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This neat archtop is gracing my bench. It's a family heirloom, being passed down.

It came to me with a heel pulling up and 2 braces rattling around in the box. Upon inspection I found 3 bad cracks on the left side.

So a neck reset, brace repair, and crack fixes are in order.

I pulled the neck with the steam needle, but washburns typically have no pocket under the dovetail. I didn't want to pull the whole fretboard on her, but it's necessary to expose the entire dovetail. These fretboards are very fragile. They'll break if you aren't careful.

It's better to glue a sawed board, than to piece together a broken one. I loosened the board to fret 9, and keeping the spatulas under the fret slot, I sawed through the slot. The spatulas prevented me from sawing into the neck.

The braces were broken on each end. I made new braces from red spruce, copying the old braces. I glued them in using hot hide glue.

I decided to fix the bracing first, so that the shape of the guitar would return. Now I deal with the 3 cracks.

I don't usually use ca glue on mahogany, but in this case it's okay. The outside is already dark brown and the inside will be covered by grosgrain ribbon soaked in ca glue.

I decided on the ribbon because the cracks are so long, traversing the side bends.

I apply ca glue from the inside. Once I have each crack lined up, I used am accelerator to freeze the glue. All cracks were lined up properly. I sanded the extra glue off of the inside rims.

I lined each crack using 3 strips of ribbon soaked in glue. This will reinforce the repair and keep the cracks from spreading. The cracks are now fixed.

The other 2 back braces were loose. I worked fresh hhg under each brace and stuck it in the deck.

Today I'll close the box. Tomorrow I'll reset the neck.

Nice work!

This one is my friend's guitar. I can't wait to get my hands on it after you get her singing!

Interested to see putting the top back on

Nice work, thanks for sharing. What are you using for the steam needle?

The top is back on. I tucked the new braces and closed the top using hot hide glue.

I also fixed 3 cracks in the side, 2 of which were quite unstable. Although I don't usually use ca glue on mahogany, I decided to go ahead with the thin ca, from the inside, along each crack. Then when I had it lined up perfectly, I used an accelerator. It stabilized the cracks enough to do the real repair. After the glue was set, I sanded the excess away, so there wouldn't be any issues with the rest of the repair.

These cracks were long. One started at the tailblock; another extended 2/3 up the side. I decided to use grosgrain ribbon soaked in hhg, then put over each crack, applied with my fingers, like wallpaper.

I closed the box. I fitted the top with tape first to ensure the top would go back on properly. Everything lined up nicely.

I used a combination of cam and screw clamps to close it, using hhg.