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Guitar Restorations: 1935 Martin D18, Part 2: Wood Repair and Neck Set Andy Jellison, ace repair technician Nashville's Gruhn Guitars, continues the restoration of a classic 1935 Martin guitar. From "Handmade Music" episode DHMM-304

When it comes to vintage guitar repair and restoration, the work done at Nashville's famous Gruhn Guitars is the gold standard. But though the talent of the repair staff at Gruhn's is beyond question, the job of instrument repair is one marked by a certain anonymity.

The showroom at Nashville's Gruhn Guitars is frequented by world class musicians from around the globe and from a variety of musical genres.

A Gibson Les Paul Sunburst original, in this fully restored condition, could sell for more than $225,000.

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According to George Gruhn, part of the job of the repair technician is to remain "invisible."

"The repairman is invisible," George Gruhn likes to say. Gruhn employs more than twenty people at his shop, and half of them are repairmen. And whereas the work of a guitar maker--or luthier-- may have distinctive trademark attributes or visual "flourishes" left on the instruments he creates, the repair technician's job is essentially the opposite-- to leave no visible trace of his work.

By its nature, the key objective of restoration is to leave the vintage instrument in the best condition possible, but also visually as close as possible to the day on which it was created.

	Andy Jellison is just one of the instrument restoration experts at Gruhn Guitars.
	The peghead on the 1935 Martin shows evidence of the guitar's age and wear.

In this second phase in the restoration of a 1935 Martin D18 guitar, work continues with Gruhn Guitar's restoration ace Andy Jellison as he removes the pick-guard, repairs damage to the wood on the guitar's top and neck, and then performs a delicate neck set..

Materials:

maple dowels
paint brush/paint
replica tuners
crescent wrench
Phillips head screwdriver
wood glue
putty knife
epoxy
clamps
straight edge
sandpaper
carbon paper
maple veneer for shims
chisel

Figure A

Martin D18 Guitar: Repairing Damaged Wood

Fixing other people's botched work tends to be a common repair for the Gruhn Guitars staff. Andy Jellison does just that when he restores damaged wood from clumsy predecessors. The body's spruce top and the neck's maple dovetail are the recipients of Andy's skillful attention.

• Andy repairs the damage to the guitar's top by inserting wood glue into visible cracks in the spruce (figure A).

• The neck's dovetail joint had cracks in it as well but Andy's bonding agent of choice here is epoxy. He uses capillary action to let the epoxy seep into the affected areas, and clamps the dovetail until the epoxy can dry.

• The unoriginal tuners left six large "footprints" in the instrument's headstock. The new replica tuners will not fit in the holes left by the previous tuners so Andy plugs the holes with maple dowels.
  

  Figure B

• The new maple plugs do not match the maple on the headstock so a tedious process of matching seventy year-old finish begins. Andy's technique once he matches the color is to create pixels rather than brush strokes, and he tries to mimic the pattern of the wood grain as well (figure B).

• Finally Andy installs the tuners with a crescent wrench and Phillips head screwdriver.

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