The projects are piling up (if you could see the Dungeon, you'd see I mean that literally). This is a quick one before I tackle two more for a (get this) customer.
In the process of discovering off-beat instruments, I've also found myself digging old instrument cases.
And in this instance, we have a cool case and a cool instrument.
This case is still in decent shape structurally, although it could use new hasps for the latches. I'm in the process of procuring some of them. With a cleanup, this will be a great case.
And inside it is...holy art deco, Crawfish, what is that?
It's a 1951 Oahu Diana lap steel guitar!
C-c-crazy!
This was made by Valco in Chicago. Valco made thousands of instruments and amplifiers from the late 1930s through the 1960s. They were marketed under the brand names Valco, Supro, and National. They also made instruments for Sears, Montgomery Wards, and others.
Oahu was a music publishing company based in Cleveland, and Valco made Oahu-branded instruments for them.
This particular instrument uses the famous Valco string-through pickup. It looks like a humbucker, but is actually a large single-coil pickup. This is the same pickup Ry Cooder put in his famous "Coodercaster" guitar.
The fingerboard is reverse-printed plastic - I suspect it's Lucite.
The "frets" are part of the artwork. Since this is a steel guitar, it's played with a bar (aka slide).
You wouldn't be fretting this thing, what with the square neck profile and super high action.
This lap steel is in just fabulous shape. There are some chips in the finish and some lacquer checking, but that's part of the charm. I've been window shopping lap steels for a while, and I finally bit the bullet.
This one only needs a few things before it's ready for battle: the volume control is wonky, the tone control doesn't seem to do anything except cut in and out, and it needs to be restrung for C6 tuning. (I'm learning some on that tuning first as a starting point.)
The pickup and controls are one assembly. Just take out all the screws that hold it to the guitar body. These are marked with the green arrows.
The two back pickup top plate screws hold the plate down and also go into the body, doubling as mounting screws. One of these is broken, as you see.
The top plate is magnetically charged from the pickup magnets - it surrounds the strings with a magnetic field, which contributes greatly to the clarity of tone.
The back screws are #8 x 1 1/2 wood screws. The front screws are #6-32 machine screws. The front pickup mounting holes are threaded to accept the machine screws.
An interesting mounting arrangement. I'm not wild about the mismatched screw heads, but I guess Valco figured most people would leave the big chrome cover on the pickup, so they'd never see the screws.
The whole assembly comes up off the guitar.
There is a small yellow lead near the volume control (the furthest pot in this picture). That's the pickup hot, or output lead. Be careful not to break it! The green arrow is pointing to the rest of the broken pickup screw.
The pickup screws provide the ground via the mounting plate and the volume pot. The only actual ground lead is from the volume pot to the output jack.
If you look at this picture carefully, you'll see why the tone control doesn't work. A capacitor comes off the volume control as you'd expect and runs to the tone pot. But there isn't any connection from the tone pot wiper to ground! I'm not sure if this was just never wired at the factory, or if someone miswired it later. Either way, I'll get it working.
One way to date old gear is though the potentiometer EIA date codes.
This is the volume pot. The 6-digit code here is 304930. The code on the tone pot is 304931.
Using the Triode Electronics
EIA code list, we can suss out "304" being Stackpole, the "9" being 1949, and the "30" and "31" as weeks of the year.
So the pots were made in the 30th and 31st weeks (July) of 1949.
The serial number on the guitar is a 1951 number, so the pots were most likely in a distributor or Valco's stock sometime before the guitar was built. I like playing history detective!
And speaking of history, here's a great page on
Valco/Supro/National guitars.
All strung up and ready to go.
Here's the rejuvenated Epiphone FT-145 posing in the garden.
Now that it has a new bridge plate, bridge and saddle, it's usable again.
It sounds pretty good for a laminate guitar. The main thing I notice is not a lot of bass compared to a solid wood dreadnaught, but that's to be expected. And it does play in tune - the bridge placement worked out fine. I strung it with medium gauge (.013) strings, so it's got decent volume. It's no Martin, but it gets the job done.
The action is just perfect - about 5/64 on the bass side and about 4/64 on the treble. It could actually go a touch lower without buzzing, but I like it so that you can get your fingers 'under' the strings for string bending.
A little closer look. I polished it out and it looks good. The new bridge fits right in with the overall appearance.
It would be great for a beginner, or as a 'beater.' I'm taking a slack key guitar seminar later this summer and I might use it for one day of that.
Rather than do a whole bunch of separate posts on each of the final pieces on the Epiphone FT-145 resurrection, I figured I'd just outline them all in one post. I've detailed all of these before, and I'll just link to each of those previous posts rather than write it all again. Is ok?
Hokay.
So the bridge-gluing worked I think. It looks really clean. I did wind up using the original Martin style bridge and it looks good.
The real test, of course, will be when it gets strung up. If the bridge doesn't rip off the guitar, I'll call it a success.
Now I need to clean the fingerboard, do a fret level, crown and polish, and then string it up.
I just started using these Dunlop cleaner and conditioner products. They work great.
If you have a really filthy fingerboard, it's probably worth using something like Simple Green to clean it first to get most of the grime off. Then you can use the cleaner.
The Dunlop Deep Conditioner works wonders on old boards like this one. I first used it on one of my
old Martin ukuleles, and the stuff is great.
After the cleaning, I did a
fret level, crown and polish.
When I did the crowning, I used some of this Pro-Cut lubricant on my file.
OMG.
Where have you BEEN all my life? This stuff is fantastic! The file went over the frets like butter!
I need to string the guitar up so I can make a new saddle and get some height measurements.
Got a nice set of ebony bridge pins from LMI. They have cool abalone dot inlays. The bridge and the pins are probably worth more than the whole guitar.
The pins won't seat all the way down right away. They need to be fitted to the bridge.
A little reaming with a 5 degree bridge pin reamer does the trick.
It's really nice to do this work when you have the proper tools.
Now ve make ze saddle of de bone, ja?
Here's a bone saddle blank I cut to fit the new saddle slot. I haven't taken too much out of the height just yet.
Since this is a new bridge and saddle, I have no real reference to work off for the correct height.
First measurement with it strung up. I only put the low E string on - I can work off that measurement to get the saddle height correct.
It measures about 10/64 of an inch (!). I'll bring it down to about 5/64 or so. The saddle will gradually curve to a lower height so the treble side will be about 4/64.
Mark the saddle for the amount to take off.
You see I have already filed the top curve. The fretboard is a 12 inch radius, so I used a 12 inch radius guide to mark and file the curve so the strings will follow the curvature of the board.
I then just take that bottom material off with the ROSS.
Before I string it up, I vacuum out all the wood shavings and old dust bunnies.
And there you have it!
A nice new bone saddle, ebony bridge, and ebony bridge pins. (And a new maple bridge pad).
The bridge is in good shape - there were a couple creaks while tuning it up, but it's fine. There hasn't been any tension on the new plate and bridge, so the creaking was just due to putting stress on the new parts for the first time.
It plays really nicely! Probably better than ever.
While the glue on the bridge is drying, I'm going to fix another structural problem on the Epiphone acoustic guitar.
It's this dent/crack on the side near the end pin. I remember when this happened - I was at a friend's house and accidentally whacked the end of the guitar on the corner of a coffee table.
Since the sides are plywood, it's not a clean crack or break. It's like a combination of a dent and a crack. Another reason to have a solid wood instrument - even the breaks are better!
I couldn't reach into the guitar far enough to get to the dent, so I took a 3/8 inch dowel and ran it through the soundhole and pointed it at the dent from the inside.
There were mixed results. I thought I might be able to just push the whole thing out, but I couldn't. The different layers in the laminate were all cracked differently.
So I pushed it out as much as I could and then spread Titebond on the cracks while I kept it pushed out as much as I could.
Then I made a splint to go on the inside. It's cedar - I figure it's not worth cutting a hunk of mahogany for this. If it gets whacked again, it may just crack a little more, so I don't think it needs a strong piece behind it.
I used some repair magnets to hold the splint in place. Since I had to reach so far in, I stuck a magnet to the patch with masking tape. Then I used pliers to grip the magnet and move the whole thing inside the guitar until I had it where I wanted it.
The pliers, of course, stuck to the magnet, so they helped keep the splint aligned.
I put glue on the back surface of the splint - the one that will contact the side of the guitar on the inside.
Then, while I was guiding the inside magnet into place, I put its mate on the outside. It got pulled right up to the guitar - and I was able to use it to help guide the inside splint and magnet exactly where I wanted it.
The magnets are a real lifesaver for this sort of repair.
Really hard to get a good picture of the whole thing, but here it is.
I actually wound up using longer pliers than the shot above to be able to reach in.
The green arrow points to the magnet. I left everything as is overnight until the glue dried.
When it was dry, I slid the outside magnet off. The inside magnet was then freed up, and I could pull it out with the pliers. I left a long 'tail' on the tape so I could then just reach in and grab it and pull it out as well.
The upside-down view looking into the mirror inside the guitar. The repair came out very well - it's squared up nicely and I didn't get any glue runs.
Not, mind you, that anyone will ever look inside the guitar. But I know I did it the best I could.
You may have wondered how I got the interior of the guitar lit up. I cooked up a simple guitar "trouble light" with a bulb socket. It's just wired straight to an AC plug.
I have a CFL in it - a "75 watt" bulb. It doesn't get too warm at all and illuminates the inside very well. An incandescent would be too hot to sit inside a guitar, I think.
Now we come to The Main Event, The Big Moment, in which we glue the new bridge to the old guitar. Funny how I've been thinking about this for some time, and it actually takes just a relatively few minutes to pull it off.
I've been most concerned about the thing playing in tune when I'm done. Although it's been years, maybe a decade or more since I last played this guitar, I don't recall that it played out of tune. So I have assumed all along that the bridge placement as was more or less correct as it originally was.
I did discover that it was actually angled inward on the bass side a bit - in other words it wasn't perfectly square in relationship to the end of the fretboard. I am going to correct that.
So for the first of many times, I'm laying out and checking the scale length. From the far (headstock) edge of the zero fret to the dead center of the saddle between the third and fourth strings, it's 25 5/8 inches. I measured the old bridge a bunch of times when it was still on the guitar, and that's what I got.
I'm using a variant on what I now think of as the
Sven method of laying out the bridge. That would be Sven from Argapa Ukuleles. His advice on intonating my Gretsch uku was spot on, so I'm borrowing his methodogy again.
Once again, I double check the scale length measurement. Then I use a ruler to measure for the distance from the end of the fretboard to the bridge. Of course, I have the old markings on the soundboard to work from as well.
Then I put a small strip of masking tape in front of the bridge to mark the "length" placement.
And then I carefully use a clamp to hold the bridge down to the top. And I put more tape on the front and tape on the sides to locate the whole thing. And once again, I triple check the scale length measurement.
Since I have a pin bridge, I'm going to use a cool clamp to hold the bridge down when I glue it.
I carefully drill two 3/16 of an inch holes through the top and bottom E string pin holes in the bridge.
Generally, you'd glue the bridge first, then drill, but I need two access holes for my clamp. The clamp is also holding a caul underneath the bridge pad, so that drilling won't split the bridge pad (plate).
The one clamp wasn't super strong, so I also held the ends of the bridge down by hand to ensure the whole thing didn't shift when I drilled. The drill is also taking a small shaving off the pin holes on the bridge itself.
Then I can spread glue on the bottom of the bridge and use the clamp to hold the whole enchilada (mmm enchilada...) down.
The clamp came from LMI. It's a Fox bridge clamp - an aluminum plate with four screws. The inner two bolt through the bridge pin holes and the outer two screw down to hold the ends of the bridge down to the guitar. Very clever, and I found it worked perfectly.
I ran a caul between the outer screws and the bridge so as to not mark up the bridge.
A bit hard to see, but this is the inside of the guitar with the clamp on. There are wing nuts that attach on the two center clamp screws. A great idea, since you can spin them quickly to tighten up.
And with the thumbscrews on the top, you can torque down the whole clamp as needed.
Now we just let the glue set.
Looks like the bridge pad installation went well.
It fits exactly as it should, I don't see any glue squeeze-out (not that I could do much about it if there was some), and it seems to be solidly glued in to place.
The bridge pin holes for the new ebony bridge don't line up exactly with the old ones. No great surprise there.
So I need to fill those old holes, as well as the four holes from the "adjustable" height screws from the old bridge. One of those holes is more like an oval - it got torn up a bit when the old bridge came off.
So I cut some dowels for the holes and enlarged the oval hole a bit more and made a spruce patch for it.
If this was a real guitar with a solid top, I'd try to find hardwood dowels, but I just got these generic dowels at the local hardware store - I think they are pine or another soft wood. They chipped like crazy when I cut them.
With the dowels and patch in place, I declare thee:
Dowelhenge!
I kept thinking of the scene in "This is Spinal Tap" with the tiny stone and the druid dancers.
After the glue is dry, it's an easy job to slice the dowels off with a flush-cut saw.
Then I take a scraper and micro-plane any stubs of dowel that are left and also clean off any old glue.
Ready to glue the bridge on.
Finally ready for The Moment of Truth. I have like 60 seconds to put the hide glue on the plate, put the plate in place, and then clamp it.
I did a few dry runs to sort out the clamps. A couple of the pixtures are actually from the dry runs, since I didn't want to stop and grab the camera during The Real Thing.
One thing we know about hide glue is that it begins to set (gel) at around 90 degrees F. The glue is at about 145 degrees in the pot, and it cools quickly. If you can keep the parts warm, it will help slow the cooling.
So I decided to heat up the top of the guitar, the inside, and the plate itself with a heat gun prior to gluing it in place.
Next, ve apply ze glue, ja?
One hand on the camera, one hand on the glue brush.
Forgot to mention. At the beginning, I had taken the glue out of the refrigerator and heated it back up in the hot pot.
I used a disposable brush from Stew-Mac (where else) to brush the glue on.
This is the guitar-top view of the operation.
Put the bridge plate into position, and used an X-Acto knife stabbed into the maple to hold the plate in place until I could reach under and grab it with my other hand.
So far, so good.
Then I put the center clamp onto the plate. On the top of the guitar I had a piece of plexiglass and a wood caul.
I didn't use a caul underneath - the clamps are cork-faced and I think they're ok. Next time, I do think I'll use a hunk of wood as a caul underneath too just to get a bit more pressure on the plate.
After the center clamp was on, two more clamps on the outsides.
Total time? One minute, ten seconds.
Crazy mirror picture of inside. It's hard to get a camera down in there, but you can see the clamps on the plate.
I think it will turn out ok. If not, it will be a lot easier to get off than the original bridge plate.
While the hide glue is in the refrigerator waiting for its command performance, I made the new bridge plate (aka bridge pad) for the Epiphone.
This is a maple blank I got from LMI already sized close to what I'll need. You could make your own blank from a hunk of maple if you have a bandsaw. I don't (yet). Doh.
Since I got the old plywood plate off intact, it was easy to use it as a template for the new one.
Note the orientation of the grain. It runs perpendicular to the direction of the strings. This is the traditional direction. Frank Ford, however, suggests making the plate so it runs parallel to the direction of the strings. He argues that this will lessen the tendency for the plate to crack at the pin holes. Dan Erlewine suggests cutting the plate so the grain is on an angle, which actually makes the most sense to me.
However, the blanks I have are sized so that they'll wind up with the grain in the perpendicular orientation. So I have no choice here. Another reason to cut your own.
I cut the new plate out of the blank with a coping saw and used the ROSS to size it exactly as needed. I also beveled the two edges that won't butt up against the braces - this should help it not 'curl' up over time.
Wow. Lookit that. Me do luthier work!
I've decided to use hide glue to attach the new bridge plate and bridge on the Epiphone acoustic guitar. There are a couple of reasons why I'm using hide glue: first, I have a headstock repair in the queue and I definitely want to use hide glue on that. So that brings me to the second reason: I need to use it on a straightforward repair so I get some experience with it. The third reason is: I've been curious for some time about this mysterious "hide glue."
If you search for hide glue on the web, you'll find some different variations on how to mix it. I decided to go with Dan Erlewine's method, mainly since he uses the same Behlen glue.
Stew-Mac sells these great little mixing cups for paint, glue, etc. They're cheap and they also have graduations on them, and even a little spout.
So I measure 1 fluid ounce (about 30ml for the enlightened non-Imperial measurers) of hide glue granules. I'm going to just mix it in a clean jar with 2 oz of water. My understanding is that this 2:1 mix is stronger than 1:1.
Let the granules (aka crystals) absorb the water. Both Dan Erlewine and Frank Ford's sites say "a few hours," but I found in about 20 minutes the water was fully absorbed.
Here are the crystals after absorbing the water. Frank Ford describes them as looking like fish roe. That's pretty accurate. I like caviar, but I don't recommend eating this stuff.
Although, it is a natural product and probably wouldn't kill you.
Still, I wouldn't eat it.
Anyway...
Now we need to heat the hide glue. It will be liquid and ready to use at about 145 degrees F. I'm using a double boiler to heat the glue.
I have a little Sunbeam hot pot I just picked up at Target for $12.99. What a bargain. Another in my growing collection of former kitchen appliances adapted for lutherie.
You may recognize my trusty Pyrex instant-read thermometer from its main job
checking the doneness of meat. It suffered a burn from the grill at some point, but it keeps on going.
It came in very handy here to figure out the temperature setting for the hot pot. I have it on the lowest notch on the dial - with water filled to the "max" line, it runs at almost exactly 150 degrees. Perfect.
After about 10 minutes in the pot, the glue is melted and ready to use. You could use it immediately, but I'm going to let it sit for a day - this too is reputed to make it stronger.
So I put a lid on it and put it in the refrigerator. Mmmm hide glue. Just the thing for a quick snack.
I bet you never knew the
Felix people made hide glue.
