A broken Taylor 614 came into my
workshop recently. The owner fell
on his guitar whilst carrying it in a
moving vehicle.
I secured the body to my work bench and
stabilised the top with masking tape and superglue.
I took a tracing of the soundboard
I obtained this AAA Adirondack Spruce top from a Luthier friend.
I was very fortunate to find this as it had been in his drying room
for 20 years!
I learned this trick from my father when we were
replacing the decks of small sailing boats.
the blocks are balsa wood secured with a small drop of super glue.
Tracing the outline of the sound board onto the new spruce panel.
Roughly cut to shape.
I glued the roughed out soundboard to the balsa blocks
then used a router to cut the top to fit precisely into the
existing binding.
I copied the bracing pattern and cut spruce braces to fit to
the new soundboard.
I steamed out the sound hole rosette from the
old sound board.
Here you can see the repaired kerfed lining and
broken neck brace re secured to the lining.
The old rosette fitted into the new soundboard.
The kerfed lining was damaged all round so I
glued in a batten to reinforce the gluing surface.
The new bracing glued in place. I retrieved and
fitted the existing bridge plate.
The braces were shaped during a tone tapping
process.
The new top is glued into place.
It's a perfect fit. I masked out the bridge to
sound board glueing area.
A dry test fir of components. The owner wanted
a larger scratch plate which I laminated out of
Jarrah veneer.
Another dry test fit.
I was asked to give this guitar a new Identity
so I added a three colour sunburst.
It's starting to look like a guitar again!
Fully assembled and strung up.
We are happy with the result.
Back to its owner alongside its brother, a Taylor 814.
