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Something has a taste for hide glue. Every bit of glue that held this guitar together seems to have disappeared. It has become a "guitar kit". A few others have developed the same disease. Any ideas what may have done this?
This was a Zogbaum and Fairchild guitar and is surprisingly lightly braced. Some of the braces are paper thin, and the bridge plate is no thicker than the typical back graft and made of spruce.

Based on the thread title, I was hesitant to click on it half expecting a photo of something like the wreckage of a guitar slammed to the floor by a buffing wheel. Thankfully, not that. Looks like that one can go back together again.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Any thoughts on what may have caused it to come apart so completely? If you touch any part it comes right off as though it was never glued.
Here is another Zogbaum and Fairchild guitar built by John C Haines showing Tilton's other patent improvement - the dowel stick that ran from endblock to head block.
https://acousticguitar.com/great-acoust ... or-guitar/

On the one I have it appears someone removed the dowel stick and possibly added a pinned bridge - although it looks original. The plantilla of the guitar is the same but the bracing scheme is slightly different.

Any chance the guitar lived in a place where it was exposed to chronic high humidity?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

That is a possibility - this is Maryland, and we do have high humidity a good portion of the year. Looking at some of the others I've found on line it seems like a fair number of them have come apart at the seams at some point in their life.

Looks like you got your hands full on that one.

I got a J45 in some years ago where the hide glue was mostly powder, it was a reassembly project too. I do know that it spent a number of years in a shed in rural Alabama exposed to humidity and seasonal changes.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Holy cleats Batman!!!

Did they not apply enough hide glue?


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I'm sure they applied enough glue 150 years ago. It only came apart this past year. It looked perfectly fine until I picked it up, and then it fell completely apart. The few joints that might appear to be together are only holding on by hen's teeth.

Holy crap! I hadn’t a clue lol


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I think the builder must have used that glue that Gilligan made from the sap of the trees on the island.

I assume you know it is a Zogbaum and Fairchild guitar because of a medallion in the sound hole?
I just finished completely rebuilding a Tilton Improvement guitar labeled Z and F on both the medallion and the tail piece.
There were builders other than Haynes that were sold under the Z and B label (they were retailers not builders) and they may have used a pinned bridge but if there was a Tilton bar running the length of the guitar at some point it is unlikely the pinned bridge is original.
Check the end of the guitar above the end pin and see if there were three holes there previously for a tail piece.
Also check the end of the headstock for a model number and serial number.
I did not have a problem with glue joints coming apart but I did note that there was not a lot of glue and, if a couple of cases where the braces had extreme pressure on them, the glue failed before the wood did.
Once I did all the restoration work (it was a mess when I got it) it sounds great and plays nicely. Can't find BRW like this anymore.
These pix were taken before the work began.
Dave