1951 Harmony Monterey Rebuild

Then I glued & cleated the cracks in the top.






There was crack in the back so I epoxied 1/8" plywood to the crack and the warped area.



Then the end block and kerfing was glued with 60 minute epoxy and clamped.


The same was done for the neck block.  I clamped the neck into the dovetail to verify the alignment of the neck block.  And I used wax paper in the joint.  Epoxy is permanent.  Epoxy did get into the joint and the wax paper prevented a major problem.


The neck block and kerfing.


Then the kerfing at the waist was epoxied.

The next problem was since the back had been mostly separated from the sides for possibly decades,  the sides no longer mated the shape of the back.  I tried various ways of clamping but I couldn't get the sides to match.  It has to match exactly to reinstall the plastic binding.

I traced the contour of the back onto a few pieces of 2x4.  Fail.



I also realized when I epoxied in the neck & end blocks, they were tilted in slightly.  They didn't line up with the back either!  So I made a brace to hold them at the exact distance required.  I clamped my straight edge to the back and took measurements every inch and made a template.  Then the template was transferred to a piece of straight grained pine.



Showing how the brace fits the contour of the back.



I used a piece of aluminum tubing and threaded rod to push the blocks to the right dimension to match the back.  Then the brace was epoxied in.


The result.


Then I taped off the areas of the back & kerfing that will be epoxied together.  The exposed surfaces were coated with teak oil to seal them against transfer of moisture.  It should help this guitar from shrinking and falling apart again.  The epoxy should help too.

Next I had to figure out the neck angle and the height of the bridge.  I used InstaMorph (look it up, cool stuff) to make formed clamps to hold the neck in place while I strung up the guitar with a temporary bridge.

The finished bridge, coated with teak oil.  I used nut files to make grooves in the top of the bridge to hold the strings at the proper spacing.  I had found the bridge thumb wheels, they're actually reproduction vintage for a Gibson arch top.  The studs are stainless steel set screws I found a Home Depot.



The next step is the neck reset, to set the proper neck angle, to have the proper action at the 12th fret, with the saddle at a specific height.  I've never done a dovetail neck reset.  What a better way to get my feet wet than to do it on a vintage guitar!

So I strung up the guitar again, this time with the final bridge set with a 1/8" space between the thumb wheel and the bridge base.  I measured the action at the 12th fret and calculated the amount of wood that needed to come off the heel.  It's done in a triangle shape, with the most coming off at the bottom of the heel.

After the heel was cut I strung it up again and checked the action again.  Measure twice, cut once.

Then the dovetail needs to be shimmed for a tight fit.  I figured this would be the most difficult part but I must have gotten lucky.  I superglued the shims to the neck dovetail and checked the fit.  It was pretty close.  After checking for high spots with carbon paper and a few rounds of sanding, I got it to fit perfectly.  Damn lucky.

The neck was glued to the body (the dovetail joint) with hot hide glue.

Then the fretboard was oiled and sealed with teak oil.

And it's finally done!!!!!!!




Nearly 12 weeks and an estimated 100 hours of labor.  And I did it for free!  And the experience.

I'm hoping to present it to him this coming Saturday.

I am totally blown away, CTGull -- what an incredible lot of work!  I'm utterly amazed that you could take an instrument so broken and neglected, and make it playable and good-looking once more.  My hat is off to you, sir!  Thanks for sharing this with us.

wow
The patience, diligence and inventiveness shown here are really intimidating and breathtaking..my hat's off to you..and it not any hat, it is a YMCA day camp hat!

And here am I.. afraid to start a filing job of sharp fret edges.