Baley Guitar Repair

Baley Guitar Repair Guitar, Bass, Ukulele and other stringed instruments, repair, maintenance and setup. I can help you

Here’s an odd one. Elevated pick guard screwed though the top into the braces, a hybrid dovetail-bolt on neck held in pl...
01/30/2026

Here’s an odd one. Elevated pick guard screwed though the top into the braces, a hybrid dovetail-bolt on neck held in place with a bolt designed to be used with a clock winding key, and a bridge that is adjustable and huge. When it first showed up I thought maybe European possibly East Germany but some things didn’t fit that like the Grover tuners. It wasn’t until I got way inside looking at top damage that I noticed the signature on the top wood. “Mike Trbovich 1968 Chicago”. Mr Trbovich was a master luthier in Chicago from the early 60’s to the 80’s. He made hundreds of bowed instruments, violins, violas, cellos and there is evidence on line that he also made guitars. He learned luthiery in Eastern Europe then moved to Chicago where he built this and many other instruments. This matches the Eastern European influence and the American components. You just never know what will come through the door but they are often fascinating.

The origins of the Kay Musical Instrument Co go back to 1890, beginning as The Andrew Groehsl Co. then Stromberg-Voisine...
12/27/2024

The origins of the Kay Musical Instrument Co go back to 1890, beginning as The Andrew Groehsl Co. then Stromberg-Voisinet in 1921, and finally Kay in 1931. By the 1950s and 60’s they were mostly making guitars for store and catalog sales by other retailers, and they made a huge variety of guitars and other instruments. One model, fabricated only in 1955-56, is this ladder braced OM size K12 made with solid mahogany and solid spruce. Along with the nicely aged materials, one of the attractions of this labor of love was the unusually long 25 5/8” scale length.
When I say labor, I found it withering with a broken bridge, unplayable action and worn original frets. As work progressed, additioanal issues were uncovered and dealt with. A previous, very badly done, neck reset left the neck too short, leaving the intonation ridiculously bad.
I used walnut to add spacers and a new cap to the neck heel to correct the length issue, To tie this additional wood into the design, I continued walnut with a new bridge, as well as adding a cover to the headstock face. Additional work included a neck reset, new frets, repaired bridge plate, new tuning machines, bridge pins and end pin, a bone nut and bone saddle. I finished it with a couple light coats of shellac to brighten it up a bit.
It now sounds great, plays easy and is ready to make music once again. Here are a few before and after pics.
Dave

Here’s a fun project from earlier this year. It started as a basic Squier Strat: White pickguard, chrome hardware, stand...
11/20/2024

Here’s a fun project from earlier this year. It started as a basic Squier Strat: White pickguard, chrome hardware, standard electronics. By the end, the only original parts were the body and neck. Changed were; stainless jumbo frets, custom loaded pickguard, locking tuners, new heavy bridge, misc hardware, all in black, and a custom label. It’s one of a kind, in a good way.

Fourteenth (and final) post in a series on .The original nut was gone so I made a new one. The saddle, also not origina...
02/05/2024

Fourteenth (and final) post in a series on .
The original nut was gone so I made a new one. The saddle, also not original, was the wrong size so I made a new one of those as well.

I replaced the cheap plastic bridge pins and end pin with new bone ones.
I strung it with Aquila Nylgut strings, as I like the way they sound on these older guitars.
After a couple days of letting the strings stretch in and stabilize, I finally got a chance to hear it. The bass is surprisingly loud considering the size. The mids and trebles are clear, complex and not boxy sounding. The sustain is notable. I am sharing a little of this sound in a video in a comment on this post. All in all a successful refurbishment of an antique worthy of the effort.

I really enjoy taking these instruments of a different time from wall decoration back to music maker. I hope you enjoyed following along on this one.
Dave

Thirteenth post in a series on .One obvious cosmetic issue was a wide stripe of very light colored spruce on the sound ...
01/27/2024

Thirteenth post in a series on .

One obvious cosmetic issue was a wide stripe of very light colored spruce on the sound board between the bridge and the tail. The spruce splint was likely inset into the soundboard previously to repair a large crack that was too wide to be glued. By carefully removing the shellac finish over the top of it then aging it chemically, it was possible to get it much closer in color to the rest of the soundboard.

There were also a few places of dark colored scratches and spots on the soundboard. I lightened these using oxalic acid. I usually try to get the marks reduced but not eliminated, or worse, make them too light. My goal is to keep the look of an antique guitar without leaving them so obvious they detract from the visual appeal.

I touched up the shellac on the places where I did this work then did a couple of very thin coats of French polish on the sound board and one thin coat on the back and sides just to even everything out.

Twelfth post in a series on .Back to the body now and some cosmetic/structural repairs needing attention.This guitar is...
01/22/2024

Twelfth post in a series on .

Back to the body now and some cosmetic/structural repairs needing attention.

This guitar is constructed in a somewhat unusual fashion. I have seen this before on J. Howard Foote guitars but nowhere else. There is no top binding, but instead the soundboard is set down into the body such that the surface of the sound board is even with the top of the side pieces. The edge of the soundboard is not exposed and the sides appear continuous until they meet the soundboard border. It is quite a nice effect.

In one region where the sides overlap the soundboard, along the tail and part of the bass side lower bout, the edge of the sides was broken away some time in the past. It was repaired previously by filling in the missing side area with some sort of wood dough overcoated with a thick, gooey colored paste. Some of the color has rubbed off and some of the wood dough is crumbling.

My repair consists of removing all the old crumble and goo and replacing it with small pieces of Brazillian rosewood that matches the color as closely as possible with the antique side wood. Each piece (2 small and one fairly long one) gets hand cut and sanded to fit, then glued in place and smoothed, shaped and flattened with a plane, sandpaper and knife.

While I was at it, I also filled in three holes where someone had screwed a tailpiece to the end graft area. This also involved matching the pattern in the marquetry. Some touch up to match the French polish finish completes this portion of the refurbishment.

Eleventh in a series on .The other issue with tuning machines was the really ugly, glue covered, mis-shapen white plast...
01/19/2024

Eleventh in a series on .

The other issue with tuning machines was the really ugly, glue covered, mis-shapen white plastic button on the first string tuner. It had been replaced by gluing two halves of button around the shaft because that was easier than working the end of the shaft to be able to slide a one piece button on.

A little pressure from a pair of end cutters on the seam of the button and it fell apart in two pieces. This left the small brass keeper washer held on by the peened over end of the square steel shaft which was now accessible to hammer flat and straight to facilitate removing the washer and prepping for the new button.

I had a large piece of old cow bone and cut a piece off of it that was big enough to shape into a matching button. The process of shaping with files, drilling a hole and then making the hole square to match the shaft shape went smoothly. I did it all with hand tools to reduce the spread of bone dust in the shop. The bone was very white compared to the existing buttons so I aged it some by soaking it for hours in a very strong coffee solution.

Once the button was polished and fit to the shaft, the small brass washer was reinstalled and the end of the shaft peened as before to hold it tight.

With the tuning machine finally ready to reinstall on the headstock, one last bit of woodwork was needed to fill some extra holes and repair a couple stripped holes. The extra ones appear to be created when someone mounted the machines upside down. Possibly to tune when playing lap slide guitar which was popular with the rise of Hawaiian music in the 1920’s.

It was a good bit of work, but rewarding to be able to continue to use these antique but very functional and lovely original tuning machines.

Tenth post in a series on .As mentioned in post 9, I have a couple issues with the treble side tuning machines that nee...
01/15/2024

Tenth post in a series on .

As mentioned in post 9, I have a couple issues with the treble side tuning machines that need to be addressed. I am going to start with the replacement of the missing gear and roller shaft. After several weeks of searching various sites, emailing, texting and calling various repair people including someone who makes custom tuners, I was unable to find a correct replacement. It seemed a shame to replace all the original tuning machines because one was bad so I decided to fabricate a new gear and shaft. The steps were as follows. Hopefully the steps in words and photos combined tell the story.

1) Start with a solid brass hex head bolt 5/16 X 1 1/4”. 2) Use a lathe and turn the round shapes of the gear and the shaft. 3) Create a “stop wheel” with 15 stops, one for each tooth, evenly spaced around a 12” diameter wooden disk. Mount the disk on the lathe behind the chuck. Create a pin holder that matches the holes on the stop wheel and holds the disk steady at each of the 15 stops. 4) Create a fixture on the lathe tool rest that holds and guides a razor saw to cut shallow slots on the gear where the teeth will be (at each stop on the stop wheel). Each of these needs to be at an angle to match the pitch of the worm gear. 5) Free-hand file, with a jeweler’s file, to deepen and shape the teeth at each shallow starting slot. 6) File to shape the top and sides of the gear and the final size of the shaft. 7) Drill the shallow hole to receive the ornamental screw head. 8) Sand smooth and polish. 9) Age the shiny brass to match the existing old brass color using ammonia fumes.

The roller is made of brass tubing that slips over the shaft once the shaft is through the backing plate. The brass pieces, once cut, are also aged to match the originals. The roller is then attached to the shaft by drilling a small hole and inserting a brass pin through the roller and shaft and then peening the pin ends and filing them flat. The hole for the string is drilled through the roller and shaft at the same time.

The ornamental screws are brass screw heads cut off, aged and then epoxied into the holes (the 2nd string tuner also needed one).

Ninth post in a series on Although there is still work to be done on the outside of the body, I want to set it aside fo...
01/12/2024

Ninth post in a series on
Although there is still work to be done on the outside of the body, I want to set it aside for a while and focus on the tuning machines.
These tuning machines were made in the mid 1800s. Possibly by the Seidel Company, or one of the other high quality houses of the day. Tuning machines made in the 1800s have a fundamental difference from modern tuning machines even though the basic design and function remains largely unchanged. Looking at a tuning machine from the 1800s, you can see that the teeth on the worm gear slant up in a right hand spiral. In other words, they look like the threads on a standard right hand thread bolt. The teeth on the pinion gear are slanted to match this spiral on the worm gear. The teeth on a worm gear made later and up to today, slant in a left hand spiral. That is they are opposite and look like the threads on a left hand threaded bolt. The pinion gear teeth slant to match this and so, are slanted opposite of the pinion gears from the 1800s. This means you can’t use a modern pinion gear and shaft to replace an 1800 pinion gear and shaft and have it work. This is what was done on the treble side machine (3rd string) tuner. It shows up in the photos as a silver looking odd pinion and shaft. There is some damage to the worm gear due to the mis-match. So I need an 1800s replacement pinion gear with the same number of teeth and a shaft of the correct size.
Another less drastic issue on this treble side machine is the ugly replaced button on the first string tuner. It is some sort of degraded plastic that is deformed and discolored by gobs of excess glue on the exterior. That needs to be replaced with a custom bone button to match the other 5. Another difference between these tuners and modern tuners is how the buttons are attached. On a modern tuner replacing a button involves taking a screw out, switching out the buttons, and putting the screw back in. On these tuners the buttons are held on by peening over the end of the steel shaft of the worm gear. Essentially, changing the buttons involves miniature blacksmith work. The next several posts will be about these two issues.
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Eighth post in a series on .Preparation for gluing the back on includes putting some temporary form pieces inside that ...
01/10/2024

Eighth post in a series on .
Preparation for gluing the back on includes putting some temporary form pieces inside that press the guitar sides out against the cardboard form and can be used to get the sides shaped very closely to the shape of the back. It’s important to check to make sure these forms will come out through the sound hole later.
It takes many clamps and some pushing and pulling to get the edges lined up and held down before the glue sets. Although I sometimes use spool clamps for this step, I chose to use kam style bar clamps this time because they can reach around the outside form and be installed much faster.
Since there is no binding on this guitar, the process is a one-step alignment with no need to install a binding after, and also not much room for error in alignment.
Once the glue dries, the inside form pieces come out, then the outside form is removed. After that a little finish touch up and the guitar looks whole again.

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Arroyo Grande, CA

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