Official Luthiers Forum!

I've been investigating this forum for a while, tried a few things, still a newbie, and looked at many acoustic kits, many of which are fantastic, and also thought of building an acoustic from scratch - I bought some plans, bought some books, visited some tone wood suppliers, did lots of reading, decided to try something easier and then a few years later I built a telecaster body and it worked out great with an eBay neck and some relic accessory treatment, it rocked... But, I still want to go back and make myself an acoustic and I'm not ready to jump in and buy raw materials like I intended to do when I was young and naive. Now a few years later I'm older and slower but I'm starting to reflect on the possibility of buying a used acoustic guitar and reworking it. So, my question is this: Can I buy an old acoustic and rip off the top and put down a new top without having to remove the neck? You see where I'm coming from? I'm thinking of sanding down the entire thing, replacing the top, but just not sure if I have to remove the neck. Is that a thing? I appreciate the help thanks.

The fingerboard would need removal but the neck could stay.

^^^ What Carl said. ^^^

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Just curious, but what’s your goal for this project? That’s a lot of work, and towards what end?

Not sure what I want to do exactly, so thanks for pointing that out indirectly! I have an old Sigma dreadnaught and the top is warped and thought it could be a good project to learn on, and replace the top with new. Sand it all down. I'd also like to apply a dark stain throughout the guitar just for aesthetics. Not sure how i'd go about removing the fretboard so this may be a problem.

I think I'm just trying to work through different options from buying a kit. The kits i'd like to buy are EXPENSIVE (such as 12 fret designs) and the cheap ones are typical acoustic guitar plans that are not inspiring. So, my initial idea was to buy an old acoustic and work on it to get some experience, like replacing a top. Are there any other options that are good starting points with getting a used guitar and doing something like this? Thanks again.

Greven guitars has a demo on replacing a top and saving the bindings. I have done this 3 times. http://grevenguitars.com/retopping-demo.html,

You can find removing a fretboard on youtube. Basically use heat to soften the glue and lift with a artist palett knife. I have a repair heat blanket to soften the glue but I bet an iron would work.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I've got a small pink travel iron I "borrowed" from my wife that has worked great for that. It's about 3" wide by 6" long. I've done it with a regular iron too. Start at the soundhole and gradually move it up as the palette knife separates the fretboard from the top and then the neck. Watch out that the palette knife doesn't dig into the top which can happen if there is runout in the grain of the top.

Iron works just fine, it's what I've done a couple times.

Investigate the cause of the warped top. Got a brace that's come loose, or broken? Just saying that removing/replacing the top may not address the root cause/ provide the full learning opportunity.

Do some pondering on what you want to do. I mean, obviously you already have, but is your interest repair, or build? Because the learning tracks for these can be different. If it's repair, yep, acquire broken guitars and fix / modify them. If it's build, a kit is a great way to get started. Begin with the end in mind, know what your goal is.

If the expense of a kit puts you off, how well are you set for tools? Tools required for a kit can be less than are required for a scratch build. Factor that in to your budgeting. Of course there are luthiers who only need a bench plane and a sharp pocket knife to build beautiful instruments from trees they cut down with an axe....but many if not most builders have fairly extensive tool collections.

Martin usually has their kits on 50% off sale about this time each year (it's how I started). Looks like COVID has squashed that for now.

Best of luck.

Repairs or reworking is infinitely harder than building from scratch. Removing a top is not trivial. You not only have to remove the fretboard extension and unknown neck joint (which means you learn to do a rese), you will have to deal with binding (removing and replacing) the fact that the top braces are let into kerfing, not to mention the hassle of refinishing something that you probably don't know what the finish is. You'll get to fit the bridge, do all the setup and maybe have a playable and OK looking guitar.

Buying a kit from one of the good suppliers - BluesCreek, LMII, StewMac - insure you a good chance of being successful. My first was a 000 kit that I built 15 years ago - it still one of my favorite guitars

Great video, thanks for the link.

The kits from BluesCreek look spectacular - I love all the 12 fret and vintage designs that they offer - the selection alone proves to me they are true craftsmen. It'll come out to about $1000.00 CDN by the time you do the exchange, shipping and duty to get it into Ontario. So, i'm just not ready for that. That's why I was hoping to start with a used guitar and do some mods but I understand from the advice on here that modifications/repairs can be a lot more work than starting from scratch with a kit.

Now I'm entirely embarrassed with the title of my thread. I watched a few videos and should have known better than to ask that question. I watched a neck removal using steam and like you say its not trivial.

Johnny, lets face a couple of hard facts. Repairing guitars teaches you a lot about how guitars are made and for many luthiers it is a way to make money between selling the ones they build. But it is just plane hard work. Seek out some of the posts by forumite Flemsmith where he tries to rebuild his little basket cases - he is doing an incredible job in spite of all the frustration.

Second, you don't build a guitar to save money or get a cheap guitar. There are a few cheap kits out there - stay away from them. A kit like John Hall (Bluescreek, John is a regular contributor at OLF) will build you a guitar very much like a upper mid line Martin - a 000-28 or similar. But the materials are not cheap and the price keeps going up. On top of the materials you will make a significant investment in tools - there is simply no way around that. Depending on what is on your workbench right now you will still be buying fretting and nut files and all sorts of other things. You'll need gizmos for binding and you will face the dilemma we all face of how to finish it. However you would have had those same issues with trying to rebuild something.

My first three guitars were kits - by the time I built the third one I was ready to build from scratch and I've just finished number 27 (got to amortize those expensive tools.....). Here were my first and third guitar - the OM sized 12 string on the left is a BluesCreek kit that John put together for me, the 000 on the right is not from John but is typical of what he would furnish. These guitars are over 15 years old, they are still daily players



Not trying to talk you out of rebuilding a yard sale special but I would rather see you make a guitar that you will play and cherish.

Your first couple of guitars will likely be amazingly good but you won’t be satisfied with them. They will have flaws and you will know what they are and they will bother you. You are very unlikely to build a masterpiece the first few times. So buy one of the cheaper LMI or StewMac kits and get some experience. After that, you will either be ready to build from scratch or the Bluescreek kits will no longer seem so expensive. After you do this for a while, what something costs gets to be less and less of an impediment. There’s a lot of enjoyment in building and it gets to be worth whatever it costs.

Really appreciate the advice, Freeman and bobgramann, and thanks for the guitar pics. They look spectacular. Just priced out a parlour kit from LMI and selected all the lowest priced wood parts and it came out to $481 which is not that bad actually. I'm starting to see what you're saying here. This included just the essential items. (However, I did select the carved neck and bridge which was half the cost of the entire project!) But, I think its worth doing it this way to get in the game and working with the wood and tools.

Here are two threads from a different forum on scratch built acoustics. Sorry about the photobucket stuff but you still get the general idea. A kit will eliminate a lot of work that takes special tools - bending the sides, rough shaping the neck, slotting the fretboard. The carved neck and bridge are worth the price, believe me.

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/mahogany- ... ar.969146/

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/sitka-and ... el.980644/

Its also worth while going to StewMac's website and finding one of their acoustic kits. Somewhere there will be a link to the instructions, download them and spend some time reading about what you are getting in to. If you just want to get your feet wet building an instrument a ukulele (don't laugh, they are tons of fun) or a mountain dulcimer might be a good starting point. Warning - its addictive

You could find a cheap guitar with a bolt on neck like a Seagull or any one of those Canadians, and replace the top. You would only need to separate the fingerboard extension. Most of those guitars have a very thin finish which would make it much easier to rework than something like a gloss lacquer. I wouldn't worry about trying to save the binding. Just remove it with heat and redo it when you're done. You could probably just reuse the bridge and rework it somehow.

I took the back off of one that didn't have binding to repair a whole bunch of cracks in the top. I was surprised how little work they did refining the soundboard bracing. (Notice the tone bars were not even tapered at the end) It sounded really nice after I reworked all the bracing. (Someone went crazy with the super glue!)

Pat

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Pat

Surely that cannot be a Seagull. They are put together much better than that (whatever it is).

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Yes it was a seagull. Someone had tried to glue a bunch of loose braces with super glue. I had another one in a few months ago where the tone bars were exactly the same. At first I thought someone must have just missed it because it would take all of a few seconds to taper the ends down, but I guess not...

Pat

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Pat

Seems like OP is going the kit route - - - I think that makes a lot of sense. All during this exchange no one mentioned the little detail of top bracing. Can't take a top off and stck on a top and close up the box. Bracing, bridge plate, bridge itself. All the fun stuff of building.

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Peter Havriluk

Really appreciate all the advice here. But, I'm mostly a little embarrassed about dragging all you guys into this mess, and appreciate that nobody elected to take my head off. I've had to reevaluate and clarify what the hell I was thinking... johnparchem did reply with a video on how to replace a top, its quite advanced. I will most likely try a kit but in the meantime I have to start a new thread about a project that you guys helped me clarify in my mind. Thanks again!

One more piece of advice: Read a couple of books on how to build a guitar before you start just to get a starting idea of how to approach the build. I usually ask my students to read Cumpiano and Natelson’s Guitarmaking and one other (any other) before we start. Reading two shows that there are many ways to accomplish some if the same things so you can pick what works for you. Any thing that scares you, you can practice on scrap wood until you can do it reliably.

Enjoy.

Humm, made on a Friday afternoon?

GS