Guitar repair – A PRS comes calling in pain!

If you didn’t know what the picture above shows, it is the neck block of a guitar, and loose from the bottom at that.

Incidentally, this is just the second Paul Reed Smith that I have seen in the six years since I have returned to India.

This was parlour-sized electro-acoustic instrument and the owner came in with a complaint of high action. But as I looked at the bridge to see if it was lifting, there was only dust that I saw.

Yes, but it did have a tall, handsome bone saddle and a nut to match

and more dust on the headstock!

And that was not all. Take a look at the fretboard

Strangely, the young man did pull out the instrument from a gig bag, which may only mean that only recently did the instrument find its way into the bag, after it had collected enough dust.

Anyway, pushing the dust out of my mind, I got thinking, ‘if the bridge has not come unglued, then why is the action so high?’ Still thinking, I turned the guitar around, more absent-mindedly than with the hope of finding something.

And there it was

If you can’t see it the area under the heel both to the left of it and right – a good six inches – the binding had come loose. As I pointed it out to the owner, he pointed out this to me

There was a very faint crack adjacent to the heel. But it didn’t strike me. I told the owner that he would have to live with it because there is no way to get any kind of glue into it because it is not a complete crack. In fact, I remember picking up the thinnest feeler gauge and trying to push under the neck block just to show that that area was solid

Later, after the owner had gone and I began pushing and prodding, I noticed the back move upwards in the area under the neck block, when I tried pushing it up. Indeed, the neck block had got loose from the bottom, and thus the raised action.

Immediately, I glanced at the left shoulder of the guitar. And there it was: the twin of the crack on the right shoulder.

I then went about looking for loose braces that may have got dislodged in what must have been a bad jolt the guitar suffered, but thankfully, I didn’t find any.

And so began the glue up(s).

After I did the binding and clamped it up, I left the instrument to rest for two full days.

Then it was the turn of the neck block to get back into position.

Another two days and things seemed to have come together nicely.

Next came work on this portion of the binding

That too was glued.

The owner had also talked about a buzz on the ‘e’ string. As I went about with my rocker finding  a high fretwire, I found two.

Can you see the marker on the outside two fretwires? Those two were higher than the Burj Khalifa!

And so, work was put into them to get them to fall in line.

Later, it was the usual cleaning and scrubbing, polishing and oiling.

But I must point out this one spot on the back of the guitar.

It looked exactly like coffee had fallen and had stuck to the back. But it was easily removed

Before I threw on the strings, I decided to give the tall saddle a little shave – no measurements just a sliver taken off the bottom.

Also, the bridgepin holes of the bass strings were a little too small, holding the pins too tightly. A reamer was taken to them and the pins sat better after the treatment

The strings that the owner had chosen were these

Strung up, the guitar had the near perfect action.

The owner was pleased with the results and told me he also owned dreadnoughts from the Martin and Hertz stables. He threatened to bring those over too.

Any time, brother!

And here are the final shots of the work done and the guitar itself