Maton CW 80/6 1977 Dreadnought.

This 1977 Maton CW 80/6 is easily the the most damaged guitar that I have ever attempted to repair.

I took it on as a challenge and because I like the owner so much, besides which the back has Keith Richard's signature scrawled across it!

The owner had attempted to repair it himself but I had my work cut out just undoing his efforts before I could begin the repair. The back had come completely apart, the result of exposure to moisture. Every glue line to every single component in the back had let go. The owner had re-secured it all with PK screws.

The action was very high, the result of belly in the bridge (over 3 mm)
The owner had removed the saddle and rebated it into the soundboard! This was something I had no desire to touch.

Here is an example of a brace smothered in hot-melt glue.

Please don't attempt your own repairs if you don't know what you are doing, it makes it so much harder to repair.

The original label and model number.

Maton had driven a holdfast nail into the heel of the neck!
With the back removed I was able to punch it out from the inside.

Neck block

X bracing was loose in one spot to the left of the sound hole.

No reinforcement around home cut preamp slot and insufficient bracing for the bridge string holes.
This area had pulled upward an alarming amount.

The owner had drilled an oversize hole to accommodate the Fishman tailpiece
resulting in a stress crack in the tail block which (incidentally) has the grain running the wrong way.

I glued a wall nut veneer over the split after first glueing and mending the crack.
This reinforces the block.

I added a fillet of birch ply to the preamp slot cutaway.
I also glued a cherrywood reinforcing block under the bridge.

I cleaned up the mess on the braces and began the process of reassembly.

The two halves of the back are reconnected and the joint reinforced with wall nut battens.
the braces start to go back on.

The assembled back ready to be glued back on the body of the guitar.

I made 30 spool clamps which proved ideal for the replacement of the back.

I decided to remove the finger board as I could not understand the neck joint.
This is unique to this Guitar. There is no one at Maton that recalls how this joint should be separated.
I tried conventional methods but no luck.

The truss rod extends all the way to the sound hole while I have never seen before.

Close up of the truss rod.

Because the neck would not come off my only option was to make a long wedge under the fingerboard.
I fabricated this out of .5mm laminated of maple stepped gradually from zero at the nut to 3 mm at the sound hole.

Once cured I sanded it fair and straight.

I then re glued the finger board.

The owner wanted to retain the road worn aesthetic of the guitar so I settled on re coating it in several layers of shellac and a couple of coats of gunstock oil on the back, sides and neck to protect the bare wood. 

Reassembled with a new ebony saddle with string height and action adjusted, the intonation is perfect and it
plays like a new guitar with all the tone and character that it has accumulated over the last 44 years.

Maton EBG 808 TE acoustic guitar restoration.

This Maton acoustic guitar was brought to me for repair.

According to the owner it had suffered from freezing in Canada (-45C) to cooking in the back seat of a car (+45C) the kind of temperature extremes only a guitar made from carbon fibre could endure.

The result? Split sound board in lower bout, bridge coming off, split in lower bout rib to back block, the finger board was coming off near the nut and the neck had a severe "S" bend along its length.

 There was an excessive belly on the sound board, a result of the split in the lower bout.

This guitar was not able to be correctly set up to make it player friendly.

I had a difficult time after reassembly of this guitar with the Maton AP Piezo pick up system.

I had made no change whatsoever to the pick up or any of its components. Despite this the system hummed dreadfully when plugged in to an amplifier, something it did not do before I worked on it.

It took three attempts before I finally found the problem and solved it. All the components in the piezo, of which there are many, were slightly oxidised. I polished all the mating surfaces and re set all the 6 caps on the through bridge, porcelain transmission rods before the hum was finally stopped. I'm sure that the impedance was cumulatively increased by dirty, oxidised contacts.

The Maton as delivered to me. You can see the through bridge, aluminium transmission caps
quite clearly in the saddle slot. These were oxidised and hollow so contact with the metal under saddle
strip was poor

The bridge was lifting off the sound board.

Here you can see the fingerboard separated from the neck.

This view reveals the S bend in the neck.

I stripped the old finish off the entire guitar with a cabinet scraper.
Sound board split repair featuring my home made Stew Mac type cleat clamp.

Finger board removal revealed a mess at the end of the truss rod. The steel anchor block was proud of the surface and when tension was put on the truss rod the steel anchor block rose up out of its slot prising off the finger board.
This guitar had been returned to the Maton factory for a replacement truss rod after the original one broke.
Did they ask the janitor to fit the new one?

Here I've begun to level the end of the neck having first ground down the steel truss rod anchor block.

The whole area is now flat and fair. Next I filled the cavity with epoxy filler to lock down the steel anchor block.

Finger board, maple veneer packing wedge glued into place.

The Maton stripped and masked with faired neck ready for lacquer.

The guitar soon after an application of Mirotone Lacquer.

The guitar soon after an application of Mirotone Lacquer.

The guitar soon after an application of Mirotone Lacquer.

The guitar soon after an application of Mirotone Lacquer.

Finger board being glued back on to the neck.

Finger board being glued back on to the neck. Note the bicycle inner tube clamp and the radiused
caul clamping block.

Re fret underway

the new frets in place with stretched bicycle inner tube wrapped tightly around the neck whilst the glue dries.

The finished guitar before strings were fitted. It is now back with the owner who is very happy with the result.
The tone is exceptional, the result of the removal of a disproportionately heavy application of lacquer and a new ebony saddle.