Official Luthiers Forum!

Let's bring a little fun to the forum.

One of the benefits of being on the praise team of a Korean-American church is that they junk a LOT of equipment and throw it away. (That's how I got my Gibson SG ) Anyways, here's one of the junkers I got. I figured it'd be a good guitar to just do a bunch of crap to.

Right... Who wants to guess what happened to this?

or better yet, who the hell wants to tell me how I can get the damned thing to play again? If possible of course....

looks like somebody used it for a paddle??

I have a celebrity series ovation with a maple top that surprisingly sounds pretty good. It has the smaller holes in the upper bout, not like the one big sound hole like this one.

If I were going to attempt to change the top, I would elect for the smaller sound holes. Most all of the ovations I have seen with one large hole have split, just like this one did. I dont know how they attach the soundboard to the plastic frame. Hot glue gun maybe? Would be interested to find out how it is done in case I take one in for something to play with.

Let us know what you find out?

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Reguards,

Ken H

Well.. I've been trying to dissect it as sort've a study on the acoustic guitar... But I'm not exactly sure how I should go ahead and remove the top there... I'm afraid that if I heat it up, it would melt the plastic, wouldn't it? Frankly, I'm not too bent on getting it to work again, but I thought it'd just be a pretty sick example to show. =P I'll see what I can find out, but any ideas about how to remove that top would be great. ^^

Hi Micheal,

As far as I know, Ovation tops are glued to the bowl with epoxy resin glue. They are not designed to be removed easily. From your pictures the bridge needs to be reglued, the saddle needs replacing, the crack in the top lower bout needs repairing plus the top needs a refin. - a lot of work for a guitar of this quality(not to dis Ovations, but they were one of the first disposable type guitars back in the early 70's or so).

Your photos cannot show the disposition of the internal bracing and it may very well be toast too, judging from the amount of moisture the guitar has seen.

If you want to get some experience doing repair work this would be a good one to start with.

First I would remove the bridge, strip whats left of the finish, check the bracing and reglue or repair where needed, repair the crack in the top, by fitting it with a filler strip of the same variety of wood, refinish the top, reglue the bridge and fit with a new saddle.

That would put the guitar back to a playable acoustic, but one can only guess at what might have happened to the pick-up system?

There is a great repair site that basically has all the info you need to fix that guitar at http://www.frets.com

Cal

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Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers!

Well, the preamp melted the first time someone tried to strip it. You can't even move the sliders anymore so I've sort've given up on that end...

It looks like someone said the word O*ation.... out loud and a bolt of lightening came down from the heavens and fried the thing........

LOL. ^^;; Actually, the thing started out with the crack on the body, which was much smaller at the time. Then someone noticed after changing a set of strings that the saddle sank right into the bridge almost completely. Someone decided it'd be a good idea to try to fix it and I would agree... except that they also decided that they wanted to try stripping, staining, and refinishing the thing... Then they went ahead and used hardcore stripper, which melted the face of the preamp and didn't even take off all the finish and they went ahead and tried staining it anyway. The end result is what you see there. I wondered if I should try to repair it, but it just seems so bloody daunting. I guess I'll work on it over time and use it for reference and practice.

About 3 years ago I had a refret in house on an ovation. The client asked if could put a new top on it. Well I had heard that Ovation use a special epoxy for all the gluing so I called to speak with them to find out the separation procedures. Here is what they told me

I would not be able to heat separate the top from the back nor the FB from the top or neck without damaging the guitar irreputably. (They did know they were speaking to a luthier by the way) So I asked How do you in house handle repairs. He replied that 98% of the warranty work they do is a mater of grabbing a new guitar of the rack and shipping it to the client. At that point I handed the ovation back to its owner and said thanks but no thanks



Any body notice that the emotocons are breeding

I would glue a bunch of metal times from a rake to the bridge and convert it into a giant Kalimba.

Seriously, other than practicing fixing the crack, and practicing a refret, I wouldn't spend too much time with it.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Remove the top, by whatever method (hatchet, ax, etc.), paint the inside with conductive paint, add a feed horn and you probably can receive Direct TV with it. Hey, you said "Lets have some fun" !!!

Two words Michael... Flower Pot!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

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

As you can see we all hold Ovations in high esteem in terms of repair ability

Mmm.. Truth be told, I'm not too fond of Ovations myself (maybe it's the plastic?), but it just seemed like a good case study to pick up. As was mentioned before, I can't seem to find any safe or reasonable way to take off the top... Think it'd be best just to sacrifice the plastic back in this case and use the top for practice and study?

Michael:

I have two Ovations. My only complaint is that they keep sliding off my lap --even before I developed the expanded waistline. It appears you have a solid spruce top, though judging from the grain lines, a medium grade. If the bracing is not compromised a repair & refinish would make this a good guitar for a student; perhaps you have younger cousins, nephews, etc. And, if you need the practice, why not?

If the bracing is bad, I would suggest, as an experiment, decapitation by band saw or fine toothed, thin kerfed hand saw. I would use my 20tpi pull saw to carefully cut below the binding all the way around. After repairing the bracing, you may need to apply some kerfing around the shell to reattach the top.

Of course you will never justify all this work by a direct return on your investment, but you could develop additional skill and end up with a happy nephew.

BTW, the saddle is part of the electronics, which I would scrap. I would also remove the pre-amp cavity and replace with a suitable wood replacement, a side port, or cup holder.

Michael,
First off, I'm a beginner and have done only a few small repairs. But, if you really want to redo the top, I'm sure you could. Just cut the neck off at the neck joint(it will later become a butt jointed bolt-on.) Remove the fret at the neck joint and have at it. The remaining fretboard extension will still be stuck to the top, and I'm sure with heat you will be able to remove it. If not, then just cut along the fretboard extension from the sound hole and break it off. You can save it for later. Also, remove the wood from the bottom of the extension. You can then use a laminate trimmer or router to remove the top. Just don't cut into the sides. Just come close to the plastic and then sand off the remaining amounts of wood. Hope that gives you an idea. But at this point you have nothing to lose. If you can't get it to work, then at least keep the neck as a reference. Ovation necks are liked by many for ease of play, especially for the strummers out there with small hands. Good luck!

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

That looks like water damage to me. I'd even risk it and say I bet that guitar was played by a campfire once too often and left outside sometimes....