Re-gluing Ovation back - created 12-09-2008

Martirena, Ivan - 12/09/2008.13:36:19

Hey everybody, Need some advise. I have an Ovation guitar with the back almost all the way loose. The customer's girlfriend smashed it against a wall!!! so the back got unglued where the kerfing meets the back, there is no kerfing and there is a crack on the side. My question is: How to clamp this oval back and what glue to use. I'm thinking I'll need to make a jig for the clamps to have a surface to hold on to and I was thinking epoxy or weld-on #16.

Any advise will be appreciated. I'm attaching some pics

Another pic

Any advise will be appreciated.

Okay -- the customer should get a new girlfriend!

You might consider a bunch of big rubber bands as clamps instead of building a custom jig. You can get the big ones at an office supply store.

I'd repair that crack before gluing the back on.

Ovations are my thing lol Ive been playing and repairing them for some years. Dont bother building a jig. Get some rubber tubbing that will strech. Surgical tubing works great. Looks like the top ring has seperated from the bowl. Has it seperated all the way around?

Going by the brown bowl paint im gonna say its a 1980's ovation with a bolt on neck. If it was me doing the repair id pull the neck and gently,verry verry verry gently finish the seperation from the bowl.

Once you have the top off you can go about laying some glass on the inside of the bowl to reinforce that crack.

To reattach the tops i use epoxy on the ones with a fiberglass top ring instead of wood kerf.

Could you post some more pictures please.

Smaller pictures, please.

Hi,

The first thing is to remove the neck. Most of these bowl back just bolt on, maybe with tongue glued to the top (this is removed with heat and a thin sharp spatula knife).

Next, make a workboard from 1/2" thick ply or thicker that is the same shape as the top but a little bigger all the way around (maybe 1/8"). You'll need to rout/carve a depression in the board where the bridge is. This is so the the guitar can go face down on the board flat.

I use a good epoxy (West System) dyed black with lamp black pigment. Work it in everywhere its needed (don't forget to wax all around the cracks so the clean later goes easier, but be sure not to get any on the actual gluing surfaces).

To clamp, wrap the body and work board with those large, industrial elastic bands (lots!) and leave to dry.

Hope this is helpful, good luck!

-Matthew Bascetta

Oh yeah, for the cracks in the bowl, use the same black epoxy from the inside and reinforce with fiberglass mesh as Mike said above.

-Matthew

Matt,the neck joint depends on the era of the ovation. 60's-late 70's were dovetailed and glued. late 70's to present the kaman bar neck was introduced and they are bolt on. And that goes even futher in varriation from us built models(early applause were built in the states) to celbs(korea) and ultras(korea). Im just full of information on ovations lol Ive been playing them for the past 20 years.

Thanks all, Mike you are right, it's a bolt on neck and it does go around till the tongue, still attached there. I'll try to use the big bands and fiberglass reinforcement from the inside. I will post pics once it's done.

Thanks again!

So, how do you clamp the tongue after gluing the back if there is no sound whole?

What do you mean by tounge? What is the model? Is it a center soundhole or a multi soundhole?

It's a multi sound hole one. Collector's series 98'

Not all had the fretboad extension glued down. Some are some arent. You can clamp it back down with 2 small C clamps thru the multi holes or i use a peice of surgical tubing and a scrap of wood on the fretboard and get a few good,tite wraps on the tubing.

If using rubber bands, what size and how thick should I get?

Biggest you can find. Ive been told that you can get big rubber bands from office supply stores.

Something like this is what I had in mind. I got mine at a local Office Depot.

Luaren,those would fit the bill. Cut a few and double them up then tie them together to get some length to get a few tite wraps and that would do great. I dont know a source outside of the medical field for sugrical tubing(my wife's a nurse). Another thing that would work is if you could get you hands on a few of the flat rubber straps they use to tie you off with for blood work.

I use Bias tape from the fabric store rather than rubber bands, sometimes as it wants to slip along the rounded back I tape the edge in place as I bind. Other than that, everything here sounds good-though for some of the smaller cracks I use the medium CA, accelerator, and another set of hands to avoid the binding part.

>Okay -- the customer should get a new girlfriend!

Agreed! I had one throw my '81 Les Paul across the room into the kitchen, where the neck decided it didn't want to stay on the guitar any longer!

Needless to say I kept the guitar and not the girl friend! ;)

Ok, so the back reglue went very well thanks to all the advise found here. I found both rubber bands and latex tubbing at this great website http://www.mcmaster.com/, check it out, great place to get anything!

I used as much as 150 bands and finalize it with the latex tubing to hold the cracks in place. I also used epoxy 30', but I wished I had used a longer setting (1 hour or more) since it took longer to get the bands in place than during the dry run...

Other than that, everything turned out great! The crack was fixed with drywall joint tape and epoxy from the inside.

Thanks!

Great to hear ivan! If you need to touch up the paint on the bowl the paint we use is duplicolor nutbrown. Mcmaster carr is a great supply site btw