repairs

I find that some, not all, string instruments take on the personality of the people that care for them and play them. I once had a gentle Hawaiian man bring an old D-17 vintage Martin flat top, steel string guitar to me for repair. He was trying to encourage his young daughter to learn to play Slack Key Guitar.

This guitar had really been used. The frets had deep grooves from the strings. The fingerboard had deep grooves from fingering. It had many cracks all over and almost all the bracing was loose. It had been painted with left over door paint and one tuner was frozen stuck. Worst of all perhaps was that it still had strings on it in tension and the bridge was only being held by the smallest piece of glue and the string pins. It was getting ready to explode.

I began by carefully taking it apart which you have to do with these old instruments, as they can be very brittle. I slowly and carefully fixed all the problems with it, stripped it down to bare wood and refinished it in French polish. I kept getting the warmest feeling every time I touched that guitar.

When it was finished I put new strings on it and allowed it to stabilize while I brought it up to pitch over a period of days keeping a critical eye on it the whole time. When it was in tune, I began to play a gentle Hawaiian song called “Makee Ailana”. The sound from that instrument just floored me. It played like silk and the sound was so warm and full. I wanted that guitar very much.

I called the gentleman and told him it was finished and that I would like to buy it and would be glad to include a new classical guitar in the deal. He said, “No I cannot do that. That guitar belonged to my Grandmother who used to sit on the front porch and play all the time. That is almost the only thing I remember from my childhood is the sweet music that my Grandmother played on that guitar.”

When he came to pick it up he asked what the total repair bill was. I told him nothing. I had already been paid many times over by just working on it.  I find this with a few instruments. Not all. Just a few and it certainly is a “matter of the heart”.

I try to put that kind of energy into my instruments as I build them. Might sound a little “out there” but that is the way it is.