Vicente Tatay Tomas

Images and script from the eBay advert

"This is a real finely crafted guitar that resonates forever. Thick profile neck, lovely rosette and quadruple binding.... But previous owner knocked side and split it, and covered it with clear repair strip. Still sounds good but not gonna ask 400 for it like the one I found on Reverb. Hope you can repair it!"

The Repair

Cut out the damaged wood and
glue in some support

Gluing in a shaped piece of composite - three thicknesses of veneer with some decorative inlay.

I need to prepare better next time as I have sanded through the inlay that otherwise would have looked good.

However, overall it has worked out and was useful practice.

← big elastic bands

a thin coat of French polish →

Planing down the fingerboard and refretting.

This was another fairly steep learning curve.

Removing the frets was fairly straightforward if not a little painstaking.

Planing down the fingerboard again easy enough once I had secured the guitar to the workbench.

Sawing the frets to the correct depth was OK but above the 12th fret it was difficult and I bruised the soundboard even though I had put some tape on it to protect it.

The brass frets puchased on eBay from China were pre-cut to almost the precise length down the fret board; they require very little dressing.

The result?

It sounds OK but the action is high (5mm at the twelfth fret) as there is a bow in the neck that I could not reasonably compensate by planing down the fretboard. "Resonates for ever" - well a bit of an exaggeration and the tone doesn't match the Yamaha. A useful exercise but the result is nothing special.