Thread: Advice on Restoring 3 Russian Folk Guitars

Nice find - and a good journey you will be on.

I have reasonable hobby experience and some professional experience, so someone better may speak up.

1. Triangle Guitar - Big big job. Headstock is very broken and also oxidised, cleanup of the joint will be both difficult and critical. Do you have themissing back piece? Getting it would make life easier.

2) Mas Produced classical. Standard steel strings on nylon guitar Replace with nylon and reglue bridge and neck might be better. Proceed from there....

3) Very nice jazz guitar. ll comment more when I hve a better keyboard. Trea it nicely!

Sorry for shortpost, computer is not behaving.

Hopfully it behaves this time.... Overall I would not consider refinishing these instruments. It is taking a backwards step in the history of them. I would however fully recommend using like for like timber and materials. There is no valid argument for making repairs obvious, and you are not doing anything dodgy like a pickup swap on a 1950's blond strat. For these projects, dont worry about woodwork skill, you are not doing 'woodwork' like jointing 6 ft boards for a table, you are a museum curator who is gently restoring using wood, splinter by missing splinter. Worry about patience, the reversibility of something if you do mess it up and then the purpose of the task. I would start with the Classical, re glue bridge, nylon strings, check for loose braces and try and avoid a neck reset if you can. Then the triangle instrument........ this could be the candidate for a wall hanging........ getting that headstock strong will be very difficult and the back issues are..... sever. Finally the jazz one is a stunner, and I would approach it very carefully and thoughtfully. I would aim to get it playable and able to last another 50/100 years. Crack repair, sort out the bridge but limit the re binding/re finishing - do what you can with what is there. I would also consider undoing whatever that neck block thing is with something more subtle. Good luck, the truth is out there in the net for every step of the way so do some digging and you will sort it out with patience and care. Steve. (sorry for giant paragraph, now ENTER wont work!!!???!!!)

Hi

Thanks for the reply Sleake.

The balalaika is stunning timber and the missing piece is there. They easily line up and fit to shape, but I haven't tried forcing them because of the loose piece still attached. Not sure what you mean about the neck being oxidised.

Have you seen anything like the jazz guitar around before? Not having any labels, it is hard to date and detect the origins. Any hints on how to dig a little deeper into its past. I think the timber is cedar front, back and sides. Not sure about the neck and headstock.

cheers

Phil

Never seen the german one before, but I am far from an authority. The back on the triangle should be able to be fixed then, however the neck will pose some problems. By 'oxidised' - a nice way of saying that it is filled with $h!t and rust from those old nails plus whatever that putty stuff is, so getting it clean enough for a good glue joint will be tough. Gotta run now sorry, and 'enter is still not working. But I will be watching with interest plus input where I can. Perhaps head to www.anzlf.com for a more luthier oriented opinions.

Questions/comments:

1. The Balalaika headstock/neck break is going to be a tricky fix as someone has attempted a fix previously. This sort of break is easy enough to fix if the break surfaces are clean and haven't been touched with glue or filler. If it was in my shop for repairs Id be planning serious surgery and also asking if the value of the instrument makes repair worthwhile. I'd aim for a cosmetic repair on this instrument.
2. This guitar has a classical style bridge and headstock. Are the tuner rollers plastic or metal? Does it have a truss rod? If it doesn't have a truss rod or neck reinforcement of some sort then I strongly suspect that it was built to take nylon strings but someone has (unwisely) slapped steel strings on it. This would also explain the back of the bridge lifting. The "adjustment" in the heel block......is this a neck angle adjustment or is it merely a bolt holding the neck to the body?
3. If owner wants to keep the original top then I'd try and get some hide glue into the cracks and then glue some cleats on the underside of top to stop the cracks getting any worse. You say the bridge is damaged around the floating fretboard section. I dont quite understand what youre saying here.....floating fretboard and bridge are opposite sides of the soundhole, can you clarify. The lifting binding on the back is not too hard to fix.....a bit hard to tell from photo exactly how I would handle the repair. is the binding wood or plastic? id be checking inside for any lifting braces before doing the binding repair. The neck.....Im wondering what the heck is going on here....looks like a butcher job. All I can suggest here is a cosmetic fix.....a veneer matching the rest of the neck or possibly veneering the entire neck......done on lute necks.

My overall advice....if youve never built or repaired a guitar before youre going to find fixing these instruments a challenge. I have a fair bit of building experience but repairing and building guitars are two totally different things and IMO repairing is much more challenging than building. if the guitars are your own and you dont mind making a hash of the job then go for it.

Good luck!!

Hi kiwigeo

I'm leaning towards the balalaika being just a display item. I've had a closer look at the neck and there are actually two nails from the previous repair. I can only imaging the stress the narrow neck suffered from having two nails sacked into it. No doubt it will still require significant work to rejoin it adequately.

I agree with your thoughts on the steel strings. I've found a bit of historic detail about these guitars and when there was a musical revolution going on in Russia. These guitars were cheap and often customised to try to get more out of them. They do not have a truss rod. The adjuster in the neck will turn the neck left of right, but the neck tends to pull upward under the tension of the strings which you can't do much about. These tuner heads are black plastic.

With the 3rd guitar, I described it poorly. The floating bridge is actually in good condition. The fretboard is damaged around the floating section. These guitars have the fret board raised and floating over the guitar body.
floating bridge.jpgfloating fretboard2.jpgfloating fretboard.jpg

The binding looks like plastic. I'm not sure what else it could be.
binding4.jpgbinding3.jpgbinding2.jpgbinding1.jpg

I have an inspection camera which I'll use to peak inside and see if the bracing is separated.
neck.jpgheadstock.jpgpainted neck.jpg

The neck repair is pretty ugly. I assume the neck was previously snapped. The neck and headstock were painted black, so depending on how far I go with the resto, I can tidy up the repair and repaint it. However, I am leaning towards maintaining a rustic look, so I'll keep looking at options in the short term.

I appreciate your feedback on the ease of building versus restoring. I originally just looked at these as being old broken guitars, which would be easy to fix. Since then, I've actually become quite attached to them so I don't want to rush them and take away from their rustic charm. I can see I'll need to practice else where before I undertake work on these pieces.

cheers

Phil

Oh the stories those instruments could tell.