National on The Repair Shop

EricTheWeary · October 2021

Says it is a new episode.

So, if anyone would like to reply saying they never show you enough detail and it’s not how you’d do it off you go.

Meanwhile that woman and Diana Doll, oh my God that was a tearjerker.

Mellish · October 2021

I watched that. The joy on the owner's face when his late father's guitar had been sorted

EricTheWeary · October 2021

I'm not sure if it was National branded or just of that type.
I thought it was quite interesting.

Mellish · October 2021

I think they said it was a National but I could be wrong. But did you hear it being strummed after a setup? It sounded really nice. I was jealous!

EricTheWeary · October 2021

Mellish said:

I think they said it was a National but I could be wrong. But did you hear it being strummed after a setup? It sounded really nice. I was jealous!

It had that twangy thing of a National which it should, although by that point I think we may have been expecting a choir of angels!

Mellish · October 2021

WezV · October 2021

i'm not sure why he couldn't find anyone to fix it... seems a straightforward job for a guitar in relatively good condition for its age

EricTheWeary said:

So, if anyone would like to reply saying they never show you enough detail and it’s not how you’d do it off you go.

I would have gone for a full re-fret and re-radius of the board .... and repaired the slots and divots before putting new frets in. probably would have looked at the neck angle a bit too. Its doubtful the neck angle is optimal for modern playability and its relatively easy to correct on these.

Obviously if its just a slide guitar then a lot of that can be skipped, which is the choice i made on my 1930's regal resonator

EricTheWeary · October 2021

WezV said:

i'm not sure why he couldn't find anyone to fix it... seems a straightforward job for a guitar in relatively good condition for its age

EricTheWeary said:

So, if anyone would like to reply saying they never show you enough detail and it’s not how you’d do it off you go.

I would have gone for a full re-fret and re-radius of the board .... and repaired the slots and divots before putting new frets in. probably would have looked at the neck angle a bit too. Its doubtful the neck angle is optimal for modern playability and its relatively easy to correct on these.

Obviously if its just a slide guitar then a lot of that can be skipped, which is the choice i made on my 1930's regal resonator

I noticed some big divots in the fretboard that were left although maybe they wouldn't affect playability very much.

And, yes, I'm fairly sure he could have found someone to repair it. My sister has a 1930s dolly's tea set (bear with) that belonged to my mother and we have talked about applying to the repair shop for that. The financial value of it isn't worth enough to pay someone to restore it but it would be nice and we can attach a sob story to it and get our faces on the telly.

But just nice to see something relatively out of the ordinary.

77ric · October 2021

I think some people need to remember that it wasn’t a restoration job, the intention isn’t to restore it to the same condition it left the factory in, but to make it playable, without hiding or losing the nearly 90 years of history it had.

I thought the luthier done a very nice and historically sensitive job of getting it in to good playable condition, with no loss of the personal history of the instrument.

Finding a luthier to fix it may well have been an easy task, but finding a luthier to do a careful and sensitive job, may have been a bit more difficult, and finding one who could do it on the telly even harder.

TrevinDevon · October 2021

The pros weren't impressed! https://michaelmesser.proboards.com/thread/12802/repair-shop-bbc-00pm-tonight?page=2

EricTheWeary · October 2021

TrevinDevon said:

The pros weren't impressed! https://michaelmesser.proboards.com/thread/12802/repair-shop-bbc-00pm-tonight?page=2

Like me one of them liked the doll story ( I was in shreds). I just don't know enough to comment in terms of what they are saying about the repair but interesting.

WezV · October 2021

77ric said:

I think some people need to remember that it wasn’t a restoration job, the intention isn’t to restore it to the same condition it left the factory in, but to make it playable, without hiding or losing the nearly 90 years of history it had.

I do know that

I have suggested:
Full refret
Re radius of board
repair of fretboard divots
potential neck reset

All these are about achieving modern standards of playability on an old guitar

The luthier on the program said the board had shrunk and the frets had popped up because of it. in other words, the board has flattened out. The quick fix is to work with the shrunken flat radius, you need to push the existing frets flat and replace any worn ones. I assume this is what was done. The best repair for playability is to re-radius the board and re-fret, even though you may lose lose originality and some playing wear.

A neck reset would not be restoration at all on this.. it likely never had a good neck angle for playability. but it would allow the use of a higher bridge whilst still keeping a relatively low action. This would massively increase the performance of the guitar, both playability and tone.

77ric said:

I thought the luthier done a very nice and historically sensitive job of getting it in to good playable condition, with no loss of the personal history of the instrument.

Finding a luthier to fix it may well have been an easy task, but finding a luthier to do a careful and sensitive job, may have been a bit more difficult, and finding one who could do it on the telly even harder.

i did not like seeing chips either side of the new frets. They do happen when pulling frets on old boards, but they can be resolved with no loss of history. To me it showed a lack of care and sensitivity on a very valuable vintage guitar

jellyroll · October 2021

Didn't see this episode .....but I do laugh every time they introduce a "customer" with a hugely sentimental and important item that has somehow spent the last thirty years in a damp garage.

boogieman · November 2021

jellyroll said:

Didn't see this episode .....but I do laugh every time they introduce a "customer" with a hugely sentimental and important item that has somehow spent the last thirty years in a damp garage.

Always winds me up too. There was an episode where two sisters brought in a glass lampshade that had the usual emotional family history and “meant so much”. It was in a real state, which turned out to be because it had been left in the garden for donkeys years.

I suspect a lot of these family story things are just made up because it makes good tv. Plus you get your mug on the telly and your stuff repaired for free.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

National on The Repair Shop

Comments