The Martin Project

I currently have a nice old Martin in the shop that needs a little TLC. The pickguard had lifted at the edges so it needs to be replaced. The bridge has pulled away from the body so it needs to be pulled and reglued. There is also a small crack in the top that needs to be repaired. Here is a log of the repair.

First I pulled the pickguard. I don't have pictures of it, but the process is to heat up the pickguard and slowly lift it off the soundboard. Once that was removed, I turned my attention to the bridge. Here you can see that it was lifting off the soundboard.




There are two ways to remove a bridge. One way involves wedging a chisel under the back and beating the handle with a hammer until the bridge pops off. The other is to gently heat the bridge to loosen the glue, then seperate the glue seam to ease the bridge off. I elected to go with option 2 ;)

Here is my heating blanket on the bridge held in place with a clamp and caul.




Once the bridge gets hot enough to loosen the glue bond (and release the beautiful scent of hot rosewood!), I use a metal spatula that has been sanded sharp, then the sharp end removed with a buffing wheel so that it won't hurt the soundboard to seperate the seam.







Once the bridge is off, I scrape off all the wood on the bottom of the bridge and the glue left on the soundboard. I need it to be as smooth as possible so that the bridge will glue back down into place (and hopefully hold for another 40 years). Here is the bridge glued back down in the correct place. I use 2 Sloane Clamps with an adjustable clamping caul. Using 2 clamps allows me to regulate pressure on each side of the caul.



So now on the the pickguard. I have been very disappointed with my suppliers on this point. This is an OM Martin which is smaller than a standard D. No one seems to sell this pickguard and when I finally got someone to send me one, they just sent me a pickguard for a D-28. The customer has been more than patient with the timeframe I have spent with his guitar, but I need to get this back to him. When in doubt, do it yourself. I am going to make a pickguard. My first step is to make a template of the old pickguard. I do this by taping off the bottom and trimming it to size.





Once I have that done, I transfer it to the pickguard material. Then I bandsaw out the basic shape and clean it up on the belt sander. Tomorrow, I will post the pickguard being made and repairing the top crack. Hopefully, I will also have some sound clips of the finished guitar.