‘N’ae pas peur d’essayer’ is French phrase meaning ‘Don’t be afraid to try’! I doubt the author was referring to intricate rectifications to your acoustic guitar!
Glue-up jobs on acoustic instruments are not one of those things that I would advise my readers to undertake – unless they have an experience of instrument-making or woodworking. Then too, I prescribe a generous dose of caution.
Imagine, you have a Rs 50K guitar and (God forbid) something were to happen to it. Would you try and repair it yourself or take it to someone who sees five such instruments in a day? While you might see superficial defects (cracks, dents, chips and breaks), experience will check for the unseen that may also have got affected in the trauma.
Even if you own a Rs 5K instrument which you love dearly, and which suffers trauma, maybe an expert set of hands will be able to rectify it in such a way that the repair does not become an eyesore, a life-long and painful reminder of an accident that should not have happened.
Recently, I was handed over one such Rs 5K instrument which somebody had shown their ingenuity on. It seemed to me that the guitar had fallen on the endpin and the impact was such that the top had been knocked out of the sides.
The owner, or someone, decided to take it upon themselves to ‘rectify’ the issue and threw on a generous helping of epoxy and slapped the top in place!
Almost the entire periphery of the top bore signs of epoxy that had been wiped off in a very haphazard manner. In places like the immediate surrounding of the end block, where the seam separation was much more pronounced and the seam didn’t quite come together, the services of a Philips screw were employed – leaving me aghast!
I am in the process of trying to make the guitar playable for a child but I don’t think there is much I can do about the nearly botched repair.
