Top bracing question

[DunedinDoug]

A friend asked me to look at repairing her 60's Epiphone Texan 12-string. Someone had gotten to it before me and the guitar was a mess with glue everywhere. The neck (a bolt-on) is straight and the bridge area has not bowed. Where the neck meets the top, however, there is a problem. At each corner, right above the soundhole, the top has knuckled upwards. I'm working to gradually flatten this area out. I THINK there should be a brace there.

 

So, feel underneath your guitar's top between the edge of the soundhole and the guitar neck. Do you find a brace running perpendicular to the neck?

[JasmineTea]

yes

[takeout]

Originally posted by DunedinDoug ...Where the neck meets the top, however, there is a problem. At each corner, right above the soundhole, the top has knuckled upwards. I'm working to gradually flatten this area out. I THINK there should be a brace there.

The top has moved up, or the fingerboard has moved down? The former might be warpage, which a brace may fix; the latter might be the entire neck block being pulled in by string tension, which may get more complicated.

[bjorn-fjord]

There should definitely be a transverse bar brace running perpendicular to the fretboard just above the soundhole. On many guitars this is the chunkiest brace of them all.

[LDF]

a guitar that old might be suffering from the dreaded implosion. It sounds like the neck is beding up. I got a cheap Alvarez (that actually sounds great) and that's what was happening to it. The wood around the sound hole was buckling up and separating from the bracings, and there was evidence that someone previously glued the neck to the body to keep it from lifting. The only evidence of this is a crack in the finish. The guitar tech looked at it and said "that would cost more to repair than buy a new guitar). Luckilly the damage was minimalized and wasn't getting worse.

Check CLOSELY where the neck meets the body. Do you see any separating?

[catdaddy]

Doug, FYI I ran accross a '66 Epiphone 12 at Legend's Guitars in Tampa this week. You might want to stop in there and check out the bracing!
Walt

[DunedinDoug]

Fortunately, I think I can stabilize the neck-body joint. It's a bolt-on! But that brace is definitely missing.

Legend Guitar, eh? That's 5 miles from my office! Whoo hoo! Road trip!

[solitaire]

Originally posted by DunedinDoug Fortunately, I think I can stabilize the neck-body joint. It's a bolt-on! But that brace is definitely missing. Legend Guitar, eh? That's 5 miles from my office! Whoo hoo! Road trip!

 

Are you at all skilled in the art of luthiery, Doug? Above you said you were trying to flatten the top and stabilize the neck-joint.

[DunedinDoug]

Am I a skilled luthier? Well, a man has to know his limitations! I am merely handy. I've done a lot of work on guitars.

The top--aside from the knuckling--is good. The neck is good. Because it's a bolt-on, I just need to shim it slightly and bolt it back on. I have been able to flatten out the knuckling by making a "sandwich" of damp fabric, flat-wide popsicle sticks (to protect the wood surface from scratches, and clamps. I can see, though, that without a good brace the knuckling will return. I ordered some braces from Stewart-Mac.

Hey, Catdaddy, I checked out Legend guitars. Nice place! They had two Epiphone 12s there, but neither has a bolt-on neck. Regardless, I got a good lock at the braces.

They also had some nice looking Gretschs!

[guitarcapo]

You might want to go to a hobby store that sells radio airplanes and buy a piece of spruce to add there if the brace is missing. Try to find a thick piece with the grain lines running perpendicular to the gluing surface. C-clamps and elmer's carpenters wood glue.....

[JasmineTea]

...What about rigging up some latter bracing on the OUTSIDE..might make a good hand-rest for finger-style.

[Andrewrg]

After you have done the work perhaps you should consider tuning the guitar lower than A440? (I am assuming thats the reason the top is buckling) D or C with a capo works nice.