long distance cleating

[Greg Steil]

what(besides using a puller and wire) is a good method for placing cleats across a crack clear at the end pin end of a guitar? I have all sorts of long pointy things that will reach, but placement is kinda iffy. thanks

[Gordon Bellerose]

I know that getting my arm to the rear of a guitar body is hard, if not impossible. Even with just my hand and a long set of pliers, it is very hard to see because of my hand in the sound hole.
I don't really have a good solution, other than using an old guitar treble E string fed through the cleat and then the crack. The ball end holds the cleat in place.
Best I can do. Others may be more inventive. Let's wait and see.

[Ant Setchell]

Magnets?r

[David King]

Can you rig up a small light and mirror in some plasticine to show you what you're doing? A cheap USB video camera with a USB LED light attached to it is super handy if you have a laptop to plug them into.

An internal go bar to push the cleat in place?

[Greg Steil]

I have all the tools, including the USB camera, but there is only so much room in that soundhole. I have a couple ideas and will update if they work.

[Barry Daniels]

I have posted my method here before which I borrowed from others. Take a length of coat hangar wire. Sharpen the end into a chisel point. Stab it into the spruce patch. Have the wire bent in a curve so that you can place the patch where it is needed, guided by a mirror. Hold the patch in place for several minutes until the glue grabs. Then pull the wire free. Do dry runs beforehand to get the moves down. The key is that you can do the work without sticking your arm in the soundhole which blocks your vision.

[Stephen Neal Saqui]

Barry's method is old, tried, and true. But start playing with magnets with no glue. A tiny bit of double stick tape to attach the patch to magnet and take it in by hand or tip of the finger. The outside magnet placed on the crack or not, etc. The idea is to try things out. See what you can make work before adding glue to procedure!

The coat hanger also takes lots of practice, if you're looking through a mirror everything is backwards. Then when you get it located and glued, holding the pressure without having the patch slip around (making a mess) and when when it finally does tack up, do you ever know whether or not it's a good glue joint? So often, when I'm re-repairing somebody's botched job patches will just fall out.

The BEST way that I know is to arm yourself with long clamps of different lengths, designed for the task. You put a small piece of double-stick tape to attach the patch, adjust the height to clear the braces, have a big mirror below the sound hole, lined up for good vision, carefully enter and place the patch precisely where you want it. Then on the outside you have clear plastic cauls to tighten down clamp. Everything is within your vision and no mess. You can find several types of these clamps via luthier supplies...buy all types, you WILL eventually use them!!

For situations where you're glueing cracks as well, place wax paper between the top and the plastic.

Finally, practice! practice, practice! Do clean work.

[Greg Steil]

thanks for all the tips! I have made several long cam clamps, and on the bottom jaw, I drill and insert a very tiny nail which will hold the cleat, and I make sure the upper jaw is removable for ease of getting it inserted. I may just make a couple more. Thanks again, and I have used all those methods always seems to depend on the situation.

[Stephen Neal Saqui]

I vote that this belongs in the: "That's Not Fair" category!

[Gordon Bellerose]

Can you show us a picture of the clamp in action, or just the clamp?

[Greg Steil]

I will take some pictures asap, but will probably post in tools/jigs etc. I'll let ya know. thanks

[Eric Knapp]

Can you show us a picture of the clamp in action, or just the clamp?

Would something like this help?

http://www.lmii.com/products/tools-serv ... ated-clamp

I know nothing about this and I'm trying to follow along and envision what's happening.

-Eric

[Greg Steil]

whoa, that is WAAAAY cool. Better start doing some material scavenging!! Thanks. I did post a couple pix of my homemade clamps(pretty much of them are) in the Tools page, but this design looks cool. Might take all four of my hands to position it though! Thanks again.

[Jim McConkey]

Greg's pictures of his clamp

[Craig Bumgarner]

All good suggestions. Only think I can add is working with a bright light inside the body to silhouette the crack, braces, linings etc. through the top can be more helpful than mirrors and inspection camera, both of which complicate hand/eye coordination. The mirror because the image is reversed and the video camera because the point of view of the camera is different than where you're eyes and brain are. Silhouetting eliminates that. I use a 110v compact fluorescent bulb, stays relatively cool. I have to darken the room, what the heck, can't see inside the body anyway.

Also, be careful with magnets, they can pull out of your hand unexpectedly and ding the top.

Fish glue is handy for this kind of cleating as it has a long open time, grabs well, drys hard and amber clear.

The other approach is the wire through a small hole approach. Drill a tiny hole through the crack, thread an old B string through the hole, grab the end of the wire with a magnet on a steel rod of some sort and pull it up through the sound hole Drill a hole in the cleat, thread it on the wire, tie a knot in the wire end, apply glue to the cleat surface. Pull the cleat in place with the wire from the outside of the top. Hold it until the glue sets. Old technique, luthiers working on the violin family use it all the time. StewMac sells a nice little kit with an end stop instead of tying a knot and a little block with a single machine head tuner to tighten the string once the cleat is pulled into place and hold it there. All this can be easily made though I bought the kit, works well. This spring, I cleated a couple dozen cracks in a contrabass balalaika with a 1-1/2" diameter sound hole using this technique. Some of the cleats were a 20"-30" from the sound hole.

[Barry Daniels]

The downside of the wire through a hole technique, obviously is having to deal with small holes. The string usually stains the sides of the hole so you have to fill and cover the dark stain with a bit of enamel or some other touch up.

[Craig Bumgarner]

The downside of the wire through a hole technique, obviously is having to deal with small holes. The string usually stains the sides of the hole so you have to fill and cover the dark stain with a bit of enamel or some other touch up.

True, but the holes can be very small. I have not had a staining problem from the wire, but 316 stainless steel wire might with that.

[Barry Daniels]

Yeah, I have always used regular steel strings and they must rust when contacted by the water based glue. Doh!

[Jim Hepler]

I just used this system to put some cleats inside an archtop. This guitar has f-holes, so not getting a hand inside at all.

It's probably self-explanatory, but this is what I did.

The magnet on the bottom of the bent 1/4' all-thread rod has a little loop of electrical tape attached firmly to it. I then rubbed the top of the tape with my finger until it barely held the cleat. I stuck the cleat onto the electrical tape with the grain oriented crossways to the grain on the guitar top. I put glue on the cleat and inserted the that side of the gizmo into the guitar. The other end of the bent rod shows the location on the outside. I put the other magnet (with the green masking tape to protect the top and show orientation) on the outside where I want the cleat. It snaps in place pretty hard. I then removed the all-thread rod, leaving the magnets in place for a clamp. After the glue is dry, I put the rod back in - it attached itself to the magnet underneath, and removed the outside magnet, then I was able to pull the inside magnet off the cleat because the electrical tape is only barely sticky. I practised as much of this without glue as I could first. You can of course bend the all-thread rod to whatever shape works to reach the particular spot you're looking for. Hope this is helpful. jim

[Greg Steil]

very cool, thanks!!