The rescue of an el degas
Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 12:58 pm
Hello from Ontario!
I'm sure the "purists" will have an issue with my story, but I like to think of it as saving an El Degas from certain death rather than butchering a nice musical instrument.
I was driving home from work the other day, which happened to be garbage pickup day, and what do I see on the side of the road, atop somebody's trash waiting to be picked up? An acoustic guitar of course. Without hesitation I slam on the brakes and jump out. To my horror the head had been snapped clean off the end of the neck of the guitar.
I was about to set the guitar back down when I remembered I had an old Epiphone head from a friend's broken acoustic he was throwing on the bonfire many years previous. So why not, I take the broken guitar home. With a bit of chiseling, wood glue and epoxy I was able to revive this old El Degas classical guitar! See the pictures, unfortunately I didn't take any before I began the project but you get the idea. The head certainly does look out of place, but it works which is all that matters!
The model # has faded beyond recognition, if I had to guess it would be GL43 but I'm really not sure, anybody else know? Made in Korea. Anybody have an approximate year?
Okay so I know it's not too pretty right now, but I didn't want to waste time sanding, etc if the head was just going to snap off as soon as tension was applied to the strings. If it holds for another week or two I'll put more effort into the cosmetic side of the guitar. I sanded and tung-oiled the first and 18th frets just to see the how the grain looked, and will certainly do the rest of the fretboard next string change. It looks and feels great, much better than the black paint.
The guitar has a very nice sound, especially with all things considered..!
So that's it so far, I'll update once I've done some more work. Cheers!
-Ian
I'm sure the "purists" will have an issue with my story, but I like to think of it as saving an El Degas from certain death rather than butchering a nice musical instrument.
I was driving home from work the other day, which happened to be garbage pickup day, and what do I see on the side of the road, atop somebody's trash waiting to be picked up? An acoustic guitar of course. Without hesitation I slam on the brakes and jump out. To my horror the head had been snapped clean off the end of the neck of the guitar.
I was about to set the guitar back down when I remembered I had an old Epiphone head from a friend's broken acoustic he was throwing on the bonfire many years previous. So why not, I take the broken guitar home. With a bit of chiseling, wood glue and epoxy I was able to revive this old El Degas classical guitar! See the pictures, unfortunately I didn't take any before I began the project but you get the idea. The head certainly does look out of place, but it works which is all that matters! The model # has faded beyond recognition, if I had to guess it would be GL43 but I'm really not sure, anybody else know? Made in Korea. Anybody have an approximate year?
Okay so I know it's not too pretty right now, but I didn't want to waste time sanding, etc if the head was just going to snap off as soon as tension was applied to the strings. If it holds for another week or two I'll put more effort into the cosmetic side of the guitar. I sanded and tung-oiled the first and 18th frets just to see the how the grain looked, and will certainly do the rest of the fretboard next string change. It looks and feels great, much better than the black paint.
The guitar has a very nice sound, especially with all things considered..!
So that's it so far, I'll update once I've done some more work. Cheers!
-Ian
