, but be had to stop somewhere.
Posted on: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 21:20:18 +0000
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