Gene Autry Roundup - 1932 (Matt)

After talking to Steve about our methods of refurbishing old cowboy guitars, he decided to send one of his down from the States to be done. If you look in Steve's cowboy guitar book, you will see it in its unrestored form on pages 21.

The top and side were split pretty badly, the neck was twisted and the bridge was broken. After removing the back and the original braces, the cracks in the side were the next port of call. (Easy to access with the back removed).
                   
With the cracks taken care of, the new braces can be fitted. Removing the neck is also recommended, to renew the glue at the very least. You don't usually have to reset the neck when rebracing these guitars.

The internal anatomy taken care of, refit the back and rebind it. These early ones have real nitrocellulose binding, front and back.

                   
The original frett board was replaced on this one as the original was very brittle, not so good for compression fretting.
None of these old guitars have truss rods, so compression fretting and the neck itself is what keeps it straight. The original mother of pearl inlays were refitted into the new frett board, which was made from a local hardwood (brigalow), which looks rather nice on these old guitars.

A new bridge was made so that it could be properly intoned and set up with 11-52 gauge strings. The original machine heads were retained as they were fine, and as you can see, it turned out rather nicely.

                   

Click here (YouTube) to see Steve playing the guitar on Arkansas television.

Another clip of Stever playing this guitar. with his friends.