Now, lets get it right this time ...

@tv101 Oh yeah, nice repair TV, well done. Now that had to be precise or it wouldn’t have worked. What I am proposing will be less accurate and gaps filled with epoxy but it will be painted over. 

@darrenking and @tv101 Here is my idea for my fix. Darren I think that if I could just get out a routing template and repair block, this wouldn’t take long at all so I would seriously look into it. 

Well @tv101 at least that idiot did some cool inlays!

Unfortunately @mattbeels, I can take no credit for the inlays!

I was given this as a rescue project.  A friend had commissioned another friend to make him a neck - with the cool inlays.  Lovely neck.  First friend had also obtained a very nice (albeit also very heavy) slab of Honduran mahogany.  Friend decided to mate the neck to the body, but he cut the angle wrong.

Apparently, the joined body / neck had sat on top of a wardrobe for a couple of years as he didn't want to look at it.  Then he gave it to me and said "fix it, keep it".

I've done a rescue thread somewhere here, but essentially, I chambered out the body to relieve some of the weight, sliced the top off (he'd already rounded over the top) and then cut a wedge shaped birdseye maple cap to compensate for the incorrect neck angle.  If you look, you can see that the cap is thinner by the neck compared to the end of the body, although the carve hides that slightly.

PS - that makes it sound like I've got lots of friends who are into guitar building.

Obviously, I don't ... just you lot.

😆

Just watched the video @Boo - all looks good to me.  Padding the bottom of the pickup cavities should be fine.

Just wondering ... don't suppose the customer was planning on a baritone guitar???

(I *would* have thrown it away and made a new one!!)

@boo

I like @Rocknroller912 's idea of replacing one big chunk and re-routing all the cavities. Then seeing @darrenking 's idea of a CNC repair block and matching template, I like that better. Maybe Darren could make you a repair block complete with cavities in the right place. Route out all the wrong cavities, glue in a block with new cavities, job done.

@robin

I only filled in the tremolo cavity to fit a different bridge style which covered the repair, didn’t touch the pick up cavities.

Just wondering ... don't suppose the customer was planning on a baritone guitar???

@tv101 It’s funny you should ask that. I did think of it and contacted him to check, he said no it should be a standard 25.5” scale length. Thanks for mentioning it though. 👍

I’m with you @boo, fix ‘er up. Love the logo in the neck pocket 👍

I was given this as a rescue project

@tv101

Right, I remember reading that thread now, it was a while ago. Allow me to try again:

Well, at least that idiot did a sweet carve on the top.

Better?

😆

Well, at least that idiot did a sweet carve on the top.

Who are you calling an "idiot" @mattbeels???

😆

That build is one that gave me more satisfaction than most others.  I had to fix a cock-up (of someone else's making) and then another one (of my own making), but in doing so, I learned some new techniques, and ended up with a guitar that's not going anywhere.

So, I can understand Boo's determination to fix the Strat body.

Would a Floyd rose fit in there ? Just a though. Plus not many metal starts out there 🤘🏻

Would a Floyd rose fit in there ? Just a though. Plus not many metal starts out there 🤘🏻

@deej Yeah a Floyd would probably fit but it’s not for that kind of client. If it was for me then definitely but not for this job. Thanks for the input though. 👍

Ok, so could the repair patches/blocks be made of birch or poplar plywood? These would be pretty cheap and cheerful (and strong) and a capping of solid could be added by the maker to match the rest of the guitar and it be trimmed with a bearing guided cutter, or just by hand, prior to it being glued in and planed/sanded flush.

They could be machined from solid but the time to prep the material, and the cost of the material itself, would increase the cost significantly and mean having to keep a range of species rather than just standard shapes/sizes.

And what about dimensions? Std pickup cavity +5mm all round? But what about bridge post or trem ’alterations’?

What do you all think?

Cheers

Darren

@darrenking Yeah I guess you could use ply. Don’t forget if it’s a repair that is going to be painted over, it doesn’t really matter what wood it is.

Unless you get a really stuffy, fussy old traditionalist that simply must have a certain wood from a certain tree that was grown in a certain part of the world such as by the side of Lake Titicaca, felled at a certain time of year with a chainsaw of a certain vintage, seasoned for a decade in strict climate controlled conditions, machined in a mill that only uses bespoke blades and run at the perfect speed, distributed only to select dealers and sold only to certain people who only work on the finest of fine instruments and pay a hefty price for the privilege of working with such a coveted material, only to be carved to fit perfectly into a carefully cut repair cavity, which must be bonded in with the finest of finest of hide glues, finished with dyes and lacquers that were formulated back in the 17th century and acquired from the original and extremely limited stock kept in underground caves in France, because anything else just wouldn’t give the correct tone for the instrument. 
What a load of old $H|! 😆 

Any of us could do a perfectly good job of repairing something with hardwood offcuts or high grade ply I’m sure. Normal white wood glue, some dyes or paints to cover it all will be fine and so will the tone. 

I’m happy to try some out Darren if you make them. I’ve got a beaten up old Tele body that needs some serious repair work before any paint goes near it. I’ll measure up for you tomorrow. 👍 

@darrenking

Ok, so could the repair patches/blocks be made of birch or poplar plywood? These would be pretty cheap and cheerful (and strong) and a capping of solid could be added by the maker to match the rest of the guitar

Maybe what's required would be a pair of inner and outer templates. Most makers would have offcuts from their body blanks to cut a patch from, although it would be awkward routing a small patch. 

Maybe what's required would be a pair of inner and outer templates. Most makers would have offcuts from their body blanks to cut a patch from, although it would be awkward routing a small patch. 

@darrenking Yeah, I always keep my offcuts and I use them too. Small repairs are easier in a way and wouldn’t really need a routing template. If it were a bigger repair, then obviously an inner and outer set would be good. 

@darrenking

Ply patches work ok for this type of cavity repair as long as they are good enough quality to stand up to being routed with home equipment. Sometimes the cross grain causes tear out, remembering that part of the patch is going to be cut out to relocate the bridge in the correct place. Is the glue used for laminating compatible with normal wood glue. Not being negative just chipping in my bad experiences from previous work.

And what about dimensions? Std pickup cavity +5mm all round? But what about bridge post or trem ’alterations’?

What do you all think?

@darrenking

I think the concept is great.

From my own experience (eg as above), would a repair kit of pre-defined dimensions have allowed me to cut the particular size of infill block that I needed?

Unlikely.

Risk is that you try to pre-define either a single block that then doesn't meet a need, or you end up with a load of sizes, and only ever sell one of each.

To effect the repair above, I just needed to be able to make two templates of a specific size - one inner to rout the hole, and one outer to rout the infill block. 

I made the hole first, and then used that template to mark out an infill block.  The tricky bit was making sure that I didn't cut the infill block too small, and so I deliberately cut it over size, and then spent ages gradually sanding it to size that made it a very tight fit.

So two comments;

1. Make something that allows for the dimensions to be varied - big hole, little hole, square hole, rectangular hole, round hole (ok, that one might be trickier).
2. Make a pair of somethings so that once the dimensions of one part have been set, it's easy to use that to create the dimensions of the second part such that you can create the very tight fit *without* hours of sanding.

Then rather than selling a repair block, people can make their own, and use whatever material they've got to hand, or perhaps grab some *quality* ply from you, perhaps made up in a range of thicknesses. 

Maybe also a mini-mini-mini-Bagpress kit too, to allow veneering of the relatively small repaired areas (ie the infill blocks) to hide the repair?

Is the glue used for laminating compatible with normal wood glue

I would always recommend that a repair patch of the type we are discussing be bonded with an structural adhesive such as epoxy rather than a PVA. If you are referring to the adhesive originally used to bond the veneers of the plywood (normally Resorcinol - an adhesive not suitable for use by vegans!) then this really wouldn't have any effect on the adhesive being used to bond the block.