Retop; This Ain't No Vintage Martin!

[Joe Sustaire]

Well I've got this Japanese made plywood 12 string that I picked up on ebay a few years back. 12 fret, slot-head that's now in need of a neck reset, and since I'm going in that far I'm going to put a new top on it and see if I can get it to sound a little better than the plywood box it's always been.

You see, some of us, like Dave and Grant get paid to work on nice vintage Martins, and some of us have to pay to rework pieces of junk. I'm sure there's a reason and lesson in there somewhere, but I don't want to dig that deeply.

So anyway this is what we got here,

Missing bridge and tailpiece, '70s folk boom special, Tele-Star.

I used an iron to heat the fretboard overhang and worked a knife under it to free it. Not knowing what kind of glue or neck joint this had I pulled the 11th fret and sawed the fretboard there to expose the joint. Turned out to be a very shallow dovetail, less than 3/8", don't know how it held, maybe the steel t-bar neck reinforcement that was epoxied into the slot in the neck block extension. The dovetail did steam apart, and with the help of a shop made version of the stew-mac neck removal jig the neck was off. Looks like I was too involved to get pictures of this.

Then I routed off the top.

And here's the rather massive ladder/tonebar bracing that supports the plywood top. No belly problem here!

Nice fretboard support though.

The kerfing is really narrow so I overlaid it with a strip of wood to give a little better gluing surface when I go on with the new top.


Enough for now,
Joe

[DaveAnderson]

It may not be a vintage Martin but it looks like
a fun project nonetheless Joe.It could be a cool guitar with a new top.
Man,It does have strong bracing with those RR ties in there !!
I like 12 fretters ! Keep us posted on this one.

[whitespruce]

Ya, Joe, looks like you will make that baby sing like it never did before. Hard to believe that bracing on a plywood top. It is a wonder it made any sound

Are you gonna redo the same neck attachment, or switch to something different?

G

[Colin S]

Interesting project Joe, are you going to use your patented Sustaire bracing scheme? Make it a bit like an old Stella 12.

Colin

PS when you've finished that you can help me with the $100,000 Venere I've got to rebuild!

[Rod True]

....PS when you've finished that you can help me with the $100,000 Venere I've got to rebuild!

Oh, please tell me you'll be documenting this somewhere (here perhaps)

[Lefty]

Go get em Joe.

Lefty

[Michael Boyle]

Go Joe! I have done a couple dozen like this and the solid top always sounds much better. I like the Madeira and Conn guitars best. I also have a couple of Vieto 12's that are exceptional.They are a high quality tonewood ply with matching grain patterns inside and out. Some of the first K. Yairi guitars have high quality ply that sound as good as solid.
Michael

[Joe Sustaire]

Thanks guys! Given the bracing this ply top had it shouldn't be too hard to make it sound better, but we'll see.
And yeah I'm changing it over to a bolt on neck, just don't think there is a deep enough dovetail to count on.

And Colin I had to google Venere, 16th century lute maker? Funny, change around a couple of letters, Venere-veneer, and yeah we're talking about basically the same project, give or take a valuation difference of $100,000 or so! So of course I'll be glad to give you a hand there. Maybe we could adapt it to this ladder/tonebar bracing I've been using and give that old Venere a little blues vibe?

Glad to have you tuning in here Michael. I know you are a fan of the zero fret on these 12's, this will be my first experience with one.

And no I'm not working quite this fast, I got ahead on this one a bit before I started this thread. So, after I reinforced the kerfing, I decided to do a little backwoods neck block bracing. Just spruce braces glued into some pockets to help the neck geometry stay where it should. I think it's especially a good idea on a 12.


Notice the nice figure on the veneer on the inside of one side, nothing on the outside.

I glued a couple of wings onto the fretboard extension block to make a trap to hold the braces at that end, and then angled a couple of blocks to lock the other end down to the kerfing.

Lutz top, not Shanes. Put in just a simple herringbone rosette and on to bracing with HHG.


Crosspatch soundhole reinforcement, walnut bridge plate since it's going to have a floating bridge.


Upper transverse brace is not radiused and glued down flat.

And here's where they wound up,



Notice the nice centered hole in the upper brace for adjusting the trussrod through the soundhole? Something I sometimes forget to do before I close the box, but not this time. Only thing is, this has a steel T bar trussrod, no adjustment.

I just tap and carve until I get a nice lively tone everywhere. If a spot sounds dead I remove wood until it comes alive, and offer up lots of prayers while I'm working!

Joe