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I finally found a guitar worth restoring. It's a 1890 Thompson & Odell Parlor guitar. BRW sides and back. I'm not sure that the fretboard is original. It has a few cracks that need repaired. I think someone put polyurethane on it, which needs to come off. It needs a neck reset:

If all it needs is a reset and crack repair you should have it up and running in not time - cool looking instrument.

Ed

I restored one a few years back They are interesting.
jh

All of a sudden, I seem to have a lot of burners firing up. Guitars are starting to stack up here. LOL

But, this little guy, and the "Train Wreck" rattlesnake guitar are the most interesting to me.

It's been a year since I started working on her. I finally found the time today to start work.

She has a lot of cracks to address. I took off the remnants of steel strings from the tuners. How anyone would think of putting steel on this delicate guitar is beyond my comprehension. Not surprisingly, i put a ruler down the fingerboard and it lays on the top. She needs a neck reset. I also have to make a new pyramid bridge for her. The original had broken into 2 pieces, down the center, through the holes.

I've already started stripping the polyurethane off of her top and back. The sides however, have a different finish, one that the Kleanstrip will not budge. I'll have to use the nasty stuff out on my front porch tomorrow.

But, I uncovered beauty that I couldn't see through the dark finish. The back centerstrip has lovely green and coral colors, along with the wood. The Brazilian rosewood is mind boggling.

The guitar doesn't have a dovetail joint. I took the fretboard off to find the joint.

I figured out how to add hours to the day! I get up at 4am, so I have time to work on my own instruments. LOL!

I've been working on the Odell. She ended up with problems unseen. She had a cracked neck block. I realized that the neck pocket was moving. Upon inspection I found that the entire block had split. I called John, who advised me to use CA glue for this repair. I'm glad to report that she survived.

It took a couple of days to get the polyurethane off of her. Once I got her stripped, I got all of the cracks fixed. She was missing some binding and purfling, especially on the top. The back had pulled away in the lower bout. When I took a closer look, I could see that someone had removed the back at one point, and put it back on crooked. I took the back off entirely, which was good. It allowed me to inspect the inside of the guitar and the bridge plate.

I french polished the entire guitar with shellac, but I decided to give her a softer sheen, rather than a hard shine. I think that this is appropriate for a guitar built in 1890.

When I reglued the back, I found out why it wasn't centered. With the back off, the sides warp a bit. I used long clamps and cauls to keep the sides parallel, since I had no mold. The back is centered now.

I ended up replacing all of the purfling and binding. The challenge was matching the original color of the purfling. The guitar had reddish pink purfling around the top and back, which matched the purfling used in the rosette. When I removed what was left of the old purfling, I had to be careful of the marquetry inlay. All of the work you see on the guitar, is separate, tiny pieces of wood.

I found pink coral dye, which fortunately matched the original purfling color. I dyed thin strips of white maple to make the purfling. I bound the guitar with ivoroid binding.

The guitar still has the original ivory heel cap and the original ivory nut. I ended up using a bridge that I had on hand and I cut a new bone saddle. After a long year, I have finally gotten to hear this guitar sing.

WOW! She resonates. I have her strung at the moment, with hard tension nylon strings. I will restring her with light silk and steel strings, or one of the number of strings with reduced tension for old guitars. However, the nylon strings sound great. The intonation is spot on.

Diane, It your restoration and repair work looks great! Thanks for share how you did it.

Beeeautiful!! Hopefully this one will have a long stay in inventory?

Danl8 wrote:Beeeautiful!! Hopefully this one will have a long stay in inventory?

Oh yes. This one is mine. Thank you.

Nicely done

A question - how did you get the shape correct before gluing on the back? Did you make a mold?

Ed