Dub is desperate

[Dub]

I need help, and fast.

My poor old 1970 D-41 needs loving, masterful repair so we can resume our long, happy relationship before I die.

Who can I trust with it?

1. Who is a master luthier who will treat it like his/her own child and understands how it’s supposed to sound?
2. Within the set satisfying the first condition, who will keep a schedule promise?
3. Who might be willing to make a new neck for it? (It needs a neck-set and re-fret in any case.)

Of course my first choice would be a master luthier I know who lives in St. Paul, MN. Unfortunately, his health issues keep him from taking jobs like this right now.

The guitar has known cracks and loose braces. It was “voiced” by Randy Wood in 1971 or ’72 so its braces are not quite as Martin made them.

The headstock was mostly broken off when our late bass player’s daughter knocked it off of a table onto a concrete floor. That was repaired by our friend and master luthier, Sim Daley. Probably the last instrument repair he did before he and Missy left Nashville for Looe, Sim’s birthplace.

Some random thoughts are…

• What has the headstock crack and repair done to monetary value of the instrument?
• The 1970 D-41s have never been sought after or collected. They were past the Braz cutoff and often didn’t sound all that great. This one’s amazing sound was largely due to Randy Wood. So would a new neck harm its desirability to others following my demise?
• If I had a new neck made, it would have a two-way adjustable truss rod. I would also want the new neck to match my Telecaster’s to facilitate thumbstyle playing. What effect would the new neck likely have on the sound of the finished instrument?

Last September, I took it to this guy who seemed to have the skill and understanding necessary make the repairs. He promised it in November, then December, then early January, then the end of February. Last Friday, we had to be in Des Moines for a funeral so I stopped by his shop and picked up my guitar. He had to find it and dust off the case, which he hadn’t yet opened. I don’t know whether he actually intended to work on it or not.


I don’t consider this a disposable guitar. It did a wonderful job for 40 years and I’d rather have it made whole than replace it with a new instrument.

Any suggestions?

[majorminor]

I'd start calling some of the big boys like Elderly, Mass St Music, Gruhn and they'll either sort it for you or know who to point you at. I think your biggest problem is going to be the "fast" part of your requirement. I'd also bet a new neck made, finished, and fitted ain't gonna be cheap.

I also wonder if just having a custom guitar built with a neck like you describe might not be easier/cheaper/faster and allow you to just have a normal neck set done on your Martin and keep it original.

[John B]

Leo Posch, who was head repair guy at Mass Street and apparently has the patience of a saint, as I hung out in his shop for hours at a time when I was in college. He builds really, really fine Martin copies -inspired guitars, and I bet he could make a neck to your specs - maybe even a Merle Travis headstock! Last I spoke with him, he did some repairs on one of my guitars and was going to do some neck reshaping until I chickened out. That was back when I was still in the KC area.

leoposch.com/

He was the repair guy until sometime in the mid-2000s when he opened his own shop just outside Lawrence in McClouth (where my niece just got hired to be the band director!). Check out some of his guitars at Mass Street, Gruhn or Carter Vintage.

[drlj]

My friend, Joe Konkoly, at Elderly is a master of repair. I trust him like no other.
If you get in touch with him, tell him I recommended him to you. It won’t save you any money, but it may help see that he is the repairman rather than someone else. They are all good, however.
Joe generally takes 4-6 weeks on repairs. He will have one of mine ready to pick up on the 18th.
Anything you do to it to make it different will change its value to a collector but, perhaps, not as much to a player.
My advice is don’t worry about that. Get it put into shape so you can play and enjoy it. Don’t worry about future generations. The guitar will go on after we are all done. Make it right for now.

[Dub]

Apr 10, 2023 13:17:41 GMT -5 majorminor said:

I'd start calling some of the big boys like Elderly, Mass St Music, Gruhn and they'll either sort it for you or know who to point you at. I think your biggest problem is going to be the "fast" part of your requirement. I'd also bet a new neck made, finished, and fitted ain't gonna be cheap.

I also wonder if just having a custom guitar built with a neck like you describe might not be easier/cheaper/faster and allow you to just have a normal neck set done on your Martin and keep it original.

Good thoughts, Steve. Elderly, Mass St., and Gruhn are on my list, of course but I’ve never dealt with their repair people. And you never know what these guys are going to do.

Probably fifteen years ago now, I called Randy Wood (since he had done the voicing) about a neck-set. He said “Sure, send it down.” So I bought a Casextreme Clam Case to ship it in and sent it down to Savannah in good faith. Given Randy’s reputation, I didn’t mind if it took some time for him to get to it. After months of waiting, some guy from Randy’s shop called to say they were ready to ship the completed guitar back but they wanted to wait until after the New Year’s holiday so it didn’t sit in a cold storage area. So they shipped it over holiday anyway while we were in a record cold snap. When I got it, there was no Clam Case, just the Martin case in a box. The strings of the guitar almost lay on the frets. It rattled terribly and was impossible to play. It also had dents in the top where they had pried up the fretboard. Clearly Randy hadn’t done the work but had given it to some kid to do. You can ask Marty what it was like, he had to do the work over. So talking to a famous, skilled luthier didn’t really work out. Randy didn’t care about his customers or what kind of crap work left his shop. They did eventually find the Clam Case and send it back.

I was so depressed, I just wanted to give it a nice funeral and bury it in the back yard. Marty rescued me.

I know a new neck won’t be cheap but if you add the cost of a neck-set plus re-fret, how far are we from the cost of a new neck? I’d probably want the old ebony fretboard and headstock overlay used on the new neck so the extra cost would be the carving and the truss rod.

The only production guitars I’d be interested in buying would also need neck replacements since makers seem to prefer making wide necks instead of narrow, playable ones like I require.

[Dub]

Apr 10, 2023 13:45:23 GMT -5 drlj said:

…
Anything you do to it to make it different will change its value to a collector but, perhaps, not as much to a player.
My advice is don’t worry about that. Get it put into shape so you can play and enjoy it. Don’t worry about future generations. The guitar will go on after we are all done. Make it right for now.

I don’t follow the collectability of guitars much but it’s been my impression that collectors aren’t interested in 1970 D-41s. They retain their value as playable instruments but they aren’t sought after. Doesn’t the headstock repair eliminate it from collectability anyway?

[paleo]

While very people know about it, my D-28 was involved in a very serious accident last summer. It needed a new neck.

It took a lot of talking with Martin but eventually they said they would repair it, for a price. They were way behind schedule with repairs and had stopped taking on more work. They took it and told me up front it would be a long wait.

It was sent to Nazareth last August.

The good news is, the repairs have been completed, it is a "new" HD-28 e Retro. It's now sitting in Nazareth, waiting for warmer temps, they won't ship it until temps are above 40. I expect to see it again any day now.

Maybe not the cheapest or quickest option, but I believe, from my research, a fair price and it is as good as it was when I bought it.

[jdd2]

For west coast, have you considered gryphon? Frank Ford may perhaps be in a supervisory role now, but I bet it'd get done right.

[drlj]

Apr 10, 2023 14:19:15 GMT -5 Dub said:

Apr 10, 2023 13:45:23 GMT -5 drlj said:

…
Anything you do to it to make it different will change its value to a collector but, perhaps, not as much to a player.
My advice is don’t worry about that. Get it put into shape so you can play and enjoy it. Don’t worry about future generations. The guitar will go on after we are all done. Make it right for now.

I don’t follow the collectability of guitars much but it’s been my impression that collectors aren’t interested in 1970 D-41s. They retain their value as playable instruments but they aren’t sought after. Doesn’t the headstock repair eliminate it from collectability anyway?

It would be considered by most to be a player’s instrument which is fine. Like I said, you just want to put it back in condition so you can play & enjoy it. Joe can either do that or advise you about who can.

[Marty]

Terry* might be able do it for you. You can take a nice road trip and see his shop plus visit us. And if you come the weekend of the 29th Todd will be here and all the MN folks are gettin together for lunch.

* Check with Terry first. I'll get his number to you if you don't have it.

I would love to do it but I am just getting back to work at less than half speed. There was a time I could have 3 -4 repairs going at once, now I'm happy I can do two properly at the same time. I can't do 8-10 hours in the shop, now 3-4 hours at best. 

[drlj]

My advice is if you can keep it close to home for repairs, do it. A couple hours in the car beats shipping it across country. Dealing with someone you know helps, too. I don’t trust my guitars to just anybody. I want to be able to talk to them and look them in the eye. Good luck with this.

[John B]

Yeah, a drive to Elderly or Lawrence (Mass Street/Leo Posch) might be easiest. Both are college towns with a nice vibe (East Lansing much more than Lansing), so you and Joy could make a weekend of it (except you probably have 3-4 gigs scheduled for every weekend for the next year). Or since you're retired, a mid-week trip!

[Tamarack]

A road trip to Elderly would be in order. Joe Konkoly would be the ideal person to work on your guitar (particularly for the re-neckification), but the other luthiers are also quite capable - Elderly always has some "player grade" Martins for sale with recent repairs by the Elderly shop, I think everyone there is well-versed in old Martins.

[John B]

Of course, Lawrence is an hour closer than Lansing, at least to Cedar Rapids . But either way would be good.

[Marshall]

Tough dilemma, Mark. I hesitate to give advice, because I do funky things to some guitars. But I'll offer this analysis FWIW. Your Martin is not collectable as is. The old cracked headstock and the post-Braz period make it much less desirable for Collectors. Therefore it's value is all yours. So that anything you do that makes it better for YOU is what you should consider.

That being said, I'm sure you know my rants about the neck of a guitar being critical, because it's the part we interact with. So, considering all the above, I'd vote for a new neck that meets your specifications/desires. I did that on my Eastman guitar, and I love it. It cost me $700 to have a new neck made for my $800 guitar. Bruce Roper, local luthier, did a fine job. I now love that guitar and neck. Bruce popped the original fingerboard off, and placed that on the new neck. The frets were new so there was no work there. The scale of the fingerboard was metric, so it was slightly off from the Gibson 24.75 scale I was looking for. But not enough that I notice any difference. But it meant a lot to the luthier to get the guitar set up right. And Bruce did a fine job.

The Eastman neck was a dove-tail. Bruce normally does bolt-on necks. I suggested he just fill the slot and do his normal bolt-on. Which he did. Another IMPORTANT thing I did, was buy a template for a neck profile for a 1956 Gibson J45. (S1.720 Scale 24.75)

www.luthiersuppliers.com/lsproducts/neck-templates

That was helpful for him, because it gave him the shape of the neck at the 1st and 10th frets to match. He hit it perfectly.

[Marty]

If you want a new neck why not send it to Martin? They have original parts and can do the pearl peghead inlays, unless you don't care about that bit. Or Terry has a nice way to fix cracked pegheads. He can even hide a carbon fibre rod in it. I don't have a laminate trimmer/router so I haven't bothered to steal the design from him.


EDIT: Got to get Terry in on this but what if I got the neck off and let Terry deal with it while I worked on the body, easy stuff. After that one of us can put the neck back on, maybe replace a few frets and finish it up. This is if Terry thinks he'll have time to pull a fingerboard for the truss rod and he'll need the Tele to template that neck.

[Marshall]

PS - Bruce was willing to pop off the veneer and Eastman logo on the headstock and put that on the new neck. Instead, I opted for a new headstock veneer with his logo on it. I want everyone to know it's a Bruce Roper guitar(neck). Everywhere I go with the guitar, people ask me what brand guitar that is.

[Marshall]

I'm sure Terry is a great option, if he is interested. Marty would be magnificent. I chose a local guy I know well whose shop is a 45 minute drive away.

I'd be wary of shipping to Nazareth. Plus the wait time would be very long. Bruce had my Eastman for a couple months.


But get a template before hand.

PS - Though an official Martin repair would probably improve the resale value of the guitar.

[John B]

Apr 11, 2023 8:41:32 GMT -5 Marshall said:

PS - Bruce was willing to pop off the veneer and Eastman logo on the headstock and put that on the new neck. Instead, I opted for a new headstock veneer with his logo on it. I want everyone to know it's a Bruce Roper guitar(neck). Everywhere I go with the guitar, people ask me what brand guitar that is.

Ropeman or Easter?

[epaul]

Gus is having a go at repairing a broken headstock on an old Yamaha he scrounged up from somewhere. If it goes well, I can check to see if he wants to try work on your guitar.