Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey all! I,m looking for a luthier in the central oklahoma area who would be interested in rebuilding a 1961 Schlunsen. Heres some photos Thanks, Jim

i'm gonna be of no help here, but does it have steel strings on it? It looks like a classical with steel strings, and that's what would happen to a lightly built one.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I might be wrong waddyt but I believe it just has a set of ball end classical strings.

_________________
Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Schlunsen was a well known Danish maker of classical guitars. I played one a couple of his guitars in a shop Copenhagen last year, and one looked similar to yours, I think the rosette was was exacly the same. It was a nice sounding guitar... The shop owner, who had known the guitar maker, told me the famous story of when Segovia had visited Schlunsen's shop and played one of his guitars. He liked the guitar and expected the luthier to offer it as a gift, but Schlunsen refused and told he had to pay like everyone else...

Anyways, your guitar is in bad shape and those steel strings (if that is what they are) didn't help. Does it have BRW back and sides? It will need some pretty extensive and time consuming repairs, and I don't know if the value of the restored instrument will warrant the cost. Unfortunately I am also unable to give you any info about repair people in OK...

Not much help, are we?!

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Man that is a light one! that looks like less than 2mm's is that right for a classical?

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Yes it is. Light and right, that is. Mine is in the 1.8 - 1.9mm at the edge. Torres' SE 107 was 1.4mm at the edges.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

A steel string would go right through that! But I'm not sure those are steel are they?

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

I'm certainly no expert but...

That's the kind of damage I'd expect to see if a classical guitar were strung up with steel strings and then left in a hot car for a day or two. It all seems to be glue joint failures and too much string tension. Or normal string tension and left in a hot car for a day or two.

Can you tell us how the damage occurred?

And, can our repair experts give a critique on what might have caused the failure of this guitar? Failures like this are something all us hobbyist builders can all learn from.

Not that I'm going to be able to help much in a repair sense, seeing as I'm in Australia. But I'd love to get my hands on a good guitar in that condition for repair practice if nothing else.

Can we forget this steel string stuff, they are ball end classicals. Looks like the damage that could happen if it was leant against the wall and something knocked into it, mechanical folding. Doesn't look like a Spanish heel so that should make the repair easier.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Like Colin said. The bridge looks firmly attached to the top, so it looks like a fall or a blow rather than steel strings. The bridge would have come off way before the neck block/neck joint…
Looking at the quality of the tonewoods it seems the guitar is worthy of restoring.

_________________
Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Jim

What a disaster I can make the repairs but I am in West Texas and It would be about 8 months before I could get to it.

Does Johhny Walker do repairs? I kind of doubt it, but I bet he could reccomend someone there in Oklahoma. Walker is a top-notch classical builder in Bartlesville. You can e-mail him on his website.

Wayne

I have repaired several guitars with this exact same damage. It is caused by overheating. The glue fails on the upper transverse brace which starts a landslide of other damage including the top cracks along the fretboard, the neck tenon pulling loose, and the caving in of the sides at the head block. That last last symptom is the dead giveaway, along with slippage of the rosette.

I start the repair by clamping the body face up to my workbench and then using a heat gun to soften up the internal head block area while slowly clamping the neck down. This will pull most of the parts back into position. Then let it cool down, and follow up with regluing the upper transverse brace to the top. Additional reinforcement of the top cracks are usually necessary.

That's interesting, Barry. What type of glue was used on the parts that came unglued on the guitars you repaired?

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin