One of the main reasons I was given this Vega parlor guitar to repair had to do with some earlier repaired cracks in its lower left bout. It’s pretty easy to see the damage and the cosmetic appearance of the repair work it had had sometime earlier in its life.
There was a long crack in the side running parallel to the face as well as an area where it took a pretty serious bashing. One edge of the crack wasn’t aligned when it was glued up and so there was a ledge that ran proud of the surface the entire length of one side of the crack. The next shot shows the same area after I repaired the “repair.” Just for the record, the long black line that runs parallel to the face about a third of the side-width down from the top isn’t the repaired crack. It’s just a dark grain line that can now be seen after sanding the side out. The crack is now invisible with no offset in one edge from the other and the bashed in area is also now gone.
Normally, I would advise a client to leave an original finish alone, that it will impair the tone, regardless of how thin I’m able to apply the new finish, and, unless the finish is really bad, a refinish can take away a lot of character and originality, and in so doing, take away from the value of the instrument. In this case, my client wasn’t focused on resale value. However, he wanted a solid daily player and wanted it to look as good as it could look. The finish that was on the instrument was failing in places and was definitely obscuring the beauty of the Brazilian Rosewood. In addition, there had been enough obvious places where previous work done on the instrument took away from it’s originality that originality was really no longer a big concern. One thing is certain, when the lacquer is rubbed out, that rosewood is going to look glorious and with the subtle decorative touches on this instrument, it’s going to be one pretty little guitar again.
