Abandoned Antique Guitar Restoration

someone left this old guitar neglected on the street ready for the landfill but we had other ideas for the instrument coming up we bring this culturally Rich guitar back to life [Music] to begin we clean off the years of built up dirt making sure we also pay special attention to the dust between the cracks in the wood we identify the cracks which are too wide to be glued back together then we take some Spruce Wood with a saw we'll cut a thin piece of Timber to use as filler by passing it through a scraper we

make it the perfect size to fill the cracks now we apply hide glue to the surface and inside the crack to prepare for the filler to be placed in position foreign once it's slotted in we need to scrape away any excess material to keep the guitar smooth a small blade will help us slice off those finer parts foreign to ensure the filler sinks into position we'll cover it with a layer of plastic and firmly grip the area with clamps all right foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign glue is used to seal the smaller cracks

[Laughter] foreign to the frets it's important to level them off so the guitar will be in tune once it's undergone restoration to do this we use a metal bar and scrape them down to ensure they're all the same height foreign then we take a smaller bar and focus on them individually to make sure each is vertically level tape protects the fingerboard from any unwanted marks during this process uh foreign foreign buffing wheels are covered with special compounds that give smoothness and polish to metal surfaces foreign foreign foreign okay we now apply French polish to the

guitar this reactivates the old polish that was flaking off we applied a few layers so the old integrates nicely with the new now let's take a look at the machine heads at the top of the neck first we unscrew them to assess the damage clearly foreign there are some cracks so we dab hide glue onto the surface to seal them then we use clamps to reinforce the effects of the glue foreign we'll use this opportunity to add another coating of Polish across the guitar by adding multiple layers with a soft cloth like this we're slowly

integrating them all together and enhancing the shine [Laughter] foreign over at the bridge you can see one of the pins has been lost to the passage of time so we'll replace it with a mother of pearl one of our own the holes on the headstock aren't entirely level so we'll have to re-drill one of them to ensure it slots in comfortably this is crucial or the guitar will be out of tune using nut files will now cut the top nut to the correct height okay let's put some strings on because I'm sure you all want

to hear this instrument played by a professional we'll use nylon strings to replace the phosphor bronze strings the guitar originally had foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] there you have it we can hear its beautiful song once more thank you for watching [Music]