Restoring a Grand Old Martin D28

Martin D28 dates from 1958. It’s had a hard life! The old lady has been around a bit as you can see and I’m sure she could tell many a tale. She’s suffered the indignity of a poor quality repair in the past. The bride had ripped off the top, breaking the bridgeplate in two in the process. Another repairer had basically glued everything together and hoped for the best. Apart from the obvious bridge problems there were various glue failures, loose braces including the X-Bracing which had to be dealt with. I obviously had to carry out the repair in various stages. To begin with the guitar has been photographed with the tension on the strings loosened..I probably should have photographed it with the strings under tension as you could have driven a bus under it at that point and that would have looked dramatic!…I’m always doing that….forgetting about the before photograph…or the after photograph…or even any photographs. The work comes first and to tell you the truth cataloguing things or blogging things isn’t to the forefront of my mind most of the time….anyway the pictures tell the story in the main. "Genius!… Jimmy has just restored our Martin D28 having had her in intensive care for a few weeks. Such an amazing, delicate and dedicated operation. She is now back in better health than ever. Sounds great. Can’t thank you enough, Jimmy."