Guitar Repair: Pre-War Martin Acoustic

One of the great things about repairing guitars is that, every so often, you get an absolute beauty through the workshop.  This was one of those guitars.  It's a pre-war Martin and it's just fantastic. It's had a few bumps and scrapes over the 75-odd years of its life but it plays beautifully and sounds amazing.  This guitar has the blues seeped all they way through its mahogany and rosewood and when you play, it seeps back out again.  Brilliant. This is one of the, occasional, instruments that I hate giving back to the owner after it's been repaired.

Anyway the issue with this was a broken bridge.  The wood in front of the saddle had snapped off (and not for the first time as evidenced by signs of a previous repair).  After discussing the options, the owner settled on having a replacement bridge custom-carved for his baby.

In a three-part article over at the Guitarless blog, I step through the process from making this decision with the owner to removing the damaged bridge, carving a new one and replacing it.

Have a look here.  Hope you like it.