Maton Restoration (Part 2)

Gluing cracked guitars together is often just the beginning of the work on the aesthetics.  Lacquer previously coating joints also cracks, but usually in a manner that leaves a crater along the length of the crack.  These need to be repaired in a similar fashion to small dents and scrapes, with either clear or colour matched lacquer, or something similar.  In this case I used a colour matched lacquer to minimise the "obviousness" of the original damage.  The shrinkage of the lacquer as it cures has to be accounted for before any leveling or over coating can be done.  The photo below shows...

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Maton Supreme Restoration (Part 1)

Every now and then I get a challenging and interesting repair job. Truthfully, this one was pretty far gone as an instrument and I was tossing up not doing the job, given the choice by the owner.  The guitar was a 1952 arch top Maton Supreme - a style of guitar I don't normally work on being a classical specialist.  It had seen some good, and bad years.  It was a much loved family heirloom, and so the fact that the repairs would likely exceed the value of the guitar wasn't so important to the owner.  In addition, the owner was very forgiving if after the work was done, it was still not going...

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