And the run of black dreadnoughts continues!!
This time it was a #hertz
with not just a cracked but a lopped off headstock
Thankfully, the owner, a sensible young lady, did not try and get adventurous with glue, but instead, brought it to me.
Even if the headstock had not fallen off, the guitar seemed to have seen better days. That’s proven by the rust on the hardware on the headstock.
Besides, the fretboard and bridge were in a pitiable condition – dried to tinder.
I dry-fitted the two parts and they fit well, telling me that this would turn out to be a good and strong joint.
The next step was to take the hardware off the headstock, so that all that weight of the metal would not act against the glue trying to keep things together.
As I kept each tuning machine and its parts in order, I did clean and polish it up, so when it came time to put them back on, I would not waste any time cleaning them.
Thereafter, I applied glue and clamped the two parts together. That was the smallest job. Cleaning up the squeeze-out from around the clamps was the bigger problem. That too was done.
After two days of drying, I took off the clamps and as I had imagined, the joint was a good clean one.
However, while the seam was more than evident on the neck, on the face of the headstock the glue line was ragged and with missing pieces.
What followed was a very involved process of colouring, drop-filling, sanding, more drop-filling, more sanding till everything appeared seamless, well almost!
I had marked off the area to be sanded and worked within its boundaries. Later, that area needed a coat of something to make it similar to the rest of the headstock. Spray can lacquer seemed like a good bet.
Again, I masked off the area to be sprayed and sprayed on lacquer. That was my undoing, for I underestimated how far the overspray could go. Do remember that this is two surfaces that I am talking about, each of which required different masking and different treatment.
I was very satisfied with how things turned out on the neck of the instrument but I realised I could have done a better job on the face of the headstock.
While the paint dried I went to work, cleaning up the entire guitar with special attention to the fretboard, the fretwires and the bridge.
After all the spray and paint job had dried up, I went about putting on the tuning machines
and the strings followed. The owner gave me these strings to put on
This was the real test of the job – whether it had been done well. If the joint did not hold, all the effort would have been for nought.
But everything did hold together.
The owner was thrilled with the results and even made little of my regrets about how the overspray had spoilt the entire look of the headstock. I was ready to sand it back and respray/buff it out evenly but she would have nothing of it.
In truth, from two feet off, one would not be able to see the overspray, but yes, to the player, or someone sitting very close, it would be painfully evident.
The young lady left me a glowing review, one that left a very satisfied glow on my face. However, you will never be able to read that review even if you try to find it, for it never appeared. The young lady had sent me a screenshot of the review she posted on Google and that is how I know there was a review of services rendered.
I hunted high and low for some contact in Google, even asked friends, customers if someone knew of a way. Finally, sifting through pages of the Net, I found a way to contact Google, and they asked me for this, they asked me for that and finally wrote back to me saying they couldn’t find anything wrong with my account!
So that was that. I seek satisfaction in the fact that my customer is happy with the work I did on her instrument.
I leave you with these two photographs
