I will first tell you a little about myself. I studied restoration and making in New Orleans in my early twenties with German Luthier Manfred Trautman. We worked on all stringed instruments. I have been on my own for a little over thirty years now working on and making guitars, basses, cellos, violas, violins, banjos, harps, ukes and other stringed instruments. The great Master Antonio Stradivari also made and restored all types of stringed instruments including guitars. In this article we will discuss restoration.

My teacher always told me to classify myself as a restorer not a repairman. Restoration is an art in itself; in some ways I think it is harder than making. When restoring a musical instrument of historical value or any instrument, you have to bring the instrument back structurally without destroying the integrity of the original maker and the sound of the instrument. With the rising value of vintage instruments, great care has to be taken to save as much of the original instrument as possible. Collectors are particular down to even the screws. Throughout the years many alterations and poor work has been done to some nice instruments.

I usually start by cleaning out all attempts of previous work leaving only what was originally created using very little new material, only what is necessary. The best glue to use is ground hide glue. It is very strong when used properly, it is acoustically good, and can easily be washed out later if necessary. It makes an invisible glue joint. As far as the finish goes, I never remove it. I will clean it and sometimes French polish and touch it up depending on the instrument. We recently had hurricane Katrina come through and devastate the city. Many nice instruments were destroyed. The only instruments I am taking in from the storm are the ones worth restoring. The instruments were soaked in water with a high concentration of salt and chemicals destroying the finishes loosening the glue joints and severely staining the wood with grey lines as if spalted. On electrics the pickups and hardware so far have worked and were salvageable but the pots and switches have to be replaced. Although not perfect, they come out as very good working instruments.

Restoration is very tedious and time consuming not to mention expensive. In my shop, when you come in, you have to forget about time. I truly have no sense of time. I have a small clock the size of a watch in a small cello which was a present from my daughter. Everyone wants to know how long the work will take. It is finished when it is finished. I have a very long waiting list, which is normal in any established shop. In this article I chose to show you a Lupont guitar I had the pleasure of restoring. This guitar is owned and played by a well known local and international artist Tony Green a gypsy jazz guitarist.

This particular guitar was documented in a book on this style of guitar. Tony had the guitar in a gig bag and laid it on the ground next to his car, He forgot the guitar on the ground and backed over the center of the body "pancaking" it. The guitar was smashed pretty good. He came into the shop as usual and told me he damaged the guitar and asked if I could fix it. This was supposed to be a joke of course since he really thought it was totaled. When he pulled the guitar out I laughed till I almost cried. It was a funny sight. Though I don't think he thought it was funny. I said I could restore it, come back in two weeks. Well he looked at me like "yeah right". Fortunately the gig bag managed to keep all the pieces contained. I worked on that guitar intensely for two weeks just to see if I could make it, normally I never do but this was one time I did; which is a miracle in my shop.

The guitar turned out really well with not that many scars and has been a great working guitar. When he went to France to a festival he showed it to the original maker and explained to him what happened. He was impressed and happy to see his guitar saved. As much as I like restoration, I like to build, and hope to be doing more in the coming years. I had the privilege of making Steve Masakowski a seven string archtop. It was very difficult and took a while to finish. Steve is also writing an article for this issue. He is an excellent player and very well known. The guitar gets a lot of exposure, and he makes it sound awesome. I have to say I have some of the best customers in the world and they usually become my good friends; some have been with me since I started. I had fun writing this article. Hope you enjoyed it.