I am not a luthier but with some wood glue, wood filler and a few gym weights, I was about to try and make a Martin 00016GTE playable again after what initially appeared to be a quite terminal amount of damage.
For a trained luthier to fix it properly would cost quite a bit of money and probably more than the guitar’s current pre-accident worth.
This being the case and the fact that some of the parts were already condemned to the dustbin, I though it was worth seeing what I could do as it seemed such a shame to see a Martin end it’s days in this way.
After laying out the pieces and find out what I had, I thought it best to start fixing the side sections together and as this dried I could fix the back and top sections.
For pressure when gluing, I used dumbell weights. Adding as much weight as I needed to get things fixed.
And somehow, with after 4 days of patient gluing and quite a bit of filler, it was alive!
And how does it sound?
Like the guitar you’ve been listening to throughout this video, pretty good!
Definitely a testament to Martin’s ability to make great guitars as opposed to my luthier skills though!
To hear how it sounds, I made a video of the process below.