This usually happens when the guitar is allowed to dry out, causing the two halves of the top to come unglued at the center seam. Dec 15, 2008 hello, im new here and ive seen alot of posts that might help me. Jan 09, 2010 we have a cork board that weve cut a bridge shaped hole into, so we set that on the guitar to protect the top, and then heat the bridge with a 75 watt lamp. Also, the two pearl dots on the top were hiding two bolt heads, which. I wlll reglue the brace, using white glue, and then attack the surface crack with cya. While a certain amount of top bellying is normal on aging acoustic flat top guitars, excessive bellying is often an indication of a problem. With all top cracks, timing of the repair is critical. There is less bellying of the top than on any of my other 35 yr old guilds.
Wood, the traditional material of choice for guitar tops, distorts when subjected to pressure and heat this is how we bend sides and, given enough time, will distort in response to pressure alone. The bellying of the top is normal and should be expected. May 19, 2016 high action turned out to be a symptom of trouble for this guitar. This is not a through crack so its not visible on the outside. Any attempt to stop the top from bellying will stifle the vibrations in a. If this should become too high, it might need adjustment or repair. We recommend repairing promptly, to prevent the crack from. Aug 06, 2014 this left a hole about 1 12 x 2 at the bottom of the guitar where i could insert a stick of mahogany cutoff i had laying around with a magnet and the cleat on it. There has been zero visible splitting of the bridge from the top as far as i can see since injecting the liquid nails. Location, location, location the unofficial martin. I loaned it to my cousin when he sent it back it was damaged in shipping this was a few years ago ups pretty much screwed me by telling me i could not make a claim on it since my cousin sent it and they told my cousin he could not make a claim since he didnt own it.
Belly bulge is when the top of the guitar develops a hump behind the bridge. One classic crack occurs when you play sitting down with your keys in a pants pocketif they press against the side of the guitar just right, voila, a crack appears. The majority of instruments that are truly dry will crack the top first, very dry instruments can also split along their sides or seam lines. The top is so swollen that the bridge has risen above the fingerboard see broken lines. First i placed the stick on top of the guitar with the magnet and cleat directly over the crack. Guitar tops rise and fall with age and exposure to humidity.
If you were to sight down the neck, youd find that it points low on the bridge. When investigating the cause of the bulge i read the taylor datasheets on dry and wet guitars and how to fix them. Replacing the original bridge plate to correct the problem is a timeconsuming job that can unfortunately reduce the value of a vintage instrument. Old gibson flat top guitars have their excesses and flourishes. Acoustic guitar care and feeding daves woodstock music.
Classical nylonstring guitars had top bracing in a fan pattern, steelstring guitars were xbraced, and any other bracing pattern for steelstring models was probably lousy or at least inadequate. The width or length of a wood crack doesnt affect whether it should be repaired or not, because even a small crack can run and get biggerget. This video shows many more discoveries of preventive maintenance not performed and. While the same can be said of cedar top guitars, there is something especially charming about the way in which a spruce top changes color over time, and how the sound produced by the instrument can be. The first thing to do to address fixing an acoustic guitar belly is to remove the bridge. To lengthen the life of your guitar strings, simply wipe the strings down with a soft cloth.
When sanding after applying the ca, would you suggest lightly sanding the entire top surface of the bridge. Since the cracks are usually along the grain, a good luthier can often make this repair essentially invisible. Action is good, 14 at 12th fret, frets are good with a little diviting on b string in first position. Acoustic guitar cracked top repair by randy schartiger. Depending on the severity and location of the crack, a repair is as simple as stabilizing the wood and applying glue to secure it. Dropping the guitar in its case especially an illfitting one that allows the guitar to move around inside can do it, as can running into a mic stand or your partners guitar. Your guitar is assembled with glues that can be affected by heat causing breakdown and loosening of glue adhesion. It caused a top crack along the left side of the bridge. Thompson, a tremendous builder and repairman before we get into the flattening part, let me show you a special problem with this guitar. Acoustic guitar cracked top repair by randy schartiger guitar repair. When that hump gets really bad the guitar will become unplayable and the top will probably develop a crack. Wet a cloth or sponge and set it directly on the plastic top inside the soundhole.
On one of those, a good rap or bump to the side can result in the side splitting wide open, not a pretty sight. The bridge had slowly been seperating from the top and the bulge appears to be growing. Its all good apart from some bellying behind the bridge which raises the action a wee bit, and a very thin crack in the top along the centre join. To make your guitar playable you may need a higher saddle. Taking a closer look, dan erlewine finds that the bridge is just about to pop off.
Now the crack is starting to show through the finish because it has come loose again. I think the crack follows the grain runout, through the top. This swelling raises the end of the fingerboard, which is actually attached to the top rather than the neck. Top bellying is a fact of life, and all the good sounding x braced guitars are that way. Cracked soundboard repair tutorial acoustic and hollowbody. Jan 24, 2017 the thing is the grain of the patch wood runs longitudinally with the guitar side.
Its easy to fix as long as there are no other structural problems with the. One photo shows the outside of the top, with the crack indicated by arrows, and the xbrace by a tape strip. I picked up this harmony acoustic guitar really cheap, but it has a warped top that makes the neck action really high. How to correct a bellied up bout with minimal expense. The advantages of spruce over cedar guitar salon international. It can even damage the top, bridge plate and bridge. If the combined total of the gap is less than 12 you are ok. Glued top crack in center between soundhole and bridge. Conventional guitargab wisdom has taught us for decades that the soundboard bracing for flattops was easy to summarize. The other guitar balladeer proved to have a loose brace and the surface crack does not go through the top wood. Then i sealed off the sound hole with aluminum foil laid over the top so the slightly warmed and wet paper towels would evaporate water into the wood inside the guitar. Even if you do not see a crack in the guitar, it has still lost moisture and the top has begun to sink. Helps correct soundboard bulge caused by string tension, without replacing the bridge plate. It most often occurs in the area from the bridge to the end block.
Most commonly the top will begin to raise or swell, which appears as a distortion of the surface of the top. Leave the cloth or sponge and plastic tops in place until the bow entirely disappears from the guitar. This is the most beautiful, best sounding herringbone prewar 0028 weve seen. Refinished to exquisite standards some 40 years ago, this 0028 has some of the most stunning brazilian rosewood ever used by martin. Fit the cut top over the soundhole, abutting the cut notch tightly against the base of the neck. The most common cause of a crack in the top or back of an acoustic guitar is because of dehydration. Monitor the guitar and wet the cloth or sponge every couple of days. The wood in a guitar can swell tremendously, causing glue joints to fail, finish to lift, and neck angles to go bad. Add 175 pounds or so of string tension and it will eventually distort any top built lightly enough for conventional tastes. Aug 05, 2010 i picked up this harmony acoustic guitar really cheap, but it has a warped top that makes the neck action really high. A bellied top can cause high action, bad intonation, and a weak sound. If you want to check it, lay a straight edge across the top of the guitar just under the bridge. To work efficiently, a guitar top must be built lightly enough to vibrate in complex ways.
A standard steel string acoustic, strung up with a set of 1254 strings, is constantly under about 75kg 160lbs of pull. We have a cork board that weve cut a bridge shaped hole into, so we set that on the guitar to protect the top, and then heat the bridge with a 75 watt lamp. The care and feeding of your acoustic guitar the hub. Oftentimes this is coupled with the bridge lifting as well.
Also, the cracks are pretty close to the kerfed lining that secures the top and back to the sides of the guitar. Sometimes a guitar top reacts to string tension by bellying. This melts the glue holding the bridge to the top, allowing us to slide knives into the glue joint and lift the bridge. You might even notice a bellying or bulging of the top near the bridge when this occurs. Notice that if you sight down the neck to the top of the. Initially this led me to believe the guitar is too wethumid and that it needs. Sep 24, 2014 a top that pulls up this is called bellying by the way, and a little bit of it is normal is a sign that the whole system may be at risk.
As the top stiffens and dries with age, the sound of a spruce top guitar will slowly evolve and mature. Larrivee guitars are built in a strictly controlled relative humidity from 37% to 42%. I found this info on a martin site my guitar is not a martin. With the bridge removed, we can now start work on fixing the top. At 30% relative humidity you may see cracks in your guitar. Taylor guitars tech sheetpage 1 symptoms of a dry guitar n. After weighing it on a gram scale, we found its total dry weight to be 2,162 grams. One of the most common instances is actually not a crack at all, but a centerseam separation. The excess moisture causes the top of the guitar to belly, pushing the bridge.
Hello, im new here and ive seen alot of posts that might help me. Freezing or overheating your guitar is an invitation for a crack or warp to occur. Crack repair guitar blog the official taylor guitars blog. Jun 16, 2015 belly bulge is when the top of the guitar develops a hump behind the bridge. This crack had been glued up, and the guitar refinished some fifteen years ago. Distortions in the wood can remain even after other damage has. That was the situation with this 1928 martin 018 i worked on last week. Cracks in the top wood are of particular concern because the top is generally a softer wood than the back and sides, and a crack can interfere with the soundproducing ability of the guitar. Stretch a large elastic band over the guitar to hold the plastic top over the soundhole. The spruce top has developed a long and wide crack that extends from the belly of the bridge all the way to the tailblock.
The patient is a 1940s gibson guitar, with an alltoocommon crack in the top, right alongside the fingerboard. I would then put screw through the top, back and bridge into the block. A long used repair technique for major top cracks is the splice. The top of the guitar had developed a bit of a belly and also had two large cracks running from the sound hole to the bottom of the guitar.
Measure the gap between the top of both edges of the guitar and the bottom of the straightedge. The back of the bridge starts pulling up while the front pushes down, and the top wood is pulled along with it. The inside photo shows the location of the outside crack, also with a tape strip. Place the uncut round plastic top inside the soundhole of the guitar. The easiest symptom to spot is the bellying of a guitar top. Replacing the original bridge plate to correct the problem is a timeconsuming job that can unfortunately reduce the. Stewmac sells perfect tools for it, but when i want to get them to europe i pay the price of. Some of the finish around the dots had cracked, which was largely.
This will increase over a period of time due to string stress andor high humidity. Thompson belly reducer tool for correcting bulging. Its not beyond the realms of possibility that it could open again, running along the grain of the patch piece. Though not particularly common, bridge plates can crack. The thing is the grain of the patch wood runs longitudinally with the guitar side.
This left a hole about 1 12 x 2 at the bottom of the guitar where i could insert a stick of mahogany cutoff i had laying around with a magnet and the cleat on it. Great guitar with that barky midrange these are known for. Jan 05, 2012 cracks in the wood are usually repairable, depending on the degree of severity. Cracks in the body of your solid top acoustic guitar are often cause by physical damage to the guitar or shrinkage due to a lack of humidity. High action turned out to be a symptom of trouble for this guitar. To flatten the bridge area, i used the belly reducer invented by t. The guitar became dry due to exposure to low humidity. Usually, the first sign of dehydration is sharp fret edges, although in some cases the guitar will become difficult to play before this. Question for acoustic experts how much belly at the.
Then i marked the stick at the location where it hit the guitar body. In this repair, a vshaped piece of wood is remove all along the crack think of a tiny trench all along the crack, and a matching piece of wood is glued in place. Steel strings pull up against the top of the guitar with 125 to 175 pounds of tension, depending on the gauge. Eventually, many guitars succumb to the pressure and develop a top with a bulge at the bridge. Any attempt to stop the top from bellying will stifle the vibrations in a way that will make it sound bad. Insist on a neck reset, as opposed to a top replacement. To fight back manufacturers rely on a system of supports, which well get to in a moment, to help the top withstand the force of the. Most of the worst and hardesttorepair cracks happen on a guitars top. A feeler gauge shows a loose brace which has really exasperated the condition. Without the structural support of the braces the top is free to pull upward and create what we call belly. Excessive soundboard bellying, caused by string tension, can make an acoustic guitar difficult to play. A badly warped bridge plate may cause the top to belly excessively or distort in such a way that the bridge can not longer stay glued to the top due to the change.
And the totally crackfree top shows absolutely perfect form and shape, with no undue bellying behind the bridge. Be thankful for your lifetime warranty, because continued top distortion may cause your guitar to eventually need a neck reset, as is the case with an overwhelming majority of vintage guitars. How to repair a crack in a solid top acoustic guitar our. This is especially noticeable on the cutaway models. Dehydration begins at about 35% humidity and the lower it goes, the more dangerous it can be. When this happens it often occurs thru the bridge pin holes.
This video i put to use my new magnets and cleat the first crack in the bottom of the lower bout of the guitar top. You cant put send your guitar to weight watchers to get rid of the bulge and if you do nothing the bulge will only get worse. A month or so ago i injected liquid nails under the bridge best i could. The top and back of the guitar are completely crackfree and perfect with full thickness the same as the day they left the factory. How to repair cracks in your acoustic guitar guitar alliance. Humdity and your instrument acoustic fingerstyle guitar. Mar 11, 20 its all good apart from some bellying behind the bridge which raises the action a wee bit, and a very thin crack in the top along the centre join. Here you see my way of repairing a typical top crack.
Jun 17, 2017 one photo shows the outside of the top, with the crack indicated by arrows, and the xbrace by a tape strip. Replacing guitar top on an ovation acoustic and hollowbody. The remedy involves internal screw jacks, clamps across the body, steam, water, patience for weeks at a time while the water naturally evaporates and i slowly raise the screw jacks a half turn at a. Jun 28, 20 a bellied top can cause high action, bad intonation, and a weak sound. I loaned it to my cousin when he sent it back it was damaged in shipping this was a few years ago ups pretty much screwed me by telling me i could not make a claim on it since my cousin sent it and they told my cousin he could not make a claim since he. The bow in the top will begin to flatten in about two to three days. Gibson lg1 bridge replacement and crack repair kennebec. This guitar came into the shop last week, with a severely bellied top and a lifting bridge.