Identification help... Old archtop

[Chris Richards]

Thanks Michael.... I'm glad the finish is correct, more by accident than design. The inside was in a pretty bad state, I did find the pictured label inside, half of it had gone and was almost illegible but the larger print on what was left said "....SON", that's all I could make out.

[Greg McKnight]

Wow, that's some nice restoration work Chris. I have your archtop build saved in my "favorites" for reference, so I recognized it instantly. You're a great guitar builder.

[Patrick Hanna]

"Good on ya'" is what I say, too.

[Chris Richards]

Greg and Patrick thank you for your kind comments... And it's great to hear that my website/archtop build is being followed.

Thanks again
Chris

[Michael Lewis]

The 'residue' accumulated in the vicinity of the label is indicative of sloppy over spray or refinish job. It's surprising what you might find inside a guitar.

[Mark Langner]

Wow. Really nice work!

[Jerome Hess]

WOW

I am amzed, and you answered MY questions, which would have been, in your restoration do you plan on stripping it down to bare wood or just trying to do a physical repair.

what did you do to remove the original finish?

I have found guitars from the 60's have their finish so bonded to the wood that you end up with a guitar 1/4" smaller than when you started

[Chris Richards]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your comments...Like I say I restored it for a friend and kept the cost down by doing it between my other jobs, I was worried regarding my skills and knowledge and that I would end up seriously devaluing the guitar but then again at least it got done and is now a nice playable guitar.

I didn't use any chemicals to remove the finish just a multitude of physical methods from scraping to sanding, some places the finish was brittle and chipped off and in others it was quite soft and a real pain to get off, to be honest in places the wood was quite stained and I didn't attempt to completely remove the staining otherwise I'd have ended up removing too much wood. I did have problems in local areas where I got a reaction in the new paint but got over that by spot priming the areas with a different undercoat which seemed to seal the areas...

Cheers
Chris

[Greg Martin]

Very nice results indeed. I went to your site and viewed many of your projects. I always love seeing how others go about their builds. Glad you documented your green archtop build too . I did the same thing Ive built mostly electric bass and guitar over the last 20 ish years. I just completed/documented my first commissioned archtop. It exceeded all my expectations.The Forum has helped a great deal as you know if you follow threads here. Hope you plan on building another archtop. Im sure I will.If you get bored check my build here. www.redtailguitars.com /blog

[Chris Richards]

Hi Greg....

Just spent a good while looking over your website, really enjoyed it! You've built some fantastic guitars and the archtop looks superb, the blogs are really good, its not too many sites that have build pictures. I haven't thought of building another archtop yet to be honest the green one needs a little more work I'm not won over by the harness style tailpiece, mine was built from a few pieces glued together and I'm worried about it holding string tension so will make another one at some point.

Chris