Restoration of an old Supertone acoustic

[Phil]

I've got an old late 1920's - early 1930's Supertone parlor sized acoustic that I plan to restore. I got it at a garage sale for $2 several years ago and finally want to get around to fixing it up.

It needs several issues fixed: neck reset, new fingerboard and bridge, a couple top cracks, and a couple loose braces. It looks like the neck started bending forward which broke the fingerboard at the body joint and popped the fingerboard off the neck. The fingerboard is extremely brittle and I am missing part of the fingerboard but I have enough of it to figure out that it was approximately a 24 inch scale. The top is cracked over the neck block on either side of the fingerboard extension, as well as 2 cracks between the bridge and tailblock.

Its not like this guitar is worth much, but I think it will be a cool little guitar when complete and will give me some practice in case I ever have to do any restoration work on anything more valuable. I will post a few pics soon and probably ask for some suggestions on restoration methods.

[tippie53]

sounds like a worthwhile project I look forward to the pics and process

[Ben-Had]

I love bringing an old guitar back to life.

[Phil]

Here's a quick picture of the guitar.

[Ben-Had]

Those old stencil guitars (Harmony, Kay, Silvertone, etc) are great fun to work on and good to gain experience.

[johnnparchem]

The guitar looks to be in great shape. I would restore it. I have an old beetle back A style mandolin I restored to functionality. The research for that project got me into building guitars.

[Phil]

Below are a couple pics of the repairs that need to be done to the body of the guitar. There are 2 cracks in the top between the bridge and tail block. These cracks close up quite a bit if pressure is applied to the top. So question is, could I simply work some glue into the cracks, and clamp a caul across the top (with wax paper of course) to flatten the top and close the cracks? Would this beenough to hold?

Second issue is the top under the bridge. The bridge was screwed down at some point when itstarted lifting so I should plug those holes. But also, there is some of the top missing, so should I fill those spots, or do something like route away some of the original top and glue in replacement wood?

Now at the neck end of the body. The top has separated from the neck block so that will need to be reglued. There is a crack in the top between the neck block and sound hole, along the edge of where the fingerboard will be. There's another small crack starting at the soundhole and extending an inch or so towards the neck block. Any suggestions for this repair? The guitar doesn't have any kind of brace under the fingerboard extension so I was thinking I could add a brace to strengthen the guitar in the future.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks guys!

[Phil]

Oh and here's the pic of the fingerboard extension area....

[Ben-Had]

If the guitar is extremely dried out it would be wise to start by humidifying it for a week of two (or until you see it has stabilized) to see if that closes the cracks up significantly. If it doesn't then clamp and glue (if they are really wide you may want to splint). You should use cross grain patches under the cracks for reinforcement. They all look very repairable. The wood around the bridge is fixable as well and to be done "right" it should be but if you didn't I doubt you'd notice much. The screw hole is preference as well, many of those old Harmony/Kays had pinless bridges and were held in place by a bolt (with a hole in that same location), again don't think you notice a difference with or without.

[Ben-Had]

PS - how are the braces. Is there any loose? That is common as well in these guitars.