Friday 8 October 2010

Roca

This is a classical guitar made in Spain by Alejandro Roca, possibly in the 1970’s – our only clue to it’s age is the telephone number on the label! We don’t know very much about this guitar but it has a sapele neck, back & ribs with a spruce soundboard.



It came to us in a state of neglect – there were various splits in the soundboard, loose soundboard/rib joints, missing tuner knobs but most importantly a large dent in the middle of the back, as you can see in the pictures.

Initially this dry old guitar spent several weeks in the workshop, re-hydrating. This resulted in many of the splits closing up. These were reglued, and work commenced pushing the dent into position using jacks from within the body, gluing into place. A small hole in the back was filled with a sliver of sapele.


























To finish, the back was scraped flat & lacquered.

The guitar was provided with some replacement tuner pegs, stained to match the originals and a new bone nut & saddle. It is now playing again and is a useful member of the family.



Saturday 8 May 2010

Giannini Head Repair

I'm very proud of this one. Neighbour Kier had shut his beloved Giannini in a car door... The head was completely severed, but very fortunately had not been moved, touched or bodged since.

You can see it's broken across the weakest point, in the nut slot. I stripped the guitar down and clamped it to my bench, on a sash cramp. I made a fixture to keep the headstock in the right inclination, and was then able to bring the headstock to the neck with controlled clamping force.

Glue set, it was then a matter of repairing the finish.



Not completely invisible, but it's been playing again for more than 3 years now.