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About a year ago I posted a thread here about damage done to a Guardian guitar case when travelling by air. Air Canada quickly reimbursed me for the new cost of the case, but it was not that badly damaged (although it would have cost a lot to repair probably.) Having bought a replacement case, I decide to repair the damaged one for daily use. Photos follow. The impact cracked the side of the case, and split the bottom. I cut away most of the split bottom and squeezed glue into the remaining crack and clamped it. I used a piece of "mahogany" 1/4" plywood to fashion a replacement piece, butt joined it with glue, and glued in two cleats (made from an ice cream bar stick), cut with a 5/8" plug cutter, and glued into a shallow 5/8" recess cut with a forstner bit. The bottom splice was glued and brad nailed to the side. I looked long and hard for scraps of Tolex fabric to finish it but found none, so bought a one yard piece of 54" material; I now have enough for life. This i glued on using E6000 adhesive which I had on hand. I think the original adhesive might have been water-based contact cement, and I considered using that, but wanted more flexibility when pushing the back piece of Tolex in behind the original piece still on the side. I glued some and taped it to cure, then glued some more and taped it etc. It worked okay but you can see in the photo I need to clean that seam up. In the end I was pretty happy, and it is going to get beat up along the way some more, but it felt good to patch it up. I found very useful information here also: http://www.stevekirtley.org/caserepair.htm (Two more photos in a reply following this post.)

As an aside to this, I was interested to see the construction, which is advertised in this line of Guardian cases as 7-ply construction. The back clearly was only three-ply 1/4" material, and the sides were 1/2" or a little less, with 4 plies, in some places 5. So I wonder what the "5-ply" cases look like inside. But the case did protect the guitar from the impact.

Last two photos in the guitar case repair process:

great job

Very nice!

Looks great -what is that glue all about?

Ed Minch

Very nice repair! I occasionally pick up damaged cases from the local guitar factory and with a little repair effort they often look as good as new. My best example was a deep body 00 injection molded case that took a bit of fiberglass and new rivets, etc., and I ended up with what would have been an expensive and hard-to-find case for less than $20.

Ed, first, the wood repairs were done with TiteBond. The E6000 is something I bought to do a shoe repair (rubber to cork, and it has worked for that). It's a clear liquid/gel that says it bonds lots of things to lots of things. It's sometimes described as a "craft glue". So I would not count on it for high stresses without testing. But for gluing a fabric/vinyl product like Tolex to wood, I thought it might work. I think it stays a little flexible, so I thought it might bond well to the residue of what appeared to be a contact-type cement used originally. For the repair, I did not want to use a contact-type cement that would grab too quickly. The E6000 stays workable for perhaps ten minutes, so I had time to work edges under seams, and pull things tight with tape until it set. When it cures it seems a little like rubber cement. I masked some edges where I knew it would probably squeeze out, so I could wipe it off easily. I have not tried any solvent on it except naphtha (which cleaned up some smears) because I did not know what they might do to Tolex. In the web link I posted, author Steve Kirtley says he has also used white glue for gluing Tolex down.

Maybe the case covering counts as a "ply" for advertising purposes.....