1960s EKO acoustic guitar side repair

[Manton Customs]

Not a bass I know, but a cool story so thought I'd share.

The guitar is an EKO Ranger, made in Italy in the 1960s. While it's nothing really special in itself, it has great sentimental value to the owner as he has had the guitar since new, when it was given to him by his wife as a present.

Disaster was just around the corner though as early on he tried to fit an output jack to the lower bout, unfortunately instead of fitting an endpin jack, he decided he was going to fit it on the lower bout... in the thin side wood. So when he came to drill for it, the side split and it generally made a mess. He repaired it, but the fix was....umm how shall we say - less than professional! So I was asked to put it right.

Here's the mess, while it's certainly ugly looking now, it's about to get a lot worse.

Some sanding revealed the repair, there's wood filler, screw holes and a piece of plywood around 3 times the thickness of the side!

You can see by all the light coming under the straight edge here how far it's been pulled in and distorted. Without drastic measures (coming up!) nothing can be done to make this look right again. Obviously having a 1/4 piece of ply stuck to the side of the guitar is less than ideal also...

Problem solved...an extra sound hole (joking of course). In case it's not obvious, here I have cut out the damaged, distorted, ugly wood and removed all traces of the repair.

Here's the "repair" I dug out. As mentioned above, he used a very thick piece of ply, then drilled holes in the side of the guitar to insert screws to pull in the repair to the side. It was never going to work and there was still a decent sized void between the ply and the side, so he filled that with expanding polyurethane foam!

Now onto my repair and filling the large gaping hole. The best material to fill it with (and any hole in wood) is wood of the same species, being a guitar builder I have no shortage of Mahogany and some of it is quite old, meaning it's very stable. It's also nice to replace material with wood of a similar vintage. But first I need to make a frame to support the new patch of Mahogany. I also make this frame out of strips of vintage Mahogany, making sure the strips are a good deal longer than the patch to give plenty of gluing surface. They also need to be bent to match the side of the guitar, this is done with steam (and patience!). In this picture you can see I have bent all the frame material and the patch itself (on the left). You'll have to ignore the dodgy pickguard on the guitar, I'm guessing that's another story!

Here's the frame all glued into place. I used traditional hot hide glue, which is exceptionally strong and period correct. The strips are glued to the side of the guitar and also to the kerfing on the bottom edges.

Now I glue in the patch, using a caul which I made up to match the profile of the side, this is made up of two pieces off a body blank screwed together to give the required width. This caul ensures even pressure during the glue up.

A nice tight fitting patch all glued into place. It needs to be a tight fit as if there were any gaps you could get problems with the patch "telegraphing" it's outline through the new finish over time. Fortunately no gaps here, just a few lacquer chips round the edge which will need to be taken care of during finish prep.

I mask off anywhere I don't want lacquer and spray a couple of coats of clear Nitro to get an idea of anywhere which may need more work/levelling. I repeat this process until I'm 100% happy before spraying the colour coats. Then I mix up some black Nitro to match the original finishes colour.

Here the colour coats have been sprayed, the masking on the binding removed (the binding gets clear coated, but obviously not painted black!). This is the clear coat straight out of the gun so there's a very slight spray texture, but so minor it won't require too much wetsanding and it's reflecting a clear image (i.e me!) without too much distortion. I now need to leave this for a month before proceeding with 1000 grit and through the grades before buffing.

The finished article! No trace of the repair and straight sides! Thanks for watching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Si600]

Stunning work.

[TheGreek]

Good work...I bet any prospective will be hard pushed to see the repair.

[cheddatom]

ace!

[Andyjr1515]

Masterly

[ezbass]

Top work! The chap who initially taught me play guitar had a Ranger 6 and I always lusted after one. I never bought a 6, but I did buy a 12 second hand in my teens. After that, I realised that there were ‘better’ acoustics out there. However, if I saw one in a shop now, I might still buy it for those aforementioned, sentimental reasons.