MIMF

Slowly making progress! The sandpaper I had wasn't cutting it -- clogged way to quickly. I got some 3M Gold sandpaper in 180, 220, 320, and 400 grits. Working with the 180 grit right now as I'm just trying to get down past the finish. It's going much more quickly, but working around the bridge is st...

Well, good new and bad news. Good news: I have found the depth of the engraving, and it appears to be contained in the first layer of the laminate top, which means I can erase most if not all traces of it. Bad news: It's pretty deep, which means I'll have to sand down the entire top to raw wood and ...

Good news...I think the CA glue did it. When I tested the TiteBond repair, a bit of applied pressure opened it up fairly easily. I applied as much or more pressure after the CA glue repair, but it held strong. I'm hoping that since I intend to lower the saddle quite a bit, there shouldn't be much fo...

I'm hoping against hope that the CA glue will do the trick. Replacing the bridge would significantly increase the complexity and cost of this project. So, it's reglued with CA glue right now. Is 24 hours enough for CA glue? If it appears the bridge is solid when I remove the clamps, great. If not......

That should work. I probably would have used CA, but as long as you got the glue in there real good it should hold it. We will see! Not the result I was looking for. I removed the clamps today. The crack looked shut tight, but as soon as I applied a bit of pressure, it let go. Think I can reattempt...

I'm planning to -- the action was pretty high so I'll be bringing it down a good bit.

I used a craft stick to pry open the crack in the bridge and "painted" as much TiteBond as I could manage into the crack with a fine chisel-tip paintbrush. Then I closed the it back up with the 2 small Irwin quick clamps. I think I got a decent amount of glue in there, because when I clamp...

Got the saddle fitted tonight and strung it with some EJ45 Pro Arte's. Discovered a new problem. I strung the guitar, let the strings settle some, retuned, and then started to play a little bit. I was quite pleased with the sound. The action was high as I had left the saddle full-height, but it was ...

The saddle slot for this thing is tiny. It's taking forever to get the bone saddle down to size. I need a power sander or something.

Yes, I think my first step is going to be to fit a replacement saddle tonight and string it with some Pro Arte's so that I can get a feel for the current sound and playability...and then make a decision about how to proceed.

I have mostly decided to go for it. It was a $40 experiment, and I won't be happy with it in it's current state. I think I'll try to do some careful measurement of the laminate layers at the soundhole and compare to the dept of the engraving, and see if I can realistically sand the top layer down wi...

Hmm -- you know, I think you're right. I had not noticed this before, but around the soundhole where it meets the fretboard, the structure is much more apparent. This complicates things.

Well, a couple months into my renewed classical guitar hobby, and I've picked up my third sub-$100 guitar. Couldn't help myself. I spotted this 1965 Yamaha Nippon Gakki No. 100 on craigslist the other day for $70. It looked fairly rough, but my research indicated that it was all solid wood and shoul...

Ah, yeah, that sounds like a good technique. Seems like it would force the glue into the crevices while leveling things out as much as possible. I'll have to log that one away for future use.

Tonight I worked on sanding and polishing down the CA-glued cracks in the top. Surprisingly, the razor blade trick did not help at all. Even when I rolled the edge to get a tiny burr on one side, I couldn't get the edge to "grab" on the top of the CA glue...it just slid right over it. Afte...

It's a poly finish, not lacquer.

Updates! So, things I have accomplished: 1. Gluing the brace back to the top, and then gluing the crack in the brace. I gave the glue 24 hours between each step. As you can see, I got a bit gloppy with the glue while I was repairing the crack. I will probably try to clean up the worst of the excess ...

Started the repair tonight -- attacking the separation between the brace and top first. I wedged a toothpick in there to open it up as much as I could, then used a glue syringe to put a good bead of glue along the seam. I then took a couple more toothpicks and tried to "stuff" the glue und...

I recently picked up a Yamaha CG101 classical on craigslist for $85. It had an obvious damage to the top, but it still played nicely so I bought it anyway. I figured with a laminated top it was probably fairly stable. It appeared to be a crack from a physical impact, not a lack of humidity. Upon fur...