Did I mention that I found an old rotten guitar in an empty house?
Someone left that in a house that was sold and I was by chance called to pick up some furniture.
So I found it and I wasn't very convinced that I wanted it.... Mostly because I thought it belonged to someone. Then I gave it a second thought and no one was going to come back for it...
And it was all wet and rotten, full of mold.
The sides are proper wood. The back and top are plywood... The fretboard was the same cedar as the neck, hideous, too soft of a wood.
The headstock aswell, was cedar, too soft and too thin.
It was split in half lengthwise.
Anyway. I brought it home, mostly because the tuning pegs were okay...
Then I let it to dry in the sun. And I started to see the puzzle and I had this eureka moment.
I had around a top that a student, a friend of mine built like eight years ago.
We were experimenting with old alerce shingles. And we did this top with eight pieces or more. Like eight strips of different shingles. We made a bunch of mistakes, we werent so confident of it.
I wasn't a good teacher as I was learning myself (Still)
But we lost confidence after a bunch of work and we left it unfinished.
For years that top was laying around in the workshop.
I thought about throwing it to the fire in a winter. Once I dismantled my workshop the top was thrown outside and spent a winter out in the dark cold humid nights of the desert.
When I picked it up to throw it in the fire I saw that even though it was outside for a season, it didn't move, or deformed, or unglued any part. It was immaculate.
So I kept it inside again.
I used it as an example of bracing and wood to explain to people coming to the workshop when I do my long solemn monologues about the importance of building properly and using the right woods and cuts and glues. Yes... Like this , you are reading one.
Anyway.
After I glued the sides and reinforced the tail of the neck with a big hidden screw, I planed out the bad fretboard, the bad headstock and glued a new walnut Headstock
When I tried the fitting of the top on this guitar it was almost perfect. I was happy if it was a bit oversize. It was.
So I sawed it to fit and preserved the linings and purlflings.
Alerce wood is such a rare and magical wood. The growth rings are so tight. It is so soft but so strong lengthwise. You can tell the sensitivity of this tonewood, just by caress it produces resonance .
You can see the growth rings in the fiber so packed.
There are some living specimens with 2500 years old in Patagonia.
Alright then I made a new fretboard with Quebracho Colorado. Red Quebracho is the hardest and densest wood there is. Not ideal because it is heavy. But it works.
It is hard to saw or plane.
But it is what I have. I got a bunch of Quebracho beams once and made them into fretboard blanks. I wanted to sell them abroad. Anyway...
So now I'm gluing the fretboard. Still have to peel the ugly black paint from the back and see what's underneath.
I have a bridge I made years ago in a drawer, I will use that....
Quite a story huh?
