Month: February 2021

Remember how in the India of the 80s, the craze among musicians was owning a ‘Casio’? Music shops stocked them as many prospective customers came asking for a ‘Casio’. What those people actually wanted was a ‘keyboard’ but since the Japanese electronics giant, Casio, was among the first to come out with the instrument, somehow, the brand name became its name.

Another example of the phenomenon is Xerox. You don’t get a document xeroxed, you get it photo-copied. Xerox was the company that produced the machine.

Much in the same vein is the Resophonic or Resonator guitar. (As far as I understand it) Dobro is the name of the company and the name of a particular guitar model it produced.

Here are some facts about Resophonic/Resonator/Dobro guitars and an interesting bit of history.

A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun/pressed metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar’s sounding board (top). Resonator guitars are particularly popular with bluegrass and blues musicians.

Resonator guitars are of two styles:

1. Square-neck guitars played in lap steel guitar style
2. Round-neck guitars played in conventional guitar style or steel guitar style

There are three main resonator designs:

• The tri-cone, with three metal cones connected by a metal brace in which the saddle stands, designed by the first National company
• The single-cone ‘biscuit’ (saddle) design of other National instruments
• The single inverted-cone design (also known as a spider bridge) of Dobro brand instruments and instruments that copy the Dobro design

The name Dobro was derived from its inventors, the Dopyera Brothers (DoBro), back in the 1920s, a play on words derived from the ‘Do’ in Dopyera and ‘bro’ from Brothers, and a word which means ‘good’ in Slovak.

In 1925, John Dopyera, a Slovak immigrant to California, US, and an instrument repairman/inventor, invented a guitar with three aluminum cones known as resonators (similar to diaphragms inside a speaker) mounted beneath the bridge. This resonator guitar turned out to be much louder than the regular acoustic guitar. The tone of the guitar was rich and metallic.
In 1928, Dopyera and his brothers Rudy and Emil, as well as other investors, founded the National String Instrument Corporation to manufacture the new type of ‘resophonic’ guitar, which was sold mainly to musicians working in cinemas and jazz clubs in the USA. After several years, the three brothers left the corporation and started a new company, Dobro (the name they also gave to the instrument). Their slogan was: ‘Dobro means good in any language!’

And this long-winded preamble just to let you know that I recently worked on my first resonator guitar!!

This Ashton was the single inverted-cone design type (also known as a spider bridge). The owner, an accomplished musician and a professional one at that, wanted to replace the plastic nut with a bone one.

Also, there was an ugly break along the seam where the top met the side, near the end block: a result of the instrument falling and hitting the ground.

And then, there was general maintenance to be done, an extra-large dose of love to be given!

The cover of the spider-bridge and the tail piece (through which the strings were fed), which must have been shiny chrome a few years ago, were tarnished and dull, as were the tuning machines.

So, off they came.

And as I suspected, underneath the hood, there was more dust than there is sand in the Thar.

The last photograph gives you an idea about the saddle. A split saddle with space in between to adjust the screw holding the spider-bridge to the inverted, spun-aluminium cone. By tightening or loosening the screw, one can dramatically change the sound of an instrument.

Returning to the saddle, you will notice that its top has grooves cut into it for the strings to hold it down, for better sound energy transfer. This is the only type of steel string acoustic guitar which has grooves cut into it. No other type of steel-string, acoustic guitar needs to have notches to hold strings in.

But I was a bit surprised to find simple rosewood pieces as the saddle. Generally, in ‘proper’ instruments, each saddle piece has actually a maple base and an ebony cap.

The idea is that both of these hard woods put together, will better aid sound transfer.

Anyway, I removed the saddle, being careful to make a mark behind each, at which end it would be put in. Check, you may be able to make out the ‘B’ (bass) and the ‘T’ (treble)

and then began the process of cleaning the dust-caked innards of the instrument. First, the spider-bridge itself was unscrewed, taken off, cleaned and kept aside.

But I had problems removing the cone from its cavity and I had to take this awl to prise it out.

It is the cone which vibrates once the strings are plucked and the vibrating diaphragm-like cone is what produces sound – much like the diaphragm in a speaker.

Ideally, you want the cone to just sit on the ledge meant for that. However, its sides should not touch anywhere.

The fact that the cone was not coming out on its own and needed to be prised from its spot meant that when played, the cone would not have been vibrating freely, and thus, not giving the volume and sustain as it should.

So, the first thing I did was to sand the rim of the cavity such that the cone just fell into it. Also, it could easily drop out if need be.

What followed was a thorough cleaning of the cone, for any dust on either surface would act as a damper.

Then, I turned my attention to the nut and try as hard as I might, it would not budge. Finally, when I managed to knock it out, I wondered what was holding it so good. It was super-glue, as I had suspected!

Just cleaning the slot with this specialised carbide chisel took 30-40 minutes. First use a plastic, hollow piece for a nut and then use super-glue to hold it in place. Why, Ashton, why?

And then began work on cutting to size and refining the bone piece that would go in its place. Of course, all measurements were taken and the nut sized to those dimensions.

With the nut in place, I turned my attention to the fretboard, caked with grime and DNA. The fretwires too, were tarnished and dull.

It’s always a good idea to get into the very corners of the fretwires and dislodge any dirt, grime, etc that may be lodged there. And a little re-crowning of the fretwires never harmed anybody.

Then, it was the turn of the headstock and the hardware there. The tuning machines were snugged-up and then given a healthy dose of the ‘love potion’.

And they came out looking like this

Later, I turned my attention to the damage in the body. The binding and the side had pushed in, pushing the top out and up, and no matter how much pressure I tried to apply, the top refused to go in. Afraid of making the damage more severe, I let it be and proceeded to fill the ugly break with a paste of sawdust and wood glue. 

Very pretty, right?

Yeah! I know, it must turn ugly before things start to look better. Here is the finished job, with varnish covering the sawdust-wood glue filling.

Certainly not an invisible repair but it is no longer in the state where it’s eye-catching and blot on the looks of the guitar.

The cover of the spider-bridge and the tail piece had been buffed to a mirror finish and re-installed with new, shiny little screws. As I looked, the strap buttons became eyesores and so, I swapped these

for these

The position on the heel was marked, drilled and the new strap button installed.

Everything was put back together and the guitar was strung up.

I was happy with the way things turned out, but more importantly, the customer was more than happy. It is that much more satisfying when you are able to satisfy someone who understands music and instruments, and about the work undertaken to achieve a certain result.

There was however, one sore spot. Right on the heel of the guitar, it seemed as if either the joint was opening up, or, worse still, the wood had cracked. I could not get the thinnest blade into it but I could certainly feel a lip when I ran my finger over it.

I have asked the owner to watch it carefully and bring it back to me the day he sees a larger crack, or, if he feels that the action on the instrument has increased.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently, I worked on my first Martin in India – one from the X Series. This was not the high dollar D-28 or D-35, but featured high-pressure laminate (HPL) back and sides and a Richlite fretboard and bridge.

Richlite is an incredibly durable, extremely versatile, and highly sustainable material made from resin-infused paper –  65% recycled paper content and 35% phenolic resin. Applications include furniture, cabinetry, cladding, skateparks, consumer products, signage, retail displays, restaurant tables, bar tops, and worktops, and is a choice material for a wide range of architects, designers, industrial manufacturers and product developers. 

I would be lying if I said that the guitar was not pretty to look at. Solid Sitka Spruce top, back and sides all in a matte/satin finish, the GPCX1RAE is a 20-fret Grand Performance model which sports a cutaway, rust Birch laminate neck, scalloped spruce bracing, a corian nut and a Tusq saddle (actually glorified plastic both), Fishman Sonitone electronics, chrome Martin closed tuning machines and the iconic Martin logo on the headstock in gold script ink.

It came to me because the intonation was shot on the ‘B’ string. And that meant only one thing: the saddle was not cut right. It was eyebrow-raising to see a Martin suffering from intonation issues, not that their guitars can’t have intonation issues, but because CF Martin & Co are usually very meticulous about everything.

As I pulled out the saddle from the bridge and measured it, to my horror, I found that the radius on it was 16 inches. I checked the radius on the fretboard: 16 inches!

Fretboards on steel string guitars (acoustic and electric) generally have a certain radius that is sanded into it by the  manufacturer and that radius is then mirrored in the tops of the fretwires, the saddle as well as the nut. When all of these elements carry the same radius, playing the instrument is that much easy and pleasurable. And acoustic instruments generally have a radius of 10, 12 or 16 inches. My problem was that I did not have nuts and saddles with a 16-inch radius! 

The way out was to take my 16-inch sanding block

glue on some #320 grit sandpaper

and with the top of the saddle facing the sandpaper and completely centred, go up and down the block (lengthwise) till I got a 16″ radius. By the time (some 45 mins later) I could dial in that radius, the new sandpaper looked like this

but the saddle looked like this

And this was the easy part. All that sanding on the top of the saddle meant that the grooves cut into the saddle for intonation were all but gone, and without those, this new saddle was useless. There was no way out but to re-cut the grooves on the saddle.

Then I turned my attention to the fretboard. Like I said, it was Richlite but it looked every bit ebony – though a very dirty ebony, for it carried enough DNA on it to map the entire family tree of the owner! Just out of curiosity, I checked the straightness of the neck and was a little surprised to see a little fall-away. 

Do you see the gap under the notches where the ruler ends? Compare that to the extreme left.

But there was nothing that could be done about it right away. This would require taking off the fretboard extension (the part stuck to the top of the guitar), making a shim to size and sticking it to the extension and then sticking the whole thing back to the top. Me not doing!

Instead, I decided to clean the fretboard. The thing about Richlite is that it is cleaned very easily. So, I took some warm water, some liquid soap and moistening an old t-shirt rubbed the fretboard and bridge clean.

That done, I turned my attention to the hardware on the headstock and snugged up everything as it should be. This exercise should be done by everybody, each time you change strings.

Everything in place, it was time to string this baby up. The owner prefers to use these strings and so they were put on.

But before I put the strings on, I did bevel the bridgepins so that string ball-ends would not catch on them.

The moment of truth had arrived. Now, to check the intonation on the ‘B’ string.

As I sat down to tune the guitar, I was very taken up by this little electronic tuner clipped to the edge of the soundhole. It was sensitive and very accurate.

You cannot even imagine how thrilled I was seeing this ‘dead-on-the-money’ reading of the open ‘B’ string and fretted at the 12th fret. All that effort had not gone to waste.

 

As I played the instrument, I was actually surprised at the instrument’s very warm, mellow, almost Martin-esque sound; beautiful sustain too. I had not expected this, for I had my doubts about how the HPL body would sound. 

I guess, we can owe the sound to the Martin expertise. Whatever the material, expect a Martin to sound like one. Maybe that is what you get when an enterprise as big as Martin, stays within the family for four (five?) generations.

 

SILLY ME!

Last time, I talked about how the bridge, the top get affected when you leave your instrument tuned to pitch, standing in a corner (or lying in its case) for months.

I was so taken up by Luc’s shattered bridge that it slipped me that besides the bridge and the top of the guitar, the neck of the guitar too is under a great deal of stress, and one of the many casualties of string tension.

As if to remind me, this guitar landed up on my counter, hours after last Sunday’s post went public.

And it was not just the joint near the heel of the neck opening up. As a result of that joint opening, even the fretboard joint to the neck was cracking open on every side.

The heel itself was showing the strain that it was under with the paint cracking at the joint. As a cumulative result of all that the action on the instrument – as you can see – was sky high!

This was actually a new instrument that had been bought and forgotten about.

This is another cheap clone of the Indian-ised Hofner. To know more, read this:

New strings and some TLC for this Hobner!

So, ‘The Green Hornet’ had a zero fret

and a very interesting bridge and saddle(s)

individual saddles for each string. The advantage: more accurate intonation. The disadvantage: God help you if you lose one of those plastic thingys!

And usually, such bridges are made of rosewood or ebony, and not stuck to the top but held down only by string tension, which also helps in the transfer of sound. However, this one was plastic with hollowed out ‘feet’.

How much sound was being transferred, you can well imagine.

In the last photograph, notice the tape? That was me trying to mark where the bridge would go, once I had managed to secure the instrument structurally.

Naturally, standing unloved in some corner, the fretwires were tarnished and depicted in what classic luthiery terms is referred to as ‘fret-sprout’. The fretboard wood on a dehydrated guitar shrinks, leaving the fretwires ‘sprouting’ out of it.

As can be imagined, it hurts the fingers playing an instrument with fret-sporut, and can, in fact, be a dangerous proposition.

Even the tuning machines were dry (without oil) and rough to turn.

With the bridge already off, I decided to take the pickguard off too, so that when I would lay the guitar upside down (to work on the neck), the instrument would lie straight.

Now, I was ready to operate upon the patient. A generous amount of good quality wood glue shot into the opening seemed to do the trick, for as I closed the opening, glue squeezed out of every crack.

And when I clamped it, there was more squeeze-out!

Once the guitar was clamped and the squeeze-out cleaned, there was little else to do except wait. But since I had the tuning machines exposed, I decided to put a drop of oil into them each and work it in.

I know you can’t see the oil but believe me it is there!

Still under clamps, I used painter’s tape to cover the repair area, except the seam line and a thin margin on either side. Then I proceeded to sand the exposed area with #1500 and #2000 sandpaper to remove any lip that may have developed during the glueing process.

And while the tape was still on, I did a touch-up job as well.

After the clamps came off, I was happy to note that the joint was near perfect and except if you saw it from very close, was nearly invisible. However, you must understand that this was a budget job and not meant to be invisible.

I opened up the truss rod cover

expecting the need to adjust the relief in the neck but I was pleasantly surprised to find that without the strings, the neck was very straight. That is what you wish to see.

Thereafter, I proceeded to work on the fret-sprout. This double-angled file was among the first few tools I made many years ago.

The 90 degree file cuts the fretwires very close to the fretboard, while the 45 degree file puts a nice little bevel on the ends. I erred and used just the edge to put the bevel on the fretwires: usually it works. However, this time, after going up and down the neck a couple of times, I could still feel the fret-ends.

And that forced me to bring out my little three-cornered file to (ad)dress just the fret-ends.

Instead of just polishing frets, I decided to give them a little crown

and that is the ‘star dust’ I collected

And then I wondered: if I had done so much, might as well clean up the fretboard before I proceeded to oil it.

Body buffed out, new strings, and the Green Hornet had been saved to sing another day!

Here are some ‘after’ photographs of the repair I undertook

Bottom line: DON’T LEAVE YOUR GUITAR TUNED UP IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO PLAY IT FOR 2-3 WEEKS!

 

Taking a break from reporting on repairs, I decided to dedicate this post to something that I have stressed off and on, but something the importance of which cannot be stressed enough.

I found the photograph above in one of the many guitar groups on Facebook. I wrote to the author, seeking his permission to use it as part of this blog and he kindly consented.

If you can’t read, Luc Barbeau wrote: ‘Shit happens! I had not played this guitar for a few months. I open up the case and this is what I found.’

This is not a frighteningly expensive Epiphone guitar, but then even the lowest Epiphone model isn’t exactly a cheapo. To Luc and all the readers of this blog, I say, “You should have de-tuned the guitar before keeping it away!”

What this means is that Luc now has to shell out money to have the old bridge removed, buy a new one and have it installed.

Let’s take another look at the photo that Luc posted and compare it to what the guitar may have looked like whole.

On the left is Luc’s guitar while on the right is another guitar which sports a bridge just like the one on Luc’s guitar (if you disregard the split saddle).

Personally speaking, I am not a great fan of string-through bridges, and feel more comfortable with bridges with holes and pins. My logic: under-tension strings (exerting a force of 60 to 80 kg) are always trying to pull away the bridge from the guitar top. The string-through design of the bridge only worsens the force of the strings by creating a fault line exactly where Luc’s bridge failed.

You could say that maybe the bridge had a faulty construction. Maybe! You could say that not all string-through bridges fail. True! But my point here is whatever the reason, why add to it by leaving the guitar fully tuned?

If you know that you are not going to be playing it even for two or three weeks, tune down your guitar half a step or one full step (for eg, E to D#, or D). But completely loosening the strings and having them flopping around on the fretboard, is a different recipe for disaster.

In Luc’s case, he was unfortunate that the strings ripped the bridge apart, but I have known cases (both string-through bridges and those with bridgeholes) where the strings not only pulled off the bridge but a portion of the guitar top as well!

And then there are degrees of damage that under-tension strings can do. If the bridge is not glued on properly to the guitar top, you will find the bridge lifting.

If the bridge is glued on properly, you will find the guitar bellying (guitar top lifting in the area behind the saddle). Admittedly, this is partly a fault of an inadequately constructed bridgeplate (size and/or material used), but then the string tension’s handiwork cannot be denied!

Generally, whenever bellying is seen in a guitar, you can be sure that there is some corresponding sinking in the area after the soundhole and before the bridge.

Do you see it? Again, while this could be the instrument counteracting the bellying, it could also be that one of the braces under the top have come loose/dropped off.

In any case, the fingerboard extension displays a phenomenon, what in luthiery is referred to as ‘dropping off’. (If it is) Stuck well to the guitar top, the fingerboard extension falls with the sinking top. You can see some of it in the picture above, and it is more evident below. Major operation correcting that too.

So, do not commit hara-kiri; in order to save yourself pain and money, de-tune your guitar before you stow it away for some time.