This might be a little weird to some, but I played one of these old hoss's at an antique store and I could easily hear the potential that it had, had it not been in such horrendous condition, but the ladder braced tone was something that I really liked, and especially from this size it just had a "thump" to it that I haven't heard from other guitars. These are not the most complex guitars from a tonal perspective but they are ladder braced which gives me a guitar with a tone that I currently do not have.
Ever since I played that antique store model almost 12 years ago I have been seeking one to call my own. What always held me back was usually that these were way overpriced and I wanted something I could put some time into and enjoy the process. In my usual perusing of eBay I spotted this wonderfully relic'd old bird I will name Hoss. Hoss is exactly 17" across, has some fairly serious top damage at the bridge, but on the positive side it has obviously been played and enjoyed immensely over the years. The shipping on this guitar was almost more than what I paid for it from ebay.
The glue in the dovetail completely let go, and the only thing that was holding the neck on was the fingerboard extension. There's alot of damage to the top from some less than ideal construction techniques that you'll see later on.
Besides the AWESOME patina that this thing has, this was my favorite thing about it.
The bridge had been reglued at some point with hide glue I think, and it has obviously let go and it looks like the job was done many moons ago. After removing the screws from the bridge it simply lifted off, the screws were the only thing holding it onto the top which is why there are cracks in that location.
As you can see the ball ends were resting *directly* on the top causing the damage and the enlargement of the holes. I would normally just work from the outside in a case like this but in feeling around there is a large piece of the bridge plate missing and I could feel a large part of the top missing as well. The wood for the plates on these was spruce, not ideal.
The bridge has a few cracks in it, but it's actual old rosewood instead of the usual PMW (painted mystery wood) that usually comes on these. So I will probably try to save it, I've saved worse and with the screws being removed for this rebuild it should be alot more stable.
So I decided to remove the back in order to repair the damage in a manner that will last another 50-70 years.
I initially started to use a seam separation knife and some heat to remove the back but I quickly realized that this was a mistake. The top layer of the laminate back began to peel away and rip up. I quickly changed tactics and decided that it would be safer and easier to saw the back off (YIKES). The kerfing gave me a good amount of space to saw with a little veneer saw. After a while of careful cutting the back popped off. Some damage was already done from where I foolishly tried to separate the seams before. The neck and tail block were both poplar which made them a breeze to cut through. I'll add some shims to make up for the lost portion of wood when the back goes back on. I plan on replacing all the kerfing for the back anyway.
As you can see from the big picture there is an entire section of the bridge plate missing. And upon close inspection you can see how much wear there has been on the top, it's completely elongated the pin holes.
So I plan on rebuilding this whole thing and grafting in a new section of top in the various damaged areas. More to come soon so stay tuned. Really excited for this one! Been a long time coming for me.
