Here at Harry & Jeanie West F M I we see our fair share of Interesting Repair work come in the door and we thought this one was worth posting.

I have seen this problem on more then several occasions with Different Circumstances.

A customer Come in the Door with an HD-28 That he has owned for a long time. One day another one of his friends come to his house and brought his best Buddie with him ( Jack ) as in Jack Russel Terrier.

He let them in the door and had been playing his Guitar and Proceeded to put his Guitar away and MR. Jack didn't like his Guitar much at all. He Ran at the guitar full Steam Ahead and Hit the side with his front tooth and knocked a chip in it and spider webed the wood all around the chip as shown below.

I guess it is safe to say Jeff and his friend had Hot Dogs for dinner that evening.

He said he wanted to repair this and it look as good as possible with minimal surgery to the guitar because it was a great sounding Martin.

I told him we could patch it up but it will never look as good as it did New unless you replace the side.

He was not to happy to hear this and knew this would be very costly.

I had asked him if he ever thought about installing a pickup in this guitar and the answer was yes.

I told him this damage was in pretty much the perfect spot to were we could put "ONBORAD" electronics in the guitar and it would look like it come this way from the factory and he liked the sound of that.

I also pointed out to him that if he was real happy with the sound of this guitar and I was in his shoes I would have a system put in it that would blend two elements together and I would stay away from the under the saddle element.

The reason for this is because of all the pickups I have installed There was only ONE that I put an under the saddle element in that it did not alter the sound of the guitar acoustically (Always for the worst) but this did vary in severity from guitar to guitar. Some it didn't affect that bad and some the whole bottom end fell out.

If you are playing plugged in all the time this would not be a problem and some people prefer the sound of the (Under saddle Element) AKA Piezo when it comes to plugging in.

Being an L. R. Baggs dealer I gave him the option to match a Bridge plate transducer (IBeam) with what I think is the best sound hole pickup ever made(The M-1)

He said I have no idea what you are talking about but I will trust you to do this guitar as if it was your own instrument.

So the next week when the ONBOARD I-MIX with IBeam and M-1 Combined came in I got to work and this is a breakdown of how I did it.

The first thing I did was grab my Trusty Jig (Pictured above) I made for the electronics I was installing and Found the best spot for this. I seen that I was not going to be able to cover the whole Crack and put it where it needed to be.

I also knew that I would be able to repair this with the 1/4" of the Crack that is not covered by the ONBOARD Electronics and you would not even notice it.

To Get this to look right and not uneven I measured off the top because the Back of the guitar gets thiner as it goes to the neck Block and that is important to keep in mind.

Even measuring off the top I had to offset it 1/8" to get it even
Which I have to do with most if not all Martin Guitars.

When I found The sweet spot I Took a Small Drill Bit and put it in the screw hole of the jig and just gave it a twist, Just enough to mark my Screw hole location.

I was sure of the fact that when I did drill the holes that I used a smaller drill bit then what I would need to put the screws for the OnBoard, But also you want the holes to be just right after the Electronics hole is cut. Not small enough to crack that side because the screw is to big, Which would be easy to do. And Not big enough to where the screw holes strip when you install them. You want everything to be as tight as possible.

Another thing that I DON'T do is drill all four Holes Before I place the electronics in the Hole I made for it. I only Drilled two of them, One across from the other.

All I needed is enough to hold the Template to the guitar side while I Get the Dremel with a ZIP IT Bit and Cut the hole.

The Template keeps me from having to do it FREE HAND, This way I am sure I will not go outside the Preferred location Spot. Whenever you are working on any instrument there is no room for Mistakes! And the Jig Makes sure that there are no mistakes.







In case you are wondering why there are no serial numbers on the neck block, This is because we are Hippa Compliant with all our Patients!

Here is the rough Cut hole that is just a hair smaller then what I want it to be.

Remember, We can always take some off, But you can not put back what has already been cut. This is VERY IMPORTANT to keep in mind anytime you are working on an Instrument. Now I get the real fine files and sand paper out and clean it up and keep checking the Electronics In the hole till I like what I see. I also take great care not to make the crack any worse by filing on it so I use sand paper on the side that has the crack on it.

After working it for a while and getting this to fit the hole to my likings I temporarily install the electronics with just two screws then I make the other two holes so the holes line up perfect. If you would have drilled all four holes you would be taking a chance on all of them NOT lining up just right.

Now it is time to take care of two problems with one piece of Rosewood.







Now that we have a good size hole in the side of the guitar and Structural integrity is not like it use to be and you have to reinforce the side with a brace.

The best way to make a brace that fits perfect is to get a Mirror and place it against the side so you can look in the hole and see the side you are working on.

Take some thin cardboard and cut it into the normal size of a rectangular Rosewood brace that are already in the guitar shown in this photo (Below)at the top of the hole made. keep making small cuts to get it to fit between the kerfing nice and snug. You want to be able to place it in position without it falling out. Once you can do this it is just the right size. Since I made it wider then the others I over lap it and cut out the extra to form the shape of the electronics hole made as shown in the picture above.

I wanted to make sure that all 4 screw holes are going into the brace on each side, Plus I had some of the crack that is left I wanted to cover with the brace.

Now that I have a perfect template of the brace that needs to be fabricated I got me a thin Piece of Rosewood to work with and put the template on it and cut out the brace on the ban saw after marking it. It is VERY IMPORTANT to make sure the grain goes in the opposite direction then what the side does. This makes it much stronger then having the grain going the same direction.







Of course after cutting the brace on the Ban saw it was not perfect so I had to do some light work with some fine sand paper and keep a check on my work till it fits in place without glue and stays like in the photo above. I also had to take a half round file and contour the back of the brace to fit the curve of the side.

Now that I checked it with a Dry Run (No Glue)and I like what I see I can glue this up. The first thing I did was massaged Glue into what was left of the Crack by apllying light pressure while rubbing glue across the surface of the crack. When I know I have plenty of glue in the crack then I put a light coat of Glue on the brace.

I used clothes pins and high powered magnates to clamp the brace till the glue sets. I also used a Guitar Spool Clamp to put light pressure on the sides to make sure the Glue in the crack Sets and Bonds.

Well it is all down hill from here. I made sure my Screw holes are the right size for the screws to be installed then I installed the Electronics.

As soon as I mention the word Sound hole pickup 95% of my Customers say "I Don't Want It" Because they do not like anything being in the sound hole or they do not like the looks of it.

I Myself think that the M-1 is a very attractive Sound hole pickup (As Shown in the Picture Above) and is a force to be reckoned with on the Pick Up Market.

I have never been real crazy about sound hole pickups until the M-1 came out. The out dated Magnetic Sound hole pickup normally came with two coils just like the double Coil hum bucker. One sits atop the other one and the one on the bottom is normally for feed back control.

L. R. Baggs has found a way to open up the lower coil which NOW works off the Vibration of the top so now you have a Sound hole pickup that not only works by Vibration, But also pulls from the magnetic post, And they also found a way to control the feed back.

By pairing the M-1 with the Ibeam (In Stereo by the way) you get a very natural and Mellow tone that I have never heard from any other system that blends two elements together. It is simply AWESOME.

I know the percentage of people who are turned off by the looks of a Sound hole Pickup would drop dramatically if they ever heard this setup.

To Name one Big Name in the Business, Ricky Scaggs was won over by the sound and will never let looks discourage him from having a great set of electronics installed in one of his guitars again.

The Ibeam is a Transducer that needs to be placed in what we call the sweet spot on the Bridge plate in order to get well balanced tone out of it. The M-1 also needs to be fine tuned to get the full potential out of it.

In order to set this type of system up you have to use the blend option on the controls to turn off the M-1 then you can find the sweet spot on the bridge plate for the IBeam. After this is done you blend out the IBeam then fine tune the M-1. Once this is done and you blend them to your ears likings the results are phenomenal.







Well Here it is. Rags to riches. Even though the OnBoard system did not cover the crack totally I have still yet to find it. Do you See It?

If you or anyone you know of has this problem or a problem similar to it or just needs electronics to be installed properly our services are available and we are fair with our prices. I got more satisfaction out of seeing Jeff smile when he saw and heard his guitar and was very pleased with the work then I did when he paid me for doing it. Anyone That needs work done can get in touch with us by going to the Contact us part of this site.