replacing back?
Darryl Hattenhauer said:
The previous owner has already had a lot of cracks fixed, and the back is refinished. But the back is opening up two long cracks near the center seam. I suspect that the back is just going to continue to disintegrate. Some pieces might even fall off, and for all I know the weakness of the back might cause other problems with the guitar. I suspect that fixing it again will just continue a cycle of fixing it every year or so with the back eventually becoming unfixable.
Darryl,
As a repairman and a historian I might have a different view on this.
Yes, a back can be replaced. Yes, it will be expensive but there might be a repairman in your area who likes a challenge.
Haven't seen the back but assuming that the rest of the guitar is OK, I would consider the following:
Wood doesn't really desintegrate as long as it's not rotting away, so the wood in the guitar might be usable.
If you take off the back (this involves removing the back binding as well) and remove all the back braces, then you will have a piece of wood that can be restored. Take care of the cracks by opening them up and planing the sides. Depending on how much material you've lost by doing that you can add a new piece in the spot where the crack was. You can also add a new piece in the centerseam as a part of that new piece will be covered by the decorative wood marquetry strip. If you're carefull (and I assume you will be) then you will end up with a restored back that will be mostly original wood. Depending on how easy it was to remove the back braces, you might be able to re-use those as well.
Of course you will need to refinish the back but all in all this might be a do-able project. It really depends on how wild the grain of the rosewood is.
If it's too wild it might be a little too much of a challenge. Actually if it is then it probably was the main reason for the guitar getting all those cracks.
Sincerely,
Hans Moust