Martin 0-18 with multiple problems

[Peter Wilcox]

A friend was gifted this 1967 guitar and wants me to "fix it up." Not being a pro repair person, I wouldn't touch it except I think it's has enough problems and had enough damage and prior repairs that it's not a valuable instrument. But it really has a beautiful sound, notwithstanding the problems, and that it came to me strung with electric strings.
I've dealt with some top cracks, peeling pick guard, and missing binding. The major problem is that it is close to needing a neck reset, and has had a huge catastrophic upper bout side crack, with prior repair, from one side to the other and running underneath the heel's attachment to the body. It has been glued and cleated in the past, but I don't see any damage to the heel, the heel block (has the original with serial #), the fret board or the guitar back. I'm at a loss to explain how this happened.

The bridge is only 1/4" thick (I'd guess it's been shaved) and the saddle only 1/16" tall, giving a string height of 5/16" over the top. A straightedge on top of the fret board hits the bridge 3/16" from the guitar top. No way to lower the action anymore here.

It was strung with an extra ball end on each string, I presume because the bridge was shaved and the string windings come up too high out of the pin hole now.

Without knowing the actual damage and how it was repaired, I'm not going to attempt a neck reset, since I've never done one before even on a straightforward undamaged guitar. If this were a cheap guitar I'd saw off the heel and make it a bolt on, but would hate to do that on this semi-vintage one. It's still playable with a high E action of about 2.5mm at the 12th fret.

Any suggestions on how the damage was done and how it was repaired?

[Barry Daniels]

My guess is that it is a natural defect in the wood. Brazilian cracks along the grain quite easily. Since the sides are book matched, a defect in one side could be expected on the other side too. Fortunately, the head block prevented the cracks from affecting the neck heel.

I would proceed with a normal neck reset, but this guitar certainly deserves being worked on by someone experienced in this work.

[Peter Wilcox]

Thanks Barry. The sides and back are mahogany, but I suppose that could happen with that wood too. The owner lives hand to mouth and can't afford a real luthier, but I won't attempt my first neck reset on this guitar, since it is still playable, and the underlying tenet of my profession is primum non nocere. Maybe by the time it really needs a reset I'll have the experience, or I'll be dead.

Edit: I should add that the crack appears to divide and go across the grain on the one side,

[Barry Daniels]

OK, forget what I said before. That looks more like a stress crack. Someone may have dropped the guitar on its head. So the crack has reinforcement cleats? It looks like the crack in the last photo may still be open.

[Peter Wilcox]

No, it's not open - it looks like there's some wood missing. Here's a pic of the inside there. Not HHG unfortunately.

[Barry Daniels]

It looks well attended to.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Here's my 2 cents, a bargain at half the price...
I propose the guitar was subjected to prolonged high heat (a car in summer). Things started to loosen and the (flaw in the) sides gave way before the soundboard on either side of the fingerboard. Frank Ford has an article on this problem . He ties the guitar to his workbench and coaxes it back into alignment. This also corrects the neck angle.

This doesn't really change the proposed course of action. If the cracks aren't really meeting properly, one might want to re-repair them with an eye toward overall alignment. One might look at the bridge plate as it might be chewed up requiring that extra ball on the string. One might also want to beat a quick retreat.

"Proper" repair might be too much to spend. A neck reset, bridge plate repair (an excellent excuse for that Stew Mac tool), a new bridge, maybe from scratch. I saw some guitars like this, but not needing repair, on reverb. I think its a close call.

But it would make a great project during lock down...



Yo

[Peter Wilcox]

Thanks Joshua. The cracks are meeting as they should as I can see from the inside. I have no idea what lies between the heel and the neck block, and in the dovetail, especially as to type of glue, and how difficult it would be to pull the neck. I've decided not to do it anyway.
The bridge plate is in good shape - I think the extra ball ends are to hold the thick string wrap terminations below the break out of the pin hole due to the thin bridge and low saddle, as a flexible bend is needed there .

I checked out Frank Ford's thread that I think you were referencing:
http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier ... crack.html

I still don't see how these sides would have cracked without damaging either the top, the back, the heel or the neck block, but maybe I can't see the repairs. Oh well...

[Barry Daniels]

I've repaired a couple of over-heated guitars and neither had cracked sides. The headblock usually prevents such things.

[Clay Schaeffer]

If it is still "playable", I might string it with extra light strings and hand it back to him. If he just plays cowboy chords for his own entertainment that may be everything he needs to make it work for him. Sometimes less is more when it comes to someone else's guitar. Work I might attempt on my own stuff, I'll "take a pass on" if it belongs to someone else.

[Peter Wilcox]

I just gave it back this morning, strung with light strings, flattened and reglued the pick guard, replaced a section of back binding, glued some top cracks, new end pin, added a strap button on the heel (sorry about that - in its condition more important that it's playable than vintage), glued the case back together. He's an electric player mainly and is also doing a lot of acoustic fingerpicking, but he says it will do for now - he loves the tone. I showed him it needs a neck reset and a new bridge, but we'll see how it goes for now.

Thanks for the input.

[Barry Daniels]

New bridge? You mean new saddle?

[Peter Wilcox]

No, I mean a new bridge (and a new saddle of course.) Two reasons - one, the current bridge/top/bridge plate thickness (about 7/16") is not enough to keep the terminal wrappings on the strings from coming several mm above the pin hole exits, making for a difficult bend there, and two, the string height above the top is only 5/16" (and would be only 3/8" with a 1/8" saddle), and my understanding is that it should be about 1/2" for optimum tone and coupling to the top, so the bridge thickness should be 3/8". I think if a neck reset is done, the angle should be set to a proper bridge.

Besides, the tail side of the bridge is starting to lift.

[Barry Daniels]

How thick is the bridge? The original bridge is brazilian rosewood and the guitar will loose value if you replace it, so you should not do this unless absolutely necessary. The 1/2" string height rule is the ideal but is not a requirement for good tone. And I would never remove an original bridge is that was the only concern. The string wrap issue is not something I am concerned about either. The "difficult bend" is easily remedied by cutting string ramps which I almost always do on guitars in for repair.

[Bob Gramann]

Not to sidetrack the discussion, but this is the perfect entry for an ethics question. Some years ago, I had a customer bring me an aged Gibson with a cracked and unrepairable Brazilian rosewood bridge (it was cracked in all the wrong places). At the time, I had a piece of Brazilian so I made a new bridge. The difference was undetectable to me, to him, and to his playing buddies that he proudly showed it to. I gave him back the original bridge and told him to keep it in the case. He’s passed and future generations will never know if the old bridge disappears from the case. Is there something wrong here?

[Peter Wilcox]

To answer Barry's question, let me first say that this is not a valuable guitar in my probably ignorant opinion. The model is Martin's bottom of the line (as far as I can tell) in the first place. It has that huge very evident bilateral upper bout side crack, though seemingly well repaired. It has some repaired though evident top cracks. I think the bridge has been shaved (it's 1/4" thick). Though I hadn't mentioned it before, the original tuning machines had been replaced with a different type, and the old screw screw holes filled and evident outside the new footprint.

So I think replacing the bridge would not significantly detract from its already depreciated value, and might help it play better, which would be my main purpose of working on it. I'm just a hobbyist and wouldn't touch a "valuable" instrument, but I don't understand vintage collector value anyway - what good is an unplayed guitar hanging in a glass case on the wall - but that's just my own failing.

[Barry Daniels]

If it has been shaved then that is different. I re-looked at your photos and on the 4th from the top it does look like it may have been shaved. If that is the case then replacement concerns are probably moot. Hopefully, whoever does it has some BRZ bridge blanks.

To me, I don't care about the collector's value of a guitar, I am more appreciative of the rarity of these guitars. I don't get to see many of them here in Texas.

[Marshall Dixon]

One option would be to add thickness at the bridge from underneath to take up the string windings. Stew Mac sells a piece of brass (I think) pre drilled for a Martin size. Easy enough to fabricate something of that nature and you could try it out before gluing it in.

Another option would be to cut the old bridge down, leaving a flat plane of the original, and then glue a new section on top of that. Pre drill the holes and use them for alignment.

Nice of you to fix this up.

[Clay Schaeffer]

Still another option would be to remove the bridge and glue a piece of rosewood to the bottom of it to build it up. I would just make a new bridge to the original design. Originality has it's place, but a hacked up original that is unserviceable I have no qualms about replacing. For smaller bodied guitars I prefer strings 7/16ths off the top but +/- 1/16th usually still sounds O.K.
What is a valuable instrument has changed a lot. A guitar I bought for $150, fixed up and then sold for $250 I recently saw the same model advertised for $9999.