new project guitar!! Old parlor sized..

as you can see.... it needs a little work....

Got a little work done on it last night...

Removing the neck was pretty easy. The dovetail was allready loose, so I just had to work on the fretboard to top joint...

POP!! Necks off. A tiny bit of tear out on the top... but nothing to worry about..

OK.. so I think I figured out its story...

This thing looke like it has VERY little playing time on it.. Well after a quick clean up and dry fit, I found the dovetail VERY loose!! Im guessing it was made that way, and the glue joint gave up when it was farly new, and never got played much. Its got scrapes and scraches all over from kicking around a few kids bedrooms all these years, but almost no playing. Dry fitting the neck, and laying a streight edge on the neck shows the end to fall just above the floating bridge. So it looks like It might just need some shimming on the dovetail, and very little in the way of angle adjustment.

Fun - I have a couple old stella's. Great camp fire guitars.

Fun - I have a couple old stella's. Great camp fire guitars.
You know... eaven with inch plus action, and a loose falling apart neck joint... it sounded pretty cool. I figure if it goes together OK, and sounds OK, it will be a nice little guitar to travel with.

OK, a little more work on her. Cleaned the glue joints good. It will still need a final sanding but for now till the works done, we are good... The neck on this does not have a truss rod in it like most guitars do. Well with checking the neck alignment with a streight edge, I noticed this one was bowed up a little. Well it will pull up more when strings are on it... so Im working to fix it a bit.

So this might not be the perferd way to do it... but im giving it a shot.. I made up a jig for the neck to sit on, and im lightly adding clamping pressure. So Im giving it a little turn once in a wile, and going to slowly try to add a little back bend to it. Here crossing our fingers!!

OK.. so with the nexk pulled away like it was, I had no idea on what the guitar had for string hight. So, what I did, was shim up the neck pocket to get a nice tight fit of the neck/body joint, dry fit the neck on it, and strung it up! OK, well just the two E strings...but still :) So after some work on the nut..to put that end of the strings at the right point, I checked it out... action was about a 1/8" at the 12th frett. OK.. a little high... but I did have a slight pull away of the heal when I tuned them up..

so I have to work on the shimming a bit, but also the neck was a tick proud of the guitar top... so, Im in the ballpark, but I do need a little more angle in the neck. So pop it apart, and do some chisel and sandpaper work! All in all its coming together. I spent about a half hour just hammering out tunes on the two E strings, and this thing has a cool sound. :)

i had the same bow in an old marwin guitar neck without a trussrod. it was from the 30s. anuhow i set up asicly what you did but... i put a heating pad on it to give it some help. left it for a few hours the shut off the heating pad leaving it clamped and the shut off heating pad on it over night to gradually cool. next day it was right where i wanted it. the heat makes the wood move easier.. also less chance of cracking it.

there are videos on youtube of methds like this.. btw my first guitar was an old stella harmony from the 60s. very similar to what you have there. i always liked the sound of it.. best of luck. use some of the old hyde glue on that joint.

I did some more work on it today. Got the heal trimmed a little more, and a dry fit showed a nice tight joint, and action was about 3/64 of a inch. I was getting some buzzing at the 12 th fret, so I stopped there. I have plenty of bridge to work with to dial it so I called it good. Final cleanup, got my clamps, and clamping blocks set, and put the glue to her!! She all clamped up now just waiting to dry. I can't wait to string it up!!!!!!

Ever see this before??

Nails holding the hardwere on the guitar!!!!!

No signs of there ever being screws, nor these nails ever being out.

ive never seen that but you have to remember that was a low end parlor guitar so they cut corners and costs where ever possible. btw i had some great luck with fixing finish on a marwin from the 40s with stewart mcdonald finish dyes. i evded up doing the whole top of the guitar over and got a perfect match color wise.. i thought id mention that because i looked for stains at hardware stores and couldnt even come close.. anyhow so far so good looking forward to seeing the finished project.. best of luck.

Thanks

As of now I have pulled the strings off, and just mod'ed a set of nippers to work as fret pullers. Next I'm going to pull the frets, and level that board. I'm going to replace the nut also. Its been a great learning experance, and a ton of fun!

Oil the board the days prior as the rose wood is going to be very brittle. Also keep whatever tear out you get to be glued back into place before re-fretting. Let me know if you need any tools for dressing the frets after words, I have experience in tool making on a budget and I also have tons of tools (and I'm local)

Oil the board the days prior as the rose wood is going to be very brittle. Also keep whatever tear out you get to be glued back into place before re-fretting. Let me know if you need any tools for dressing the frets after words, I have experience in tool making on a budget and I also have tons of tools (and I'm local)

Cool thanks.

Its not rosewood... its just... "wood" :D its just dyed the color it is. You know the thing is pretty much worthless. Just a old cheap entrylevel guitar, but it has been a blast getting her back to playing shape. :) Ive made a few mastakes, and ill make more im sure. But Im having fun with it!!!

I always love a project! Be it one of my old cars. rebuilding, or restoring a old tractor Building somthing, or these guitar projects. Keep the mind alive!!!